How to Stop Overeating: Learn Ways to Help
Overeating means that you’re eating more food — and taking in more calories — than your body needs. You may find yourself eating when you aren’t hungry. You may be stuffing yourself at meals past the point of feeling satisfied or comfortably full. After overeating, you may notice other symptoms like heartburn or bloating.
Overeating by itself isn’t an eating disorder. It’s normal for this to happen at times. If it happens rarely, overeating shouldn’t have serious consequences for your health beyond some temporary discomfort.
But overeating more often, or regularly, can lead to weight gain. Being overweight or obese comes with other risks for your health. Overeating may affect your mental health, too. You may have feelings of guilt or frustration around food.
If any of this sounds like you, it may help to explore strategies to learn how to stop overeating or at least make it less likely to happen. If your overeating becomes chronic or compulsive, you may need help for an eating disorder.
Eat Slowly to Prevent Overeating
Slowing down is one way to combat the stress eating cycle that can lead you to overeat. Eating more slowly naturally makes it easier to eat less. That’s because it takes time for your brain to register the food you’ve put in your stomach. When you eat too much too fast, your brain may not catch up until it’s too late.
It’s easier to stop overeating when you take more time to chew. One study of people who were either normal weight, overweight, or had obesity found that people ate less pizza for lunch when they chewed more times before swallowing. Chewing more made it take longer to eat less, but it didn’t change how satisfied people in the study felt at the end of the meal.
“Studies show people eat less or regulate food better when they take more bites and chew their food better,” says Amanda Beaver, a registered dietitian nutritionist at Houston Methodist in Houston. “They tend to eat less. This ties into being in a relaxed state. Unplug, relax, sit down, and enjoy the meal or snack.”
Practice Mindful Eating
Mindful eating is another way to slow down and pay more attention to your food as you eat it. When you eat mindfully, you’ll have more awareness of your senses as you eat. What does your food smell like and taste like? How does it look? While the focus of mindful eating isn’t on eating less, by savoring each bite and your overall experience of eating, you’ll be less likely to overeat.
Mindful eating involves eating with:
• Attention
• Purpose
• Presence in the moment
• No judgment
As part of eating mindfully, Beaver recommends good “meal hygiene.” Step one is making sure that you’re sitting down to eat.
“Often people are tempted to grab food while cooking or cleaning,” Beaver says. “If you’re struggling with overeating, it’s hard to get full and hard for your brain to register you’ve eaten if you’re eating while standing up.”
Technology has made this more of a struggle, she notes. But even if you’re looking at your phone or watching TV, it helps to look down at the food you’re eating periodically, she says. “Notice how fast it’s disappearing,” Beaver says. “Studies show when we can’t see what we’re eating, we end up eating more of it. We need to see the food we’re eating.”
Even if you don’t eat much more at a meal when you’re distracted, studies show you may tend to eat more later. When your mind is able to form a stronger memory of you having eaten, you’re less likely to load your plate up more later.
Eat Consistently to Stop Overeating
Eating consistently or at regular intervals also helps you to avoid overeating. “When we skip a meal, our body often tries to catch up on calories at the next meal,” Beaver says. She recommends eating at regular mealtimes that are evenly spaced across your day. By eating consistently, you’ll be less likely to sit down for a meal feeling overly hungry.
“Getting overly hungry can set you up for an episode of overeating,” Beaver says. “What happens when we become overly hungry is we eat more than we normally would and faster than we normally do. To combat this, space meals appropriately, ideally 3 to 6 hours apart.”
You might think that snacking would be a no-no, but keeping the right snack handy will keep you from getting to meals overly hungry. If you find yourself feeling too hungry or out of control after work or at dinnertime, for instance, having a snack on your way home can help you avoid that vulnerable state that may encourage overeating.
Beaver recommends a “power snack,” including carbohydrates together with protein and fat. The carbohydrates will give you energy while the protein and fat will help you feel more satisfied. Try a banana with peanut butter or some popcorn with nuts. “Trying to get this combination power snack is usually more filling than a snack that’s just carbs alone,” she says.
Try Different Ways to Practice Portion Control
Overeating is more likely to happen when there’s more food in front of you. “When we have bigger plates and bigger portions on the plate, we do tend to eat more,” Beaver says. “We want to have this in mind.”
To avoid overeating, take steps to control your food portions. Try using measuring cups or spoons to portion your food. You also can use other everyday objects to gauge how much food is on your plate. For example, a serving of fruit is about the size of a tennis ball. A serving of carbohydrates or protein is roughly the size of a deck of cards.
When you’re sitting down for a meal, also notice the size of your plate. Is it extra-large in a way that could fool your brain or eyes into taking an overly large helping of food? Studies show that eating from a smaller plate can lead to eating less food.
Get in Touch With Your Feelings
To get in touch with how your body feels, use a hunger-satiety scale to rank how hungry or full you are and eat accordingly. A 1 on the scale means that you’re starving, while 10 means that you’re stuffed. It’s best to start eating when you’re hungry without being uncomfortable and to stop when you’re comfortably full and satisfied without pushing your stomach any further.
“The middle of the scale is where we want to be,” Beaver says. “We want to avoid extremes.”
Research shows that kids are often good at noticing hunger and fullness, but this ability tends to wane as you reach adulthood, Beaver says. By thinking through where you are on the hunger-satiety scale, it can help you to assess your need to eat more objectively. “Rather than just eating, we can ask ourselves when we’re 75% of the way through a meal, ‘Am I satisfied and content? Or would a few more bites get me there?’”
The goal, she says, is to track and notice when you get to the point of satisfaction so that you can pause then. It may take some practice to tune in and gauge your state of hunger and fullness.
Eat Satisfying Foods to Avoid Overeating
Steer away from foods that give you lots of calories without much volume to fill your stomach up. Foods or meals that are high in fiber, protein, and water can fill your belly up to leave you satisfied without going overboard on calories. Research suggests that three factors can affect how satisfying foods are, including how heavy they are and the amount of fiber or protein they contain.
A classic 1995 study evaluated how satisfied or full people felt after eating various foods. Foods that left people feeling the most satisfied included:
• Whole-grain bread
• Cheese
• Eggs
• Popcorn
• Grapes
• Baked beans
• Apples
• Beef
• Oranges
Foods with less fiber, protein, or water and more fat, sugar, or refined carbohydrates came with less satisfaction. These included:
• Potato chips
• Candy bars
• White bread
Can Drinking Water Help Prevent Overeating?
Beaver says it isn’t necessarily helpful to fill your stomach with water during a meal. As your stomach fills with water, it will signal to your brain that you’re full. But it might also cause your stomach to empty faster, so that you’ll get hungry again sooner.
It’s best to drink adequate amounts of water throughout the day to avoid dehydration. Keep in mind that “it can be hard to distinguish thirst and hunger,” Beaver says. If you think you may be feeling pangs of hunger, think about what you’ve eaten and how much you’ve had to drink that day. It’s best not to wait until you feel thirsty to sip some water. Curb cravings that may encourage overeating by getting in the habit of drinking sips of water regularly.
Learn About Emotional Overeating
There are lots of reasons you might overeat, and it happens to most of us sometimes. On special occasions, the food in front of you may be too tempting. As you celebrate, you may have the urge to clean your plate and go back for a second helping of pie. But many more negative emotions can encourage overeating, too. Emotional eating can be a way to soothe negative feelings, including:
• Anger
• Fear
• Sadness
• Loneliness
You may be triggered to overeat by events such as:
• Relationship trouble or conflicts
• Work
• Fatigue
• Financial concerns
• Health problems
You may eat for entertainment when you’re bored. Or turn to food for comfort. There are biological reasons why overeating is more likely when you’re feeling stressed. That’s because your body is making a stress hormone called cortisol.
Cortisol sends signals that tell your brain it’s time to eat. Stress responses in your body may come with cravings for certain foods, including those with lots of sugar, fat, or salt. When your overeating feels out of control, it can be a lot like an addiction. Some of the same reward pathways in your brain play a role.
To tackle emotional eating, try:
• Keeping a food diary that tracks your moods and eating
• Easing stress with yoga or deep breathing
• Reaching out to friends and family for support
• Distracting yourself when you’re bored
• Seeking professional help when you need it
Plan Ahead to Prevent Overeating
To eat foods that are more likely to keep you satisfied and help you stop overeating, it helps to plan. Make a shopping list based on your planned healthy and satisfying meals before you go to the store. Be sure to add good options for power snacks to your list. Understanding portion sizes also will help you plan meals at regular intervals to help make overeating less likely.
How to Stop Overeating at Night
To avoid overeating, it helps to get enough sleep. “When you’re sleep deprived, that may predispose you to overeating,” Beaver says. “Your body releases hormones that make you want something, usually sweet, to help wake us up.”
If you’re waking up at night to eat, you may have a condition called night eating syndrome. You could be getting a lot of the calories you need overnight. “It’s OK to do a light snack before bed,” Beaver says. “Ideally, it would contain some carbohydrates and protein, but we do want to avoid the situation where you’re waking up at night and eating.”
Especially if this is happening often, talk to your doctor to get to the root of your nighttime eating. It could be related to changes in your circadian rhythm. Your body may be releasing hormones that make you feel hungry at night. You may be able to sleep better and avoid getting up at night to snack by:
• Eating well during the day
• Going to bed at the same time each day and avoiding device screens before bed
• Taking care of your mental health
• Being active during the day
Is Your Overeating Really Binge Eating Disorder?
“If you feel like your eating might be out of control or difficult to regulate or when you finish eating you feel overly full or uncomfortable and you’re eating more than a normal amount of food, you may have binge eating disorder,” Beaver says. “But overeating and stress eating exist on a spectrum.”
The criteria for diagnosing binge eating disorder are:
• Eating more food than most people would in a limited amount of time
• Feeling a compulsion to eat
• Feeling out of control of your eating
• Binge eating at least once a week for several months
• Feeling distressed or self-loathing about your binge eating
Talk to Your Doctor
Beaver recommends seeing a doctor for a diagnosis if you find yourself overeating often or in a way that feels out of control. Your primary care doctor may be able to help you sort out whether your overeating may be related to another health condition and refer you to specialists as needed. If emotions drive your overeating, working with a psychiatrist and registered dietitian can help you treat and manage it. Beaver recommends looking for providers who specialize in disordered eating.
Takeaways
Overeating happens to many of us, and it usually isn’t a sign of an eating disorder unless it’s happening too often or feels out of your control. To prevent overeating, it helps to slow down and practice mindfulness while you eat. Pay attention to portion sizes, eat at regular times, and choose foods that will keep you feeling more satisfied.
