What To Do When You Overeat, According To An Intuitive Eating Coach
Thanksgiving is just days away here in Canada, but whether it’s a holiday or not, overeating is a concern that always seems to be on people’s minds.
I’m already seeing the “Thanksgiving prep” articles in my social media newsfeed, advising people to “choose this, not that” to prevent overeating, how to plan out their Thanksgiving feast to keep the calories as low as possible and how to “bounce back” after indulging.
But here’s the thing: overeating is NOT a crime.
Before I dive in further, I think it’s important that I define what I’m referring to when I say “overeating”.
What Is Considered As “Overeating”
I hear this from many of my Intuitive Way For Eating clients when I first start working with them: “I feel like I’m always overeating, or eating more than I should”. So, let me clarify and share the true definition of overeating.
Overeating – to eat more food than your body needs, making you feel uncomfortably full
Just to be clear, eating more than the suggested serving size on a bag of pasta, does not mean eating more food than your body needs, because what does that serving size on the bag of pasta know about your body’s unique needs? Is it actually realistic to believe that a serving size on a bag of pasta applies to all 8 billion people in the world? Of course not, because we all have unique needs basic on our genetic blueprint.
The only way to know if you overate
is if you feel physically uncomfortably full,
NOT just solely if you *think* you ate more than you should.
Remember, that “should” is likely coming from diet culture, which suggests that we can’t possibly trust our bodies to self regulate around food, therefore we need to rely on portion sizes (which, again – how can one set of criteria for portion sizes apply to all 8 billion people?). Case and point!
Why Overeating Isn’t As Bad As We’ve Made It Out To Be
Overeating, despite being uncomfortable, IS going to happen from time to time. We need to stop wronging the behaviour like it’s the worst possible thing we could do.
The reason why people tend to wrong overeating behaviour is because, as a result of living in a heavily diet culture-influenced society that indirectly suggests our worth is defined by our weight or how we look, there is a deep fear of being fat or gaining weight.
But, just because you misjudged your hunger, or you were extra excited by the pumpkin pie because you only have less than a handful of times per year, and happened to overeat, it doesn’t mean you’re going to immediately gain weight (and gaining weight, doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person, like diet culture wants you to believe).
Overeating is going to happen. Again, it’s not ideal, but it’s going to happen. I do this work as an Intuitive Eating & Body Image Coach day in and day out, and I still happen to overeat from time to time. Why? Simply, because I misjudged my hunger or I found myself to be super excited about a certain food and ate more than my belly could handle. That’s it.
If you are able to stop wronging overeating behaviour, you will save yourself from SO much of the negative downward spiralling that comes with overeating.
Instead of doing this after you’ve overate:
1. “Crap, I did it again”.
2. “Well, I’ve already ruined the day – I may as well just finish what I started. I’ll start fresh tomorrow”
3. Restrict food the next day
4. Feel deprived and eventually binge
5. Feel guilty
6. Repeat
You will do this:
1. “Ah, nuts. I overate. This is uncomfortable, but it happens and means nothing about myself and my worth”.
2. Maybe I will drink a peppermint tea, have some apple cider vinegar in water or go on a gentle walk to feel less physically uncomfortable
3. *moves on with life*
I imagine you would prefer to choose the latter, so I’m going to share, as an Intuitive Eating Coach, what I recommend you do if you happen to overeat.
Please keep in mind, the strategies I’m about to share are for when you happen to misjudge hunger or feel extra excited about a certain food and happen to eat more than your stomach could handle.
If you are struggling with overeating as a result of emotional eating or binge eating, you might be interested in my program, The Break Free Method, which is self-paced online program to help those who are struggling with emotional eating and feel out of control around food. Click here to learn more about The Break Free Method.
What To Do When You Overeat
1. Be compassionate with yourself
Compassion is one of the most underrated tools to manage food guilt, but it’s actually one of the most effective. When you overeat, your natural inclination might be to beat yourself up and be critical of yourself.
But if you can stop, remind yourself that you’re human, that overeating isn’t a crime, you can save yourself from a lot of negative collateral damage.
I recommend talking to yourself and treating yourself like you would for a child. So, if a child overate and said to you “I’m so full. My tummy hurts. I’m in so much pain”, think of what you would say to them and how you would treat them.
I imagine it might look something like this:
- “Oh no. I’m so sorry to hear that. That must be so uncomfortable”
- “Overeating can make you feel physically uncomfortable temporarily, but the good thing is, it doesn’t last forever”
- “Let’s find some ways to help you feel less physically uncomfortable for the time being”
(… which, brings me to my next point).
2. Do things that will make you feel less physically uncomfortable
The unnecessary guilt that can come with overeating is already bad enough – we don’t need to sit in the physical discomfort too, especially considering that it tends to perpetuate the guilt that sends us down the dieting, or restriction, spiral.
Here are some things you can do to feel less physically uncomfortable when you’ve overate:
- Drink a cup of peppermint tea (chilled or hot)
- Drink lemon in water
- Drink (or throw back, because it’s not pleasant) 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar diluted in water
- Wear comfortable, loose-fitting clothing
- Go for a gentle walk
- Stretch (I find gentle spinal twists to feel really soothing) combined with breathing
3. Take note (without judgment) how to prevent overeating again
While I say “prevent overeating”, I just want you to know that if you happen to overeat, remember, it is NOT a crime. But, of course, it’s not comfortable so it can be helpful to take note of what pushed you past your point of comfort.
Here are some common contributors to overeating that may help you to avoid it in the future:
a) Don’t let yourself get too hungry – Nobody is at their best when they’re “hangry”. Keep snacks on hand if need be, eat regular meals in line with your hunger cues and don’t arrive to meals (especially holiday meals or potlucks) too hungry, or I can guarantee, the only thing you and your body (that is primed for survival) will be thinking about is how to get as much food as possible into you.
If you find it helpful to think of your hunger on a scale of 1-10, feel free to use the visual below.
b) Pay attention to how filling certain foods are for you – This is when some nutrition knowledge can be helpful, because certain foods and macronutrients will make a food more filling. As a trained Certified Holistic Nutritionist, I know that fat, protein and fibre is generally more filling. So, when someone offers me a slice of a Cashew Cheesecake that is full of all of those things, I might opt for a smaller slice than say a regular fluffy piece of cake, knowing that the Cashew Cheesecake is going to be much more filling and therefore, I need less.
This will vary from person to person though, so I encourage you to pay attention to how certain foods make you feel and fill you up.
c) Pack it up and enjoy it tomorrow – This concept might be difficult for you if you hold the belief that you ruined the day if you ate a “bad” food (or, what I like to refer to as “play food”).
Maybe you’ve allowed yourself to enjoy pizza for dinner one night, but you want to “start fresh” tomorrow so you force yourself to eat as much pizza as possible, like it’s the Last Supper, which causes you to feel overly full, uncomfortable and filled with guilt.
So, I’m here to tell you, that you are way better off stopping when you’re full, packing up the food and enjoying it at another time and that doing so, is not ruining anything. You will be saving yourself from SO much physical discomfort, that might cause you to fall down the negative downward diet cycle.
Looking for more support?
These are great strategies to start off with, and I’d love to hear how they go for you! If you end up taking them for a whirl and notice any notable benefits, I would love to hear from you! Shoot me a DM at @rachelmmolenda.
Please note, while these strategies are highly effective, they require practice, patience and a lot of compassion. This is why I work with women for 4 months at a time, because there is so much unlearning to do around our beliefs about food, weight and our bodies and some of these strategies can be difficult to implement without that kind of support.
If you are struggling with food and find yourself feeling out of control around food often, despite knowing a lot about health and nutrition, my one-on-one coaching program, The Intuitive Way For Eating, might be a great fit for you! You can find all of the details over here.
And if you’re reading this prior to a specific holiday that involves feasting, happy celebrating!