How to stop overeating, once and for all

By: Dr.Susan Biali, M.D., B.Sc. (Dietetics)

What’s your relationship with food?  From the time I was around ten years old and my aunt invited me to try my first diet (eating only grapes – we lasted around six hours!), until just a few years ago, I was obsessed with food and the way I looked.  Even though most of that time I actually looked pretty great, I would never have believed you.

I’ve heard all kinds of women, of all kinds of shapes and sizes, complain about their looks, their weight, and their love-hate relationship with food.  It doesn’t seem to matter how “perfect” someone looks on the outside - the way we feel about our bodies and ourselves often has nothing to do with reality, e.g. the wonderful real you that so many others see and appreciate.

Many of us yo-yo between bouts of healthy eating and out-of-control eating.  We’ll try some new weight loss fad, or promise ourselves that we’re going to stick to a new food regime, but our enthusiasm disappears after a few days and we find ourselves right back in old habits.

We fail because we don’t understand what’s really going on inside of us.  We don’t understand our relationship to food, our ideas about weight loss, and why we can’t succeed with this goal.  Most diet programs don’t properly address our behaviors and beliefs around food, and they also aren’t designed to be sustained for life.

From the age of ten through twenty, I dieted obsessively.  At its worst, I counted calories all day and panicked if I couldn’t find a restaurant option that was “low fat”.  I hit bottom the day I bought a sandwich at the deli at work.  They didn’t have my usual whole wheat, and had to use multi-grain bread with sunflower seeds.  I was so worried about the extra fat in the seeds, that I hid myself in a bathroom stall, and picked them out, one by one.

Shortly after, my boyfriend told me that he’d break up with me if I didn’t get some help.  He gave me the card of the dietitian that his sister, who suffered from anorexia, had been seeing.  I went to see the dietician, and he broke up with me anyway! But I’m convinced that he was sent into my life, just to give me that card.

The dietitian informed me that given the amount I was exercising (long daily workouts)and the minimal calories I was eating, I was sure to be suppressing my metabolism – actually making it more likely that I would gain weight, not lose it.  She made me a bet that I’ll never forget:

“I want you to leave my office today, and eat whatever you want, whenever you want, but follow one rule.  If you follow this, I bet you that you will not gain a pound and you will equalize out to your perfect weight.  This is the rule: only eat when you’re truly hungry, and stop when you’re full”.

I only saw her one more time – to tell her that she’d been right.  Today, I weigh slightly less than I did back then, seventeen years ago.   Every now and then I “forget” - or more accurately, ignore - her rule (for example, on vacation at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico), and my weight starts to creep up.  Whenever I notice that, I start following the rule again, and go for a bit longer walks.  That’s it, works like a charm.

These days, I don’t worry much about weight anymore, but I do know that eating too much rich food, particularly white-flour-based foods, cheese, ice cream, chocolate and other desserts, makes my face puffy, ages me more quickly, makes me sluggish and irritable, and causes my skin to break out. Yet it still can be so hard to resist, and stop!

I still get tempted, a lot, and have found that it helps so much to just stop, and consult my tummy.  Is there really room for more?  Am I truly still hungry?  Often, the honest answer is no.  I’m not hungry, and simply want to greedily push my body over into the “totally stuffed” mode.   This recognizing of the true already-full state of my stomach helps me put on the brakes, and enables me to wake up guilt-free the following morning, looking fresh and feeling great.  Don’t get me wrong, I still fail sometimes, and when I do the way I look and feel after reminds me why the rule is such a great one!

Another essential tool for reaching and maintaining a healthy weight is to be in touch with your reasons for wanting to eat.  Like so many people, and maybe like you, I used to use food compulsively to make myself feel good.  Why not?  It did feel absolutely fantastic whenever I was sitting down with a fork, in front of a giant piece of chocolate cake.  The problem was what came after, when the cake was gone.  Guilt, shame, regret, sluggishness, health problems – the list goes on.

There’s a funny thing about addictive, yummy foods, which is very similar to what alcoholics and drug addicts experience.    I don’t know if this is true for you, but when I crave something, my brain and body trick me by saying “come on, just this once”.  Like this: “Why don’t you get into your car and drive to the grocery store and buy yourself a big tub of rocky road ice cream? It will feel so great.  Come on, let’s go – we’ll do it JUST THIS ONCE and then get back to our plans for healthy eating.”

That’s the lie: just this once.  When you indulge yourself with foods that you crave, it’s almost guaranteed that your body and mind will crave them again, sooner and more forcefully than ever, often right the next day.  Or, later that same day!  The more junk food, or comfort food, you give your body, the more your body emotionally and physically wants it and will ask you for it again.  This is very different from hunger.

Pay attention to the difference between the feeling of cravings (from boredom, stress, sadness, habit, comfort, etc.) and hunger.  There’s a huge difference.  Notice how no matter how much you promise yourself “just this once”, the craving soon comes right back.

The only way to make cravings go away is to interrupt them and shut them down by recognizing them as self-sabotaging feelings and impulses that don’t serve you at all.  Do something else instead (call a friend, go for a walk, do something on your to-do list), and the craving will pass.  Wait until you’re truly hungry to eat something.  You will notice that the cravings get less and less, and when you do fail and indulge them (we all do), you will see how truly “empty” that promise of feeling good after turns out to be.

Dr. Susan Biali is a medical doctor, wellness expert, life coach, professional flamenco dancer and author of “Live a Life You Love: 7 Steps to a Healthier, Happier, More Passionate You”.  To a get a free special report with Dr. Biali’s Top 10 Ways to Balance Your Life and Boost Your Health & Happiness, visit her online at www.susanbiali.com.