Tuesday Tip: Why you overeat

Tuesday Tip: Why you overeat 🍕

Overeating can be an issue for everyone and whilst there are many reasons for it which don’t relate to the food itself (e.g. emotional eating, binge eating etc), there are some more general scenarios which make it much ‘easier’ to overeat.

Before I start I want to make it very clear that none of these foods are ‘bad’ and there is no reason at all why you shouldn’t include them in your diet, in fact I’d never recommend totally cutting any food out because it’s just not sustainable long term. However, there are certain foods that are more likely to lead to over eating. Foods that are high in sugar, salt and fat, such as pizza, ice cream, cakes etc cause a dopamine response in the brain. This means that eating them makes you feel good – as a result you will want to eat more to get that reward again. Having these foods isn’t bad and you shouldn’t cut them out completely but it’s important to be aware of the effect they have and to be mindful when you do have them. This also doesn’t mean you’re ‘addicted’ to sugar etc – you’re not – you’re just eating high-reward foods which makes you want to eat more.

So if you’re susceptible to overeating certain foods then it might be sensible not to have them around all the time e.g. If you know you can’t stop at one biscuit it might be better not to have a cupboard full of biscuits, but just buy them now and then instead.

Happy Tuesday 🤗xx