In our land of oversized portions and beliefs around waste food you may find yourself eating when full. Overeating or eating more than your body requires for fuel leads to weight gain. Check out 4 things you can implement into your life to help you stop eating when full and continue on your weight loss journey avoid weight gain.
3 Actions you can take to Stop Eating when full
1. Notice beliefs that are causing you to overeat and change them
The following 3 beliefs are common beliefs to keep you eating when full. Let me know in the comments which ones ring true for you.
Children are Starving in Africa
Remember when you were little, and you tried to leave some food on your plate? Your parents might have said. “There are children starving in Africa”, and your, child-mind may have looked and found some evidence to show it was true. Evidence like pictures from Live Aid, flyers in the post and adverts on TV did show these beautiful children with swollen bellies starving in Africa.
The above evidence combined with the added “wisdom” from your parents gave you a concrete belief that it was important to eat everything on your plate. I am still not sure how I came to think I was helping those poor children by eating all my food, but I did it none the less. Well, most of the time… except when I hid my cold peas in my paper serviette and threw them in the bin before anyone noticed. Ssshhh!
Looking back now, it didn’t really make sense, but you believe what your parents told you. They had their reasons. Reasons like your parents wanting you to eat all your vegetables. They didn’t like waste and sharing this belief with you was helping their cause. Have some compassion as they were probably taught it as children too!
Now, years later, you may still find yourself finishing that last mouthful, even though your tummy is full. You are on automatic pilot with that hidden belief that keeps driving your action to overeat. You may even pull out the saying with your own children.
It is such a waste of money if I don’t eat it
If your parents taught you, it was a waste of money if you didn’t eat everything on the plate, you may have some beliefs around scarcity. Scarcity is the mindset that there is not enough to go around. Your parents may have instilled the belief of a relationship of food and money. If you don’t eat all the food, that means money down the drain. This comes from a belief that there is a finite amount of money or finite amount of food. Therefore, you should not waste food.
While having the belief that we should take care of our money can be useful in other areas it is not doing you any favours on the weight loss front.
Question your beliefs
A belief is simply a thought that you think repeatedly. You search for evidence to validate the thought and you think it is the truth. Overeating when you have put too much food on your plate is not going to help those children in Africa. It is not going to make you feel abundant or set you up for success in your weight loss journey. Secondly, it may leave you feeling physically uncomfortable and ultimately unhappy about yourself after gaining weight. So there is a cost if you continue to believe these thoughts.
Solutions
Watch your brain and find what the belief is that makes you clean up your plate when you are feeling full. Question your belief. It is completely optional. You get to decide how you want to think about that belief now. There is no parent standing over you and you are in control of creating a new belief that allows you to leave some food on your plate without the guilt or anxiety that comes with it. Let me know what you come up with.
2. Have a glass of water and stay hydrated
If you are conscious that you are eating when full, have a glass of water at the beginning or during your meal. Water will help your stomach recognise it is filling up. It will be a physical feeling that you can use to remind yourself not to overeat because your stomach is full. Often if you eat too quickly, you don’t recognise that your stomach is full.
I used to say I was a camel, and camels don’t need to drink as much water. I said it like it was some sort of badge of honour. Now I realise hydration and weight loss go hand in hand to keep all your body processes working at their best, and you feeling at your best. So, stay hydrated.
Make having water at your meal a new habit or put a drink bottle on your desk while you work. Habit’s do take a little while to form so that you don’t have to think them on purpose, but this one is definitely worth it.
3. Practice mindful eating
What is mindful eating? Mindful eating is slowing down and getting present to the way you eat, how the food tastes, as well as how it feels in your body. It helps you taste and enjoy the food. Mindful eating gives your body a chance to tell you that it has enough food, and when you need to stop and move.
Mindful eating is just a flash way to say, notice what each mouthful tastes like. Chew the food slowly. If you know you eat quickly, don’t be hard on yourself. Life is fast, use this as an opportunity to slow down and be present, to stop worrying about what is next or what just happened.
Pick a few meals a week where you will practice eating mindful eating. Schedule them into your calendar so you don’t forget. Remember it takes time to make things a habit and if you don’t plan them there is a chance that the mindful eating exercise will get lost in the enormous cavern of to-dos in your brain.
Reconnect with your body to Stop Eating when full
Reconnecting with your body and experiencing the signals of fullness is an important part of weight loss. Treat it like an experiment and see if you can determine when you start to feel full during a meal and what it feels like to leave a mouthful or two of food on your plate. Experimenting is more fun than feeling like you HAVE to do something.
Drink water with your meal because you know it is good for you. Slow down and be present with your meal to stop eating when full. It is an option to feel liberated by freeing yourself of all the conditioning you may have experienced and simply doing things because you WANT to.
Leave a message in the comments and let me know which beliefs are ringing true for you. Or email me rebecca@rebeccagoodacre.com and let me know what your biggest challenge is with weight loss. Support is here.
Have a beautiful day.
