Eight causes of overeating

There are many cause of overeating and a few reasons why people are over but one of the main reasons I believe is overeating. When I say overeating I mean that over the course of the day instead of eating 1500 to 2000 calories or so an average person will eat a lot more. There are eight causes that I can think of for overeating and if you look at this list, no matter whom you are, you will find some triggers to eating excess calories.

Finding Your cause of overeating

1. Skipping meals and snacking Our first cause of overeating is inconsistent eating. Your body seems to work like a pendulum where if you eat enough food in a meal it will hold you over until the next meal, but, if you skip a meal you body will overcompensate and you will end up eating far more the next time then you would have at the regular time. This is why skipping meals is so bad.

2. Lack of sleep This is my real cause of overeating. If you are tired you lose self control and you will also eat things that you should not just fro a bit of a blood sugar jump. This is very evident I find on my Fridays when I will be a little sleep deprived and will eat too much sugar compared to Monday when I feel well rested.

3. Large Portions Portion control is the biggest change that most people can make in their diet. If you figure out how many calories that you need in a day and divide it by six to make three meals and three snacks you will find that your portions should probably not be as big as you are eating now. Try using a smaller plate and just eat until you are satisfied instead of how much is on your plate. This cause of overeating is terrible because you will not be able to use those calories anyway

4. Heavy heavy foods Bagels, as a casue of overeating, are one example of a food that is very heavy. Low in water content and high in carbohydrates. You should look at your diet and see if there are any examples in it of these kinds of foods; some more examples would be greasy fried foods and even heavy pastries.

5. TV commercials or food smells This is a favorite cause of overeating for me. I will be sitting at home watching evening TV and there will be a hamburger commercial on. Now I am a big eater of hamburgers but at 9:00 at night? That is crazy. The other one to me that is a tough one is Kentucky fried chicken. Interestingly enough the KFC smell makes me crazy when I am driving by in the car but not when I am riding by it on my bike. I once had a very bad reaction to the greasiness in a KFC drumstick and haven’t eaten any in at least 8 or 9 years now so I never succumb to the smell but it smells great anyway.

6. Not enough Fiber One way to stop overeating is Fiber and roughage is always good for filling you up. If you do not eat enough fiber in your diet you will take in extra calories just to help fill you up. A bowl of all bran to kick off your day would probably be enough.

7. Artificial Sweeteners Aspartame and Saccharin are examples of artificial sweeteners that will cause you to over indulge in a food because it is low calorie. But wait! What about the fat. Just because a food has not sugar does not mean that it is not low in calories. You can stop overeating by simply taking those diet drinks as causing fat problems.

8. Stress Our last cause of overeating is stress. Stress causes some people to overeat. When you are tense or anxious do you go for extra food or snacks? If so you should be the kind of person with a fridge full of crunchy veggies like carrots and celery so that you have a less high calorie snack to be eating in those tough times. Also getting to the root of the stress and dealing with it and throwing some exercise into your schedule to help keep your attitude on a more even keel will also help.

What is your biggest cause of overeating?

This is really something to think about as just making sure that you know what the triggers are for your cause of overeating will be enough to avoid them in the future.

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