If you’ve been practicing intuitive eating for a while and find yourself still overeating, then this post is for you. Intuitive eating is not a quick fix, and unfortunately, you won’t fully heal your relationship with food overnight.
It took years to create the current relationship with food that you started your intuitive eating journey with. Fortunately, it doesn’t take years to heal it, but it can take a bit of time and practice. So let’s go over why you might still be overeating after practicing intuitive eating for a while and tips to help.
Why you could be overeating still
With all the clients I’ve worked with, it usually boils down to 3 main reasons they’re still overeating.
1. Still need to build trust that you can eat
It takes a little time to break through all those habits from dieting to limiting how much you’re eating. So if your overeating habit stems from last supper eating, it takes time to build trust that there won’t be limits ahead.
If you have heard the term last supper eating before let me explain. A last super meal is the day before a diet starts when you eat all the foods you won’t be able to eat once the diet starts as a last hurrah. It’s overeating justified by the thought that tomorrow you’ll be good and follow your new diet.
And this mentality can lead to some overeating habits with strong cravings to eat foods whenever they are available. Like eating the whole bag of chips or a whole sleeve of oreos just because it’s available. Or bringing food you haven’t had in a while into your house and finish it right away.
When you get into intuitive eating, this habit can linger where you feel driven to eat all of the food as soon as it’s available. And it takes a little time to break this habit. It happens slowly as you build trust that you won’t restrict yourself again in the future.
2. Sneaky mental restrictions
Sneaky mental restrictions are one of those common causes of overeating when practicing intuitive eating. Example of those lingering diet mindsets include
- “I shouldn’t eat yet because it’s only 11 am. I’ll wait until noon”
- “I can’t have dessert before my main meal”
- “I need to finish my vegetable before dessert”
- “I shouldn’t eat out of the package”
And any of those other dieting tips. Those dieting tips mean well, but they tell you that you need self control and that you can’t trust yourself around food. In intuitive eating, we’re working to build up your self-trust so you consistently honor your physical and mental needs. As you build that trust you naturally take care of yourself and your body in the way that feels the best for you. And for most people, it doesn’t feel great to overeat and feel physically uncomfortable. And as you heal your relationship with food, you’ll trust that food is always available to you. And as trust grows the urge to overeat goes away.
3. Spending too much energy trying not to overeat
The last reason I see people overeating in the early stages of intuitive eating is they are spending too much energy trying not to overeat. Here’s some honest truth. Even after about 6 years of intuitive eating, I still have some days where I’ve overate. But I don’t beat myself up for it.
And I don’t spend any energy trying not to overeat. I put my energy towards listening to my body and sometimes you might misread the cues. That’s ok. It’s all just an experiment and opportunity to learn more about your body.
When you resist overeating and try not to do it, it’s actually one of those sneaky mental restrictions. And you could have good intentions of not wanting to feel physically uncomfortable. If that’s you, what you need to take a closer look at is the energy behind that intention.
Because when you’re trying not to overeat from a force and trying to use self control, that’s not coming from the place of trusting yourself and curiosity. When it comes from curiosity, it feels open and freeing, not anxious and controlling.
Tips to stop overeating as an intuitive eater
If you’re ready to let go of the stress about overeating, these are three things to lean into.
Let go of judgment
It’s ok if you overeat. It’s not the end of the world. It doesn’t mean you’re doing intuitive eating wrong.
And even if it was wrong, the more times you get it wrong the easier it’s going to be to tune into what’s right for your body. We learn as much (if not more) from failure, as when it goes right.
Process through those negative feelings of judgment and lean into a bit more curiosity about overeating to release the tension about it.
Lean into play
Because there are no rules in intuitive eating, the more you can view eating as a chance to experiment, explore, and play the easier it will be to heal your relationship with food.
There’s no one way to do intuitive eating or eat healthy. It’s just the way that works best for you to create a trusting and easy relationship with food.
Don’t eat and see what comes up
This tip can feel a little wrong in the intuitive eating space which leans more towards the just eat it side. But it’s one of my favorite exercises. When you don’t eat, you get to see what your mind throws at you about it all.
If you want to overeat or feel like you have to finish your plate, pause and grab a notebook. Then just write down all of the reasons why you want to. It’ll bring up all the uncomfortable things that are keeping you from the relationship with food that you want to have. And of course, always end this exercise with permission to eat more if you want to. It’s just a pause to check in more with the emotional hunger of your relationship with food.