Have you felt that you just ate a whole meal and not feel satisfied? It is not about physical satisfaction but rather emotional?
It happens to me when I am alone and not seeing or talking to anybody. We are social animals. The study actually shows that loneliness can kill people faster than smoking cigarettes. I wondered when I saw a TV show featuring people over 100 years old in Japan and one of the ladies was smoking in front of the camera saying she loves it. But what contributed to her health was her diet, community and exercise.
Anyway, I overate yesterday and I was asking myself if I was stressed being lonely. Because sometimes we are not even tuned to our emotions, rather try to avoid it and replace it with other activities. It would be nice to replace it with constructive activities such as art, readings, talking to friends etc. But when it turns to alcohol, overeating or drugs, that’s not good. That’s something we want to avoid.
So, I wanna talk about today how we can avoid such things in the first place and how we deal with it if that happens.
Questions to ask yourself when the urge arise
If you feel an urge to eat more or if you do not feel satisfied even after finishing your plates, ask yourself following questions:
- Was the food portion satisfactory? not too less?
- Was the food emotionally satisfying? (meaning that they were a variety of foods, color, balance, something nutritious but you also enjoy? Because if you keep eating the food that you do not enjoy, it is not sustainable either and not necessarily healthy either).
- Are there any emotions that you try to avoid?
- How are you feeling?
What to do when the urge arise
- Wait for 15 minutes after eating even if you still feel like eating (or have an urge to grab another bite or plate)
Usually strong urges do not last more than 15 minutes. When you start eating while strong urges are still there, it is harder to be calm and have rational judgment or more easily said, our mind and body is disconnected. 15 minutes is usually enough time to calm your urge and connect to your mind and body again.
- While waiting for that 15 minutes, write down what you are craving to eat.
This might be another place of the same dish you just had or something very sweet or fatty. Writing down helps you to understand particular foods or patterns when the urge arises. Usually in my own case, it is certain foods such as sweets (ex. ice cream, pastry, bread with butter) or just keep eating what I was eating.
- Lay down and see what emotion is there
I used to do this almost every after the meal. Often times when the urge arise, my body gets quite tense. Allowing myself to lay down helps the body to relax a bit, while trying to more focus on my emotions. It is not easy especially when your focus is heavily on foods but shifting the focus is actually one of the best way to avoid destructive behavior. I got to learn that you do not need to engage with your feeling (or feel your feeling) but it is already enough to acknowledge what is there and accept that it is there. You do not need to be that emotion because emotion is like ocean wave, it comes and goes. It changes. Emotion is not you. I am telling this because I used to feel my emotions so deeply that it deeply affected and exhausted me, especially heavy emotions such as fear of loneliness, abandonment etc. Everyone’s journey is different and I have heard that sometimes that is what you need, to really feel your emotion and cry like a river. But, calm down and don’t worry, it will all pass, as well.
- After 15 minutes, look at what you wrote and allow yourself to eat those foods if you still want to eat.
I think it is also important to give you a reward that you could wait for 15 min and keep the promise to yourself. Being said that, if you no longer feel like eating these foods or actually feel satisfied, you definitely do not need to eat them. Simply, move forward and live a day. If you still feel like eating but you can actually wait till the next meal time like dinner, lunch or breakfast, do so by looking forward to eating those foods. If you still feel like eating those foods, enjoy! The only thing that we want to avoid is switching the urge again after we start eating again. In order to avoid that, choose which to eat this time and wait for another 15 min for other foods or make smaller portions for each to avoid overeating. The goal here is your both physical and mental health and we all need good nutrients so think about that and take good care of yourself 🙂
What to do After overeating
- Reflect what was missing in your life
Being said, sometimes it just happens and it is ok. The most important thing is not to beat yourself up but rather give yourself special empathy and understanding that something was not right or something was missing in your life and use this opportunity to make a small positive change. When it happened, were you extra tired? Were you overworking? Were you worried too much about something and kept it to yourself? We can make small positive changes by for instance, taking extra rest, working less, calling your friend to open up your worries etc. Eating problems can be solved from outside of food but lifestyle and your patterns of behavior and belief etc.
- Drink lots of water
If it happened last night and you have slept all night, you might wake up still with some food on your stomach. In that case, drinking water is good.
- Do stretches, light exercise
You might experience tights in your body depending on what you overate. If it was too much sugar and salt, your body might be swollen. Doing light stretches and light exercise as well as morning walk can help you feel better to get the circulation going on.
- Take a bath (or shower)
For the same reason, taking a bath and massaging the body is also nice. As it was described above, the important thing is to take extra good care of yourself with empathy and understanding.
- Massage
Do you have any of your favorite massage oils with a special smell? Sometimes just a favorite smell can calm yourself and make you feel better. My favorite is Weleda’s cellulite massage oil which has a very nice fresh smell and currently I am using Weleda’s stretch mark oil which does not have many smells but it gives me the chance to massage my belly to connect to my baby.
- Eat easy to digest nutrition rich food
If you start to feel that you can eat something, even if you are not completely hungry as you are normally, don’t hesitate to eat something smaller and easy to digest from nutritious rich food such as fruit, yogurt, vegetable soup, porridge and eggs etc. You might want to skip and fast all day but it is not nbecceaseily healthy both mentally and physically. Especially if you have eaten low quality food such as ice cream, donuts, etc your body needs extra nutrients to balance out the body and fill nutrients that are lacking on your body. So focus on that, and allow yourself to enjoy nutritious rich food to nurture your body and mind.
- Enjoy the day
You might feel down due to what happened but that doesn’t have to stop you from enjoying your precious day. Shift the focus and enjoy your day! It can be about taking a beautiful walk in nature, listening to your favorite music, having a coffee with your dear friends, going to a museum or changing the home decoration etc. Whatever makes your heart lift and appreciate who you are would be great. If you are working, do not work too hard. Enjoy your work, have a good chat with your colleagues if possible.
- Self acceptance & self love
Last and least, the most important thing is self acceptance and self love. As mentioned above, there was a reason why it happened. and this is great wisdom from your body that something needs to be changed. if you are working too hard, slow down, if you haven’t slept enough, go to bed early or take a short nap, if you feel lonely, make and take time to meet or call people you can trust or journal. treat yourself as your best friend or your baby and talk to yourself with kind words, treat yourself with kindness.
Summary
Overeating is something that we want to avoid and there are some tips when the urge arises. But even when it happens, do not beat yourself up. Rather, take this as a great opportunity to discover what is missing in your life and more tune to your own emotions and your needs.
I really hope you take extra good care of yourself and have a beautiful life.
