Monday Munchies: Why am I overeating?
Overeating is a hard habit to kick. Maybe you’re like me and you eat a healthy meal at home, and are proud of yourself, and then you head somewhere you weren’t expecting to be surrounded by junk food. And somehow, your entire plan is foiled, and diet forgotten
Or, like me, you stick to the “right” foods, but haven’t been disciplined in portion control. A handful of nuts, is A handful, not 4 (Danya!) lol. Well, that definitely used to be me!
I have 5 tips or tricks that I use that help me enough, and honestly, portion control is a critical component of healthy weight loss.
1. ADD APPLE CIDER VINEGAR AND/OR OTHER VINEGAR TO MEALS
Oddly enough, it helps our bloodsugar. Ok so that sounds weird right? Hear me out. Let me tell you how I discovered this. I had an overgrowth of candida and was having constant stomach pain and heartburn. I had tried everything, and as a last ditch effort, I started taking Organic Apple Cider Vinegar every morning to help re-alkaline my body, and after about 3 days, it seemed to really be helping my stomach.
I started really enjoying the flavor of vinegar, so I started adding it to anything that had broth with it. Green beans in particular were my favorite to add it to.
Well I started noticing my size change through my belly, and I began reading up on vinegar, because I knew the vinegar wasn't shrinking my belly size, that's way to easy. What I found out though, made sense!
It’s definitely has been proven over and over to lower the glycemic index, helping the body to metabolize food more thoroughly; in essance, it helps it digest slower. Plus it adds a LOT of flavor, with very little calories. A little goes a long way!
I also recently read something similar about cinnamon as well, so I started to add cinnamon to everything from coffee to smoothies. Like vinegar, cinnamon is supposed to slow the rate at which food moves from your stomach to your intestine, keeping you fuller longer, and should prevent the slump after you eat. I don’t necessarily have a personal testimony for this one, but I love the smell of the spice in my coffee and in my smoothies! lol I'll keep you posted on the cinnamon, it's newer to my experimenting! But just in case you don't relish the idea of vinegar, it's another low calorie option!
2. EAT EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT HUNGRY
When I get really hungry, I don’t know about you but it is a danger that I may overeat. Shocking, I know. But it starts a cycle for that day. So many times clients will say “but I wasn’t hungry”. The diet industry is the diet industry because they have fed the lie to “eat only when you’re hungry” to the general public, knowing this is going to keep them in a cycle of overeating!
If you’re eating only when you feel hunger, you’ve waited to long, and your going to have a bigger chance that you will over eat. If it’s been 2-3 hours, eat the food you planned for yourself, EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT HUNGRY. You want to beat hunger, stay ahead of the game. If you eat when you’re not hungry, you’ll eat less and more slowly. You’ll also have a lot more energy.
3. DRINK WATER
Ok, so before you eat, especially if you’ve waited until hunger happens, DRINK WATER. Mild dehydration can cause a sensation that’s easily mistaken for hunger, not to mention headaches or foggy brain.
Drinks such as juices and sodas don’t fill you up, and their rapid digestion causes insulin spikes. So pass on the sweetened drinks and stick with sparkling or still water — you can flavor it with lemon, strawberries or cucumber if you want, but don’t put a large amount of calories, and if you can help it, try not to use anything with artificial sweetener in it.
Drink at least 3/4 of a gallon of water a day. And like I said at the start, drink a glass before each meal to take the edge of your hunger, and help you eat less and/or reach satiety sooner.
4. EAT SLOW
Man this is hard when you’re a mom. For me, it was do or die. Snooze you lose, because I had at most 20-30 min to shower, get dressed, and somehow in there personally groom, and eat food? What the heck? Anybody feel me here?
When you eat, and swallow, there’s a delay before you reach satiety from that one single bite, I mean long! As long as 10–30 minutes! In turn, we tend to eat more food than we really need. The faster we eat, the more we eat.
So Slow down! Allow your mind to catch up to your tummy. And make yourself enjoy the food!
5. INTERMITTENT FASTING
There’s a lot of drama around the word fasting. People think fasting = starving. The reality is, the body responds well to a break with all things, including digesting. I have to admit I was resistant to the idea of this, but I was more resistant to being hungry, not really fasting.
The idea is that the body has a resting time and an active time with eating, and you choose a controlled window for that time. So you have a start time and a stop time for food consumption to happen, usually an 8-12 hour window. My window is from 8-4 usually, unless I have a 15-16 hour day, which happens 2-3 days of my week, in which my window is from 8-7or8.
In that window, you can consume your planned healthy meals and snacks. The time around and outside of the allotted time window, you can consume unlimited clear, calorie-free liquids, or even black coffee.
Why does this help? The reset calms the digestive system, but it also helps “shrink” the stomach because it is getting a chance to fully empty, and by doing so, for me anyway, it has helped dramatically in preventing overeating.
Don’t knock something until you try it! Don’t starve yourself though. This still means you’re consuming the correct amount of calories, just controlling when it starts and stops.
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Hope these 5 tips help you out! Of course until you start APPLYING something, it won't work, so don't wait! And message me and let me know how it works for you!
Stay grateful. Stay humble. Stay in the mode of always becoming the best YOU! The best is yet to come! Here's to you and the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING YEAR ahead of you! Healthy Looks Good On YOU! ~d If you like the post, be sure to like or comment and share! And click subscribe so you don't miss a blog post!
