Read This Article If You Tend To Overeat Junk Food

Introduction

Are you overeating in your everyday life? Do you stick to strict diets and then break it all out in a fury of junk-food desires? Do you tend to overeat on your cheat meals (even tho you thought you could control yourself?). If what I’m describing sounds like you, then this article will be of help to you.

Cheat meals are an opportunity to fulfill your desires. Eating unhealthy foods from time to time and enjoying a good sugary taste isn’t a bad thing, if it has meaning. If you’re just binging to binge, it’s pretty bad and it shows you lack discipline in the moment, or that your current diet, that you have everyday (which I hope for you is very healthy), is too restrictive and boring. If you tend to be strict on your diet and one day break it all out on junk food binging, and call it a cheat meal, you might also want to review the definition of a cheat meal.

A cheat meal is a MEAL, or a cheat day is a DAY, where you allow yourself to eat whatever you want. And this doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to binge, to take « stocks » before winter if we use an animal metaphor, but it just simply means allowing to have some pleasure without having to push it too much.

If you binge on cheat meals or cheat days or randomly from time to time, it might be an actual symptom of a larger problem, even tho you might not be immediately conscious of it. Some people tend to overeat, that’s the truth, but the question we need to ask ourselves firstly, is not HOW TO STOP OVEREATING, it’s WHY we’re overeating in the first place?!

So, what are these reasons? Well, one thing that psychology shows us is that a lot of addictions and binging, be it to junk-food, cigarette, nail-biting, or smoking weed, comes from mental health problems. By engaging in a behavior that gives you instant pleasure such as eating 8 donuts in a row, smoking 6 cigarettes compulsively even tho you haven’t touched any cigarette since a month now etc, it relieves stress and it gives you a feeling of well-being that you might not naturally have in your everyday life.

Now, am I blaming you? Well, no. A lot of us are living in really stressful environments and self-improvement adds another layer of stress. The thing is, this stress naturally converts itself into benefits and ultimately disappears when you reach your goals. For example, it’s hard to maintain a good diet, it’s painful. But, when I see my body in the mirror, it makes it easier. When I see my performance at the gym, it makes it easier. When I see the number on the scale, the taste in my mouth that natural foods can bring (natural foods are delicious) and the progress I make on the long term, it becomes easier.

But even tho stress is a factor, mental health problems such as shallow or deeply ingrained problems from childhood or even the current moment, can cause binge eating. For example, if you had a fight with your partner, or a recent breakup, you’ll often let yourself go. Most people do. And I don’t blame them, life is sad and terrible, and the taste of chocolate makes it seem a little bit easier. But, I want you to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. The goal is not to blame yourself forever, it’s to blame yourself once, realize you fucked up, and take responsibility for your life.

The thing is, most of the people who overeat are sometimes not even directly conscious that they have mental health problems. They might deliberately or unconsciously avoid the realization that their love for food comes from inner problems. Studies clearly show that people that have childhood trauma’s (or trauma’s in general) are more inclined to engage in self-destructive behavior such as overeating and being overweight.

We call the behavior of eating for a sense of emotional relief, emotional eating. Emotional eating therefore refers to the act of overeating or eating unhealthy foods for a sense of emotional relief. I’m not speaking about PLEASURE, it’s normal to feel relaxed when you bite into a chocolate square, your brain is wired for that. However, it’s not normal to become obese and destroy your body image just for the sake of « pleasure », here we’re really speaking about relief. Pleasure is eating a chocolate square and feeling relaxed. Relief is binge eating a whole chocolate bar to feel relief over your problems.

The thing is, the distinction between being relaxed because it’s pleasurable and being relaxed because it’s making me forget about my problems is very thin, and even almost the same, because relaxing looks the same as being relieved from emotional problems.

So, you might want to actually clean your own garage, take your life by the horns, and start working on your problems AND on your trauma’s. We want you to start diving deeper into the cause of your emotional eating. And to do this, is to journal.

So, here is your first actionable step of this article (and probably the last): Take out a piece of paper and a pen, and start writing down the reasons why you’re overeating. Dive into your problems, which problems cause you sadness, fear, and negative emotions in general? Do they happen often? What can you do about them? Do you need to go to a therapist or speak to someone?

It might be painful to dive back into your own problems, but eventually, you’re going to come out much stronger and much better.

How To Control Your Binge-Eating Impulse?

In this section of this article, you’ll discover a few ways to control your binge-eating impulsions.

First off, one thing you need to do is to train your discipline in other areas of your life and then push discipline into this area of your life, which is eating. For example, start working out more often, or having harder workouts. Start taking jogs when you’re tired. Start making your bed every morning even tho you’re lazy, start going to the kitchen to fill your water bottle even tho you don’t want to get up from your computer because you know how important it is to stay hydrated (I’m literally speaking to myself right now, let me go fill my water bottle and I’m back in a minute).

An easy way to build more discipline into your life is to take cold showers every morning. This thing is just… horrible but so awesome.

Visualization can also be of help when you feel the need to eat junk food. Visualize yourself achieving your goals and becoming your best self. Feel how proud you could be, all the glory you could have and all the character and progress you could build from that experience. Imagine the discipline you would gain if you avoided junk food. And, rationalize, it’s only junk food, who cares? Let’s rather sit on the couch and let our bodies wind down instead of wanting to get instant pleasure and relaxation. Let’s opt for long term pleasure and relaxation.

Also, ask yourself this question: « Am I eating because it genuinely tastes good or to feel better about my life? » Make sure to answer this question with 100% honesty. Nobody knows the answer but you, and nobody knows the truth but you. Don’t lie to yourself. It could prove to be very self-destructive.

Also, make sure to cheat on your diet for special occasions. Don’t cheat on your diet just for the sake of eating junk food, but simply cheat on your diet when you’re out with friends and you all stop by to a cafe, or when you’re walking in the city with your partner and you stop to a nice restaurant to live a great experience, or when there is a family meal or an anniversary, etc.

Sometimes you can eat junk food for the sake of eating junk food, but it can be quite a « loser attitude » to do so. I think the best would be to just eat junk food on special occasions, and that is it. Now, if you know you’re going to cheat on your diet at the restaurant with your family this afternoon, you can eat a biscuit or something pleasurable in the morning or some bullshit. But just don’t overeat. Have pleasure from junk food, because it’s important to have pleasure too, but don’t make it a habit, and cheat on your diet 90% of the time for events.

For example, I have a hard time gaining weight, so if one day I needed to cheat on my diet because I had a dinner with someone such as a friend or a family member, I would sometimes have a breakfast that is not fitting in my traditional diet, such as eating jam and croissants for example. But, I wouldn’t necessarily binge eat.

What If It’s Urgent?

This section of the article will give you techniques to not buy into your impulsion even tho it’s urgent.

Have the food in your hand? Put toothpaste on it, don’t overthink it or say it’s waste or some stupid stuff just go and DO IT! Put it in the fridge for someone else, give it to your pet if it’s not dangerous for them, do something!

Throw the biscuit or the crisp on the ground, and walk on it!

Offer it to someone else, be nice and generous!

Put dust on it, throw it in the bin, or throw it in the sink and put water on it! Delicious!

But if you don’t want to waste food, the best would be to keep them into a container, and give it to homeless people or associations. If you ordered McDonald to binge eat, and you just receive the package, maybe give it back to the guy who delivered you and tell him that it’s his meal. Or, keep it for a day where you’ll need it for real. Or, stock it in the fridge for someone else. Or, give it to a homeless guy in the street.

If you’re actually overeating or binge eating right now, realize what you are doing, and remember your goals. REMEMBER THEM. Visualize yourself stopping now, and all the progress you could make by just stopping now instead of continuing to binge eat! Visualize! VISUALIZE! And, stop now. Do it for yourself. If you truly loved yourself, you wouldn’t be hurting yourself so much with these unhealthy foods, right? So start practicing self-love.

Prevention

This section will be very short but try to prevent your emotional eating behaviors by learning how to regulate emotions and how to act in certain situations. Using philosophy (maybe even stoicism) and/or simply accepting your emotions and expressing them in healthy ways and seeing your problems not only in an emotional way but also in a more logical way could be of help. Using relaxation methods such as deep breathing throughought the day (let your belly expand) or meditation or spending a good time with people you love or petting a dog or sleeping well and taking naps and walking in nature could be of help. Resting and self-care promotes self-love, working hard and « hurting yourself » by pushing yourself to your limits also promotes self-love, so have a good balance between the two.

Work your ass off, rest well, work your ass off, rest well. By having self-love, by understanding yourself more, by regulating your emotions and being relaxed, you’ll deal with your problems much more easily.

Conclusion

Overeating might be for emotional reasons, so dive into that even more. It’s important to fix the problem at its root instead of finding quick-fix solutions. Rest well, eat well, exercise, practice self-care, and dive into the problem to fix it. With time, you’ll be able to maybe identify the causes, and fix the problem at its root. Maybe your relationship with your partner is complicated these times, or maybe you feel un-proud of yourself, or you had a fight with someone or a conflict with someone.

What I’m saying here is that there are maybe « short term » underlying reasons to your problems on top or instead of long-term underlying reasons (even tho often, constant overeating is caused by bad habits acquired in childhood I believe in the way to deal with emotions and also childhood trauma’s or trauma’s in general).

One thing that might be interesting for you is to dive into conditioning and how it affects your life. If you used in the past to deal with your emotions by eating junk food, it might be hard to un-condition yourself. So, dive into that too. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it. It could prove to be a big step in your life!

Finally, I hope this article was of help to you. Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next time. Bye.

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