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Monday, May 23, 2011

How to stop overeating

It is safe to say, with very few exceptions that most of us overeat on a daily basis – we grab a coffee when we are not hungry to be polite, or finish the meal we are served even though we would have been satisfied with ½ as much or we nibble and snack simply because food is in front of us.

The thing about overeating is that once we are doing it, we get so used to being “overfull” that we start to lose our ability to differentiate when we really are hungry and when we are eating for comfort or out of boredom. Alternatively, we drink so much tea and coffee that we do not feel hungry until the late afternoon when we then binge on sugar and energy dense foods before eating large serves of dinner along with the dessert, chocolate and various other snacks as we relax in the front of the TV.

The simplest way to stop your tendency to overeat is to basically under eat for a period of time to start to identify your natural hunger signals. Have 1 slice of toast instead of 2, skip your mid-morning coffee and swap a couple of dinners for soup. Once you have felt really hungry, you can start to eat until you are just full as opposed to stuffed. Simply cutting back 10-20% of what you usually eat is all you need to drop a couple of kg, without even noticing.