Why Can’t I Stop Eating?

Eating is a basic need for our survival; but, without a doubt, it is also a pleasure. When the line between physical hunger and emotional hunger becomes blurred, problems can arise. If you sometimes feel like you can’t stop eating, here’s why.

Food is the way in which we fill our body with “fuel” to function on a day-to-day basis. Ideally, this diet should provide us with the nutrients to maintain a good physical and mental condition. However, we live in a rushed and disconnected society, in which unhealthy culinary temptations are many.

The cause of a poor diet can be found directly on the psychological level. Most of the time, when a person overeats, they do not do so because they feel an excessive physical hunger. Usually the problem lies in an unhealthy psychological relationship with food.

Excessive restriction

Everyone knows that society imposes standards of beauty that, more or less clearly, we all try to meet. But the question is not limited only to the aesthetic aspect, many times for health reasons we want to lose weight. 

To achieve this, we put in place various mechanisms of food restriction, skipping some meals or stopping eating large food groups. Faced with this drastic and unsustainable change, our mind reveals itself and pushes us to eat food compulsively after a period of restriction. And it is precisely the categories of food that we have prohibited ourselves that we most want to raid without control.

The problem is that, at some point, we lost sight of the real function of food. Food is not enemies, it is necessary for our well-being. If we suffer from an overweight problem, the solution will never be to condemn some food groups or impose a level of restriction that we cannot bear. The only way out is to establish a healthy relationship with food.

The process inevitably goes through a change of beliefs, in which we begin to see food as allies for our health. In which we manage to start eating in a conscious and balanced way. And, of course, in which we accept that a healthy weight loss process is gradual, not immediate, and is based on a long-term change of habits rather than an impossible and punctual diet.

Emotional feeding

This is another of the great issues that are often at the origin of our inability to stop eating. When we eat our brain releases numerous neurotransmitters that cause us pleasant sensations. That is, eating is followed by a heightened sense of well-being and an immediate reward. 

Because of this, many people begin to use diet as a way to regulate their emotions. When faced with high levels of anxiety or depression, we should put in place healthy and adaptive coping resources. But if, for whatever reason, we have not managed to acquire or develop them, eating becomes a substitute.

When a person eats emotionally, their hunger does not originate in their stomach but in their mind. The need to eat arises suddenly and urgently. We want to eat certain types of unhealthy foods and we eat automatically, without being aware of the time or the amount of food.

As a result, we end up unpleasantly full and, after a short period of time, we do not feel guilty and ashamed of our behavior. That is why many people who eat emotionally tend to eat away so that no one can see them.

How can I stop eating?

Give food back the function that belongs to it. Try to stop seeing her as a comfort or an enemy. We encourage you to establish a healthy relationship with food and to use it simply to obtain the nutrients you need.

Learn to differentiate physical hunger from emotional hunger. For this it is necessary that you connect with yourself and your own sensations. It begins to distinguish when you feel like eating because you are bored, overwhelmed or sad, and when you do it because you really feel hungry.

Develop healthier mechanisms of emotional regulation. Meditation or relaxation techniques are very valid options to manage negative emotions. Finally, we encourage you to go to a professional to guide you and guide you through the process.