What To Do When You Overeat [Ep. 113]

0:00 This is the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast. I'm Lisa Salisbury, and this is episode 113. What to do when you overeat? Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salisbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating Hey friends today, we are going to be talking about what to do when you overeat.

0:42 Notice that right off the bat. I'm not saying if you overeat, there is no one in the history of ever losing weight that loses all their weight without overeating. Sometimes. Especially when you are first learning to trust your body and trust yourself around food again. And giving yourself permission to eat all the foods and use the hunger scale. Sometimes you're going to overshoot on that sometimes when you're first practicing with the hunger scale, you'll overeat and you realize it after the fact when your stomach is feeling uncomfortable and you think, oh, okay. That was too much food. But more likely it's going to be a couple of other things you might be in some habit eating still and just automatically dishing up the same amount or automatically finishing what's on your plate without paying attention to the body cues.

1:28 And that results in an overeat. And then other times you'll purposely overeat because you were feeling sad or bored or stressed or some kind of way that was challenging. And you used food to manage that emotion. Totally normal. Obviously we're trying here together to figure that out, but just because I tell you how to manage emotional hunger in one episode sometime doesn't mean you're going to just always do it perfectly every time after that. Even clients that work with me are still learning this. So please don't expect perfection just because you've heard me teach, teach you about how to manage cravings. Or fill your emotions instead of eating over them. You will overeat. And that's what we're going to talk about today.

2:09 So we need to talk about what to do after these inevitable overeats happen. Because without knowing you individually, I can pretty much guess what the internal dialogue is saying. You're thinking you're never going to get this. You're never going to get it right. You'll never lose weight. He probably should just go back to county. Macros are doing keto. Allowing all foods and using the hunger scale is hard. You might even let your thoughts, attack your body. That would sound like something's wrong with me. And I'm just always craving chocolate or chips. This whirlwind of meany Matilda thoughts is not going to help. Right. Let that girl go. And by the way, if you have a name for her, that mean girl in your head, it's much easier to tell her to beat it.

2:53 So I like meany, Matilda, but you may just call her Karen or Diane or crazy out SU whatever it doesn't matter, but it is kind of fun sometimes to have a name for her. When we get in these thought spirals after an overeat. One of two things typically happens. You either go into increased restriction, which we know will just lead to another overeat down the road sooner rather than later, usually. And we get into this never ending restrict binge cycle. No fun. Or you throw your hands up in the air and say, screw it. I've messed up all my progress now. So I might as well eat the whole pantry this weekend and really live it up until Monday or until next week or until next month. That's not going to help you either.

3:35 Getting out of this overeat, spiral of thoughts is critical for you feeling your best and enjoying this weight loss into weight maintenance process. Long-term. You have to know what to do, because again, this will happen. Either accidentally eating too much. The proverbial, my eyes were bigger than my stomach. Or intentionally over eating because of enjoyment or compensating for those negative emotions. I really want you to hear this next thing. I'm going to say. What you do after the overeat? Is way more important. Than the overeat itself. This is like how in my intro, I say, I'm trying to help you figure out why you're eating when you aren't hungry. Instead of worrying so much about what you are eating.

4:18 This is the same thing with these overeats it's way more important to figure out what went wrong or what happened. Rather than worrying about what was eaten. So, if you overeat one dinner a week, it's not going to actually ruin your progress. But if you overeat that dinner and then let it spiral into the weekend or restrict herder and end up binging again. That behavior over time is what is going to keep you from progressing on your goals. So I'm going to give you three guidelines to use in order to process this overeat. And stay tuned because I've got a special freebie that goes along with this episode and these guidelines. Number one. I want you to reflect on the situation without judgment.

5:01 What happened exactly without using any of those meaning Matilda words. Right? I don't want any name calling at this point. We want to use our higher brain for this part. We want to not be in judgment. What did you overeat with? What was the actual food and why? Did you have anything happen during the day or anything you were thinking about that was distressing? Where you celebrating something? We don't always overeat in response to a negative emotion. Maybe you were not paying attention where you on your phone and just eating on autopilot. I don't think we're always overeating due to stress or depression. There are lots of emotions that come into play here. So really think through how you were feeling ahead of this or during the overeat reflect on that.

5:45 Do not pass judgment on it. Just get the facts down. This is purely what we want in like the circumstance line. If you think about the model we want to reflect on what was happening as if it's completely circumstantial, without passing any judgment or giving any morality to that situation. Okay. Number two. Your next question is what can I do next time? Sure, hindsight's 2020. As I said, from the beginning, we all overeat from time to time, even I do. And I've been working on being in touch with my hunger scale for years. So the more I do this process, the longer I go between these overeats and partly it's because I've asked myself. This question so many times what would work better next time?

6:30 What else could have solved for this emotion or this problem? or maybe what could I have done differently during that meal that would have helped me pay more attention? This is one of the ways I found some of my tips for eating slower. Which I recently shared, I think on a episode, just a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that when I overeat, I am like inhaling my food so fast. In fact, I really, I have this particular memory of being out to dinner with friends, except for all of a sudden, my husband and I had to go. And so when the food came, I ate mine so fast and later I was mortified. Embarrassed. In front of these friends. Because I ate so fast and ended, ended up eating so much volume of food.

7:14 I still distinctly remember like what the table looked like and where we were sitting in this restaurant. I'm sure they don't remember. But it's been several years now. And it was a real turning point for me to know that slowing down is really going to help. Like I was stressed in this situation. I was anxious about us having to leave and I don't see these friends very often. So the whole situation was like, Very stressful to me. So I know that that is what caused me to eat so quickly. But that's just something that's been helpful for me to notice that when I overeat it's often I'm often eating quickly, so it helps to look and say, okay, what could I do next time?

7:56 And one of the strategy. I have found is two. Slow down right. But you might find that maybe your, what I can do next time is put your phone away so you can focus. Or you might think I could have just walked out to get the mail. Something to get me out of the kitchen and into a new environment. I'm always talking about strategies like this, because we have got to have plans for these obstacles. When we expect obstacles, like I'm going to want to overeat. When my boss treats me badly, we need a strategy for when I come home after a bad day at work. So, what can I do next time helps you to create strategies for these situations?

8:37 Okay. And number three, lastly is how can I let this go now? We want to move on. Remember if you restrict because you overeat, you'll just overheat again. And if you go into that three day, screw it. I don't care. That's not going to help either. I want you to think here about the very next bite strategy. This is where we just wait for hunger. And then that next bite is right on plan. That's it. My clients actually do really well with this and they find they stop those three-day full weekend. Screw it. Cycles. They noticed that they move on from their overeats easier and easier. By using this very next bite strategy.

9:20 I have had several clients come to sessions and say, yeah, I, I over ate like Friday night and then I totally recognized it. And Saturday morning I was right back on plan with one of my go-to meal breakfast. It was. No big deal. My weekend wasn't ruined. I had a great time. And so it's, it's just time and time again, that I notice that getting back on plan at your next meal is absolutely key to this. Moving on. You just continue with your normal habits of creating your plan, prioritizing your protein, fiber, water, whatever are your most important pillars. All those habits you're working on that support you feeling your best.

10:03 Now, if you've been listening to this and thinking I should have written down those questions. I've got good news for you. I've pulled the, write it down and move on worksheet out of my client workbook and it's available to you for free. As a downloadable PDF in the show notes of this episode. There's actually five more questions on the worksheet to help you process through these overeats. This is what I consider like a guided journaling page. It's less of a homework worksheet and more of a, just a way to get those thoughts out and to journal in a way that's a little bit structured. And process these overeats. This is one that you can print out and just do again and again, if needed each time you have an overeat, you want to do this so that you can.

10:47 Develop different strategies for the different types of overeats you may be experiencing. If you are finding that you aren't able to make a dent in the number of overeats you are having. That's when it's time to get some extra personalized help from me. That's what coaching is all about. I help you see where your blind spots are. I help you figure out what isn't clear to you with your weight loss. So stop being confused. Stop beating yourself up after an overeat and get your free coaching call scheduled with me. Link is in the show notes. And Hey, while you're in those show notes, grabbing that freebie, scheduling your call. Why don't you scroll a bit farther down and tap that five-star rating and leave me a nice review.

11:28 That would make my day, have a great week. And thanks again for listening to the Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well podcast.