Mindless Eating

(h_stepper) #1

Hi all. I’m a 55 year old female and have been moderately Keri since last summer at the encouragement of my naturopathic doctor. I’ve lost a little weight but am hoping to lose more. I started out at 184 lbs and now run around 170 lbs. My biggest downfall is mindless eating. I’m not hungry but love food and can’t seem to help myself, especially in the evenings. Anyone have any tips for keeping my hand out of the proverbial cookie jar?

(Paula Green) #2

I stop eating after 7.30pm in the evening. It took a while to get used to but I find it easier to have a strict no eating rule rather than try to decide what I’m allowed to eat. Like fasting it’s become a freedom for me. No decisions. I think I sleep much better too as my food has plenty of time to digest before bed time.

#3

What helped me most with this was going zero carb (animal products only). When I was mindlessly consuming too much, it was a few nuts or a T or two of almond butter, but when limited to fish, meat, I found that the impulse to mindless eating was thwarted because I didn’t want a ‘snack’ of tuna or a burger.

This highlighted for me how I was eating mindlessly, and I think I could go back to basic low carb eating now and not eat mindlessly. But I’m finding zero so fulfilling that I’m not yet ready to abandon it.

(Jacquie) #4

I eat nothing after about 6pm. What I started to do a few years ago was to have my last meal and then brush my teeth. Ate nothing after that. Worked like a charm and I was an evening snacker big time. :wink:

(Arlene) #5

For me too.
Nuts and nut butters are a favorite of mine, especially almond butter on celery. I love it so much I just don’t eat it. Zero carb has helped me so much, just like Mare said, and recently doing IF. When meat, eggs, or cheese are your only options, mental urges for snacking is less problematic, at least for me. Cheese can be fun, especially fried. For a while I would “snack” on fried cheese. This was fine, but it didn’t help me lose weight, which is a big goal for me, so I don’t snack on fried cheese very often. With decadent meals of various meats; eating to satiety, I have lost the urge to snack, most of the time. Fasting also has given me a new perspective about food, hunger, mental food urges, etc.

(Andrea Krambeer) #6

Increase healthy fats, decrease protein and carbs. Healthy fats keep you fuller longer. Once you lower your carbs far enough to actually get into ketosis, your cravings for sugar/carbs will naturally subside because your body wants to use ketones for fuel.

(Liz) #7

I tend to have the same issue, when I’m bored, my mind just goes to food and then I eat whether I’m hungry or not (most of the time I’m not hungry at all). I had to find the way to break the continuous thought of food and I had a counselor that encouraged me to do something every time I got stuck in one of those spirals of thought that would release endorphins and kick me out of that almost “obsessive” food concentration: for me, thats been doing 10 burpees right there on the spot. I realize thats not going to be everyones trick out. But I have found that having something you can do when you catch yourself in a destructive pattern that releases endorphins is super helpful. Maybe its getting outside, maybe its jamming out on guitar, maybe its dancing to your favorite loud song. I don’t know what it may be for you but its help me to have that tool in my back pocket for those mindless moments when my mind just goes to food.

#8

Yep, a state change can work wonders! Can even be mental or verbal as well as doing a physical activity.

(h_stepper) #9

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I will definitely be trying many of them. In fact today I did a fast (fat fast), had nothing from about 10pm last night until 6 pm today, except a coffee with butter & coconut oil and green tea and water. I wasn’t really hungry until about 5. I felt pretty good, not lethargic at all. Hoping I can replicate this for a couple day a week and see if I can budge my weight stall.