I’m finding that oftentimes I can’t tell the difference between dehydration and hunger. I think this is due to my penchant for drinking soda and juice rather than water.
My solution: Drink a glass of water when I am hungry.
It works, it really helps me to assuage my hunger. If I am still hungry 15 minutes later then maybe I am actually hungry and not just thirsty.
Anyone else have any simple tricks to help avoid overeating?
Use smaller plates.
Learn what healthy portion sizes are, and learn to recognize them by sight.
Cook only what you need to eat.
Practice eating the right amount – it will feel normal to you after a while.
When in a restaurant, get half of your food to go ASAP.
If you can’t do that, pour water on your plate when you’ve had enough.
If you’re presented with a lot of food, you will likely eat a lot of food, even if you don’t need it.
Don’t serve yourself huge portions, even if you’re pretty hungry. If you’re still hungry after a normal portion, you can then go back for a little more, but you might not even need to do that.
My dr. told me to eat small meals every 4 hours. I balked at this, because I grew up having the traditional 3 meals/day. However, I’ve tried it. I am now more “eating to live,” rather than “living to eat.”
Yes, I feel somewhat hungry when I eat, but I find I eat smaller meals and I don’t crave food. I am eating a more balanced diet, as well.
I do drink all day, my decaf in the morning and then lots of water. If you don’t like plain water, a little lemon juice can help. I stopped drinking pop years ago and rarely drink juice.
These are my biggies. I also like to get an entree and split it with another family member.
Eat a small, healthy snack before going to a restaurant. That way, you don’t eat as much.
Carry a small, portable scale and measure what you eat. With me watching calories and our daughter’s insulin dosage being dependent on an accurate carb count, we weigh everything. That way, we know we’re getting what we need. Yes, we do it in restaurants as well. She and I both carry copies of the Calorie King book: that way, if we go out or if she has an unannounced snack at school, we can know exactly how much we’re eating.
The scale thing is cool, but if you don’t need to be that accurate, you can eyeball healthy portions. Meat should be the size of a deck of cards. Carbs should be size a baseball or slightly less (half that for women). Veggies, unless smothered in cream sauce, are unlimited.
I do, but not all in one sitting. I tend to graze when I’m bored or depressed.
Yeah. I don’t have to be that accurate myself, but since we’re tweaking her insulin dosage, we have to be as accurate as we can for her. So I just use it for my needs too!
The “meat should be the size of a deck of cards” thing has always bothered me. Maybe I’m just not spatially oriented enough, but if I’m looking at, like, thin-sliced ham, it’s really hard for me to tell how much of it would make a “deck of cards.” It’s a decent rule of thumb, but I wound up just weighing my portions for a while to figure out how much 3 oz looks like in various forms of meat. (That sentence sounded gross.)
I found that after a couple of weeks of strictly staying on my target calorie range, my sense of feeling full was much more appropriate, i.e., I’d start to feel full when I’d eaten a reasonable portion size. As opposed to when I was constantly overeating, and would not feel full until I had crammed myself full of food to the point that I nearly felt sick.
Another thing is that I try never to get really, really hungry. When I get really, really hungry I tend to want to binge overeat. So if I do get into that zone, I will usually eat a small piece of fruit or a yogurt, and then make myself wait at least 10 minutes before eating anything else. Typically, after 10 minutes have passed, the edge is gone from my hunger and I no longer have the urge to binge.
I also don’t eat while sitting on the couch anymore, which has eliminated most of my mindless snacking.
Yeah, one big thing I’ve noticed, after having lost weight and eating normal portions for awhile, I feel way worse after overeating than I used to, and I feel overly-full a lot sooner, too.
If you’re getting chips or something from a bag, don’t take the bag into the living room with you. Put them in a bowl. When you’re done with your bowl of chips, you can get more, but you have to take your damned bowl with you and put your second serving in a bowl, too. Most of the time I don’t bother to get back up.
At work, if I want another piece of candy or brownie or something, I don’t sweat it, but I do make myself wait ten minutes. After then I’ve usually forgotten about it - if not, then I really wanted it and it’s no big deal.
I definitely overeat. What’s worse is that I know exactly what I’m doing when I’m doing it. The upside of that is that I can make myself stop now. Two years ago that wouldn’t have been possible.
If I’m about to overeat, I usually try drinking some water, then find something to do that occupies both my hands.
If I’ve caught myself in the middle of overeating, I stop, drink some water and remember how I used to feel after overeating. Remembering that awful, sick feeling is usually enough to get me to stop. Being able to stop is also aided by eating every 2-3 hours. I don’t eat a lot at a time - just a handful of almonds or some veggies or fruit.
I’ve been trying to get used to the idea of eyeballing food. I don’t think I overeat to some extreme excess, just enough that it has consistently put on a small amount of weight over the course of about five years until one day I woke up thirty pounds overweight.
I’m really starting to find carbs unappealing as a whole. Which I think is a good thing. I generally prefer rice or potatoes to wheat as well.
The deck of cards meat thing is strange considering that a hamburger is larger than that.
I could practically go all day without having any significant appetite. But at night I become a monster food-consuming beast. But I know there’s one habit I need to break: When I’m alone I always eat in front of the TV. And of course that has become: Whenever I’m watching TV, I need to be eating. Yeah, gotta fix that.