How To Stop Unconscious Overeating?
Have you ever popped a bowl of popcorn, flop down in front of the television, and…poof! Next thing you know, you’re scraping the bottom? Or have you grabbed a bag of cookies, hit play on your tablet streaming your favorite program, commence munching….and munching….and munching. Eventually, come to your senses, realize that you’re left holding a bag of crumbs? Maybe it starts by grabbing a late-night snack, hitting the vending machine at work, or just grazing when you’re bored.
Sounds familiar?
Mindless eating is when we eat with little to no awareness around our food or how full we feel.
On average, you make more than 200 decisions about food each day — but you’re only aware of a small fraction of them. The rest are performed by your unconscious mind and can lead to mindless eating, which may cause you to overeat, promoting weight gain. And usually, it’s followed by a flood of negative emotions, like regret and disappointment, which can stir up some pretty terrible self-talk, like:
Why do I keep doing this?
Why can’t I stop?
I can’t stop myself. Or
I feel like I have zero control.
While most people don't binge with the same abandon, even occasional bouts of unconscious overeating -- also called "eating amnesia" -- can lead to poor nutritional habits and undesirable weight gain. But many people enter the eating amnesia zone without even realizing it. Everyone eats this way to some degree, whether they're snacking in the car, cleaning the crumbs off their kids' plates, or at a cocktail party standing next to the buffet table with their hand stuck in the bowl of nuts. Any time that food is present, and it's not a sit down eating event, there is a tendency for this kind of hand-to-mouth eating without sensing that you're full -- or were even hungry, to begin with.
Here are twenty-one science-backed tips to stop mindless eating.
Be Attentive - Unplug
Eating without using your TV, computer, or smartphone may help decrease the amount of food your body needs to feel full and satisfied. It’s hard to pay attention to our food when the kids are bouncing off the wall, the TV is blaring, or our phones won’t stop vibrating. Additionally, our minds are racing with tonight’s plans, what happened at work, and worries about school or family. Simply put, we are buzzing with dozens of thoughts at any given moment. Everything around us is competing for time and attention, and stopping to focus on what and how much we eat gets moved to the back burner.
If you eat while you work or read or watch TV, or do anything in addition to eating, you’re going to eat more. Studies show that people who dine while engaged in social interactions, television shows, or mental tasks eat more than those without distractions. In one study in Paris, forty-one mostly healthy-weight women had lunch in the laboratory under one of four conditions: alone, with a group, while focusing on the food, or while listening to a detective story. When the detective story accompanied the meal, the women took in an average of about 72 more calories than during the silent lunch.
Indeed, distractions don't work the same way for everyone. Much depends on a person's relationship with food. People who generally keep a tight rein on their eating habits, called "restrained eaters" by researchers, are far more likely to overindulge when distracted than "unrestrained eaters."
Sixty female students at Swarthmore College (half identified as restrained eaters; the other half as unrestrained eaters) participated in a UCLA study in which they snacked on M&Ms, nacho chips, and cookies while trying to remember a series of slides. The "restrained" group ate much more during the memory task than when there was no task, but the "unrestrained" eaters ate less when engaged in the task -- apparently because they were busy trying to concentrate.
Eating while you’re distracted can lead you to eat faster, feel less full, and mindlessly eat more. Whether this is watching TV, listening to the radio, or playing a computer game, the type of distraction doesn’t seem to matter much. For instance, people watching television while eating their meals ate 36% more pizza and 71% more macaroni and cheese. Moreover, the longer the show, the more food you’re likely to eat. One study noted that participants watching a 60-minute show ate 28% more popcorn than those enjoying a 30-minute show. However, this effect seems to apply both to nutritious foods and junk foods since participants watching the longer show also ate 11% more carrots. Longer distractions extend the amount of time spent eating, making you more likely to overeat. Besides, eating while distracted may cause you to forget how much you’ve consumed, leading to overeating later in the day.
Indeed, another study observed that participants who played a computer game while eating lunch felt less full and snacked on nearly twice as many biscuits 30 minutes later than their non-distracted counterparts.
By putting your phone away, switching off the TV, and focussing instead on the textures and flavors of your food, you’ll quickly stop eating mindlessly and can instead mindfully enjoy your meal. Smell the roses. Live in the moment. Taste your food.
Make It Difficult
Mindless munching is often a result of easy snack access. To slow yourself down, put in some interruption that can make you think twice about how much you want to snack. If there’s a bowl of candy sitting at your desk, you don’t think twice. It’s there. But if you put barriers in your way, it’ll test how much you want this. There’s proof in the pudding. In a candy dish study, office workers ate 125 calories less when the dish was just 6 feet away from them than when the dish was at arm’s distance. Those seemingly trivial 125 extra calories can add up to a whopping 11 lbs in just one year.
Smaller Portions
The portion sizes of today's foods contribute to unconscious overeating. From 1977 to 1996, average portions of salty snacks, soft drinks, desserts, and fast foods in American increased by about 31% -- equaling about 78 extra calories per snack. And unfortunately, the more food you have in front of you, the more you're likely to eat. In a Penn State study, 51 men and women were treated to once-a-week laboratory lunches of macaroni and cheese in portions varying from 2.5 cups to 5 cups. No matter how much they ate when offered the smallest portion, the participants ate an average of 30% more (162 calories) when offered the largest portion. Most of them were pretty unaware that the portions had changed. Their hunger and fullness were about the same, regardless of the portion size and how much they ate.
Another study by the Penn State researchers looked at whether people compensate for overindulging one day by eating less the next day. For two days in a row, each participant received the same daily allotment of calories, in portions that ranged from 100% to 200% of the recommended daily caloric intake. Even when the participants had eaten several hundred extra calories on the first day, they ate just as much the second day. When the portions were doubled, the women took in 500 calories more per day and 800 calories more. So in two days, the women were accumulating 1,000 extra calories and the men 1,600.
Knowing When You're Full
What causes satiation? Most people would say they stop eating when they feel full. They feel full because their stomach is stretched. But one doesn't eat the same volume at every meal, so there has to be more to it than stomach distention. Hunger and fullness are complex mechanisms that operate differently depending on the situation and the person. Indeed, while some people happily wolf down an extra-large pizza and a liter of soda at a sitting, others declare themselves stuffed after a small soup and salad.
Even when people reach the point where they feel full, they don't always stop eating. If the environment is conducive to munching, as, at a party, it's easy to get carried away. And salty snacks, fatty foods, and sweets can often prompt people to keep eating long past their stomach's usual stopping point.
Sometimes you get bored of one food, but you still have just as high an appetite, or even higher, for another food. So while you can easily turn down an extra serving of carrots, you still clamor for that slice of carrot cake.
Food Is For Nutrition
Mindless munching is also a way of coping with feelings of anxiety and unhappiness. While indulging in an occasional "comfort food" at the end of a lousy day does little harm, frequently using food to escape from negative emotions may lead to more significant problems. Food does not solve problems. It usually sets you up for other bad feelings. After you eat that pint of your favorite ice cream, you'll still have the same emotional issues, and now you also have to cope with the guilt of overeating ice cream.
If you find yourself regularly using food to soothe your emotions, we recommend trying to work out your feelings in other ways, such as with exercise or relaxation techniques. But if you find you still can't control your eating, and it's controlling you instead, you should seek out professional help. The two questions which can help one change the way they think about emotional and mindless eating:
Am I using this food, or am I eating this food?
What’s bothering me? What am I hungry for?
Increase Your Eating Awareness
For milder forms of mindless munching, here are some do's and don'ts to follow.
DON'T:
Eat standing up, on the run, in the car, at the computer, or in front of the TV.
Deny yourself occasional treats. This just sets you up for failure.
Deprive yourself of food if you're hungry.
Use food to cope with stress or depression.
Get discouraged if you overeat -- you'll do better next time.
DO:
Eat sitting down and relaxed, in the place where you usually have your meals.
Stock your kitchen with healthy foods such as fruit, veggies, and low-fat yogurt.
Buy individual serving-size packages of snack foods so that you won't overindulge.
Put only a small serving on your plate at the start of your meals, and wait before you take seconds.
Put aside extra restaurant food at the beginning of your meal, or wrap it up to take home.
Soothe emotional upsets with exercise, a comforting bath, or a chat with a friend.
Keep a journal in which you write down the foods you eat and your feelings about your diet.
Changing a longstanding TV and cookie-chomping routine may be difficult at first, but it can be done. It just takes perseverance and willpower.
Don’t Bury The Evidence.
Use visual reminders of the foods and drinks you consume to help you stay mindful of how much you’ve already consumed. Behavioral scientists believe one of the main reasons people overeat is because they rely on external rather than internal cues to decide whether they feel hungry or full. Naturally, this can lead you to eat more than you need to. To demonstrate this point, researchers provided participants with an unlimited amount of chicken wings while watching a long, televised sporting event. Half of the tables were continuously cleaned, while the bones were left to accumulate on other tables. People with bones on their tables ate 34% less, or two fewer chicken wings, than people who had their tables cleaned. This can apply to any food that leaves evidence. You can do the same with wine. Serve new glasses of wine, and be sure to leave the old glasses out and the bottles too! Some people like to stuff their empty bags of chips and candy wrappers into the very bottom of the trash in an attempt to forget that they ate them at all. Don’t hide the wrappers! Leaving the candy wrappers on your desk at work or the chicken bones on your plate during the football game is an excellent way to remind yourself to slow down. When you’re partying with other people and having fun, it’s often easy to forget how much a person has drunk, whether it’s beer or soda. An easy way to keep track of things is to put the bottle-top in your pocket. That way, once you feel them, it’ll remind you how many you’ve had that night. It’s an easy way to keep track of something that it’s easy to lose track of.
Another experiment used bottomless bowls to refill some participants’ soups as they ate slowly. Those who ate from bottomless bowls consumed 73% more — amounting to roughly 113 extra calories — than those who ate from standard bowls. Yet, those who ate more soup didn’t feel fuller. Most also estimated their calorie intake to be the same as those dining from the regular soup bowls. These two studies show that people tend to rely on visual cues, such as chicken bones or the amount of soup left, to decide whether they’re full or still hungry. To make this natural tendency work in your favor, keep evidence of what you eat in front of you. Examples include the empty beer bottles you drank at a barbecue or the plates used for previous courses at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
See all you can eat and serve yourself in the kitchen and try to eat in another room. With snacks, always pour or put the snack into something. Otherwise, the hand always reaches into that bag without even realizing it.
Don’t Fall In “Health Food” Trap.
Not all foods labeled as healthy are right for you. Focus on ingredients rather than health claims. Also, avoid picking unhealthy sides to accompany your healthy meal. Thanks to creative marketing, even foods labeled as healthy can push some people to overeat mindlessly. “Low-fat” labels are a prime example, as foods low in fat are not necessarily low in calories. For instance, low-fat granola typically only has 10% fewer calories than regular-fat granola. Nevertheless, study participants given granola labeled as “low-fat” ended up eating 49% more granola than those provided with the usually labeled granola.
Another study compared calorie intake from Subway and McDonald’s. Those who ate at Subway consumed 34% more calories than they thought they did, while those who ate at McDonald’s ate 25% more than they thought. What’s more, researchers noted that the Subway diners tended to reward themselves for their supposedly healthy meal choice by ordering chips or cookies with their meal. This tendency to unconsciously overeat foods that are considered more nutritious, or compensate for them by having a side of something less healthy, is commonly known as the “health halo.” Steer clear of the health halo’s effects by picking items based on their ingredients rather than their health claims. Also, remember to pay attention to the side items you choose.
Ambiance Matters
You are likely to eat more with lowlights, soft music, muted colors, and attentive wait staff. Use the staff to learn more about how the food is cooked and ask your server about which dishes are healthiest. It turns out the dim lighting on your dinner date can affect more than the mood. A recent study shows that patrons dining in well-lit spaces are 16-24 percent more likely to order healthy dishes than those in dimly lit rooms due to a higher level of alertness. Cornell and University of South Florida researchers surveyed 160 patrons at four chain restaurants. Some diners were seated in brighter rooms, while the others ate in more dimly-lit spaces. Those sitting in the darker rooms ordered dishes with 39 percent more calories on average and leaned towards less-healthy items. On the other hand, those in the well-lit room skewed towards healthier choices. A replication of the study with 700 college-aged students found the same results.
Enjoy your dinner at the restaurant of your choice, being mindful of these factors.
Business parties
Take only two items of food on your plate at one time. Chow down on healthy food first, like veggies. While talking, set your food down, so you don’t mindlessly munch. When you enter the room, remind yourself of the purpose: Business or food?
Eat Slowly
Slowing down your eating speed is an easy way to consume fewer calories and enjoy your meal more. Slow eaters tend to eat less, feel fuller, and rate their meals as more pleasant than fast eaters. Scientists believe that taking at least 20–30 minutes to finish a meal allows more time for your body to release hormones that promote feelings of fullness. The extra time also allows your brain to realize you’ve eaten enough before you reach for that second serving. Eating with your non-dominant hand or using chopsticks instead of a fork are two ways to reduce your eating speed and make this tip work for you. Chewing more often can help as well.
Have Your Cake, But Skip The Bread
When eating out at a restaurant, limit yourself to the entree and just two other things—it can be two drinks, a dessert, and a roll, or it could be two rolls—it just can’t be all of the above. For example, if you have a weakness for bread, ask it not to be automatically served or ask for a limited quantity to be served. This way, you don’t even have to look at it. If you have to look at it continually, you’re going to keep asking yourself the question, “Do I want a piece? Do I not want a piece?” Save yourself. If you want to eat a dessert, skip the bread. You can share an entree with your companion or ask to pack half of your food for home even before they bring out your plate to the table. At home, put food in the back of cupboards or fridge. The idea is to make it harder to do the things we don’t want to do and easier to do the things we want to do.
Perception Is Not Reality
When people thought they were drinking “cheap” wine in a study, they ate less and stayed at dinner shorter. But the group with the “good” wine (they were the same wines) stayed longer and ate more and said the meal was better. Like a book, don’t always judge a wine bottle by its label or a restaurant by its exterior.
Drink Water
It’s easy for us to confuse dehydration with hunger. We know our body’s craving something, and we assume it’s food, but frequently it ends up being liquids, especially in active people. We would guess seven times out of ten what they think of as hunger is just slight dehydration. You don’t necessarily have to drink pure water, but make sure the beverage is low in caffeine and sodium. Caffeine and sodium dehydrate you even more, giving your mouth a feeling of thirst, which can lead you to snack.
Make Tradeoffs
A great way to reduce careless snacking is to make up some sort of condition every time you have cravings. For example, you can have anything you want from the vending machine if you are going to work out that day, or if you have a light dinner, something where there’s some sort of trade-off that you have to make. If you regularly stop by your favorite ice cream joint on the way home, start taking an alternative route home to reduce that temptation.
Smaller Packaging
Another external cue that can cause you to overeat is the size of your food packaging. Known as the portion size effect, it may contribute to significant weight gain over time. On the other hand, packages that include pause points may help diminish this effect, as they give you time to decide whether to keep eating. For example, participants eating potato chips from cans of Pringles in which every 7th or 14th chip was dyed red ate 43–65% fewer chips than those eating from cans with no dyed chips. Similarly, people eating from a large bag of 200 M&Ms consumed 31 more candies — 112 extra calories — than people given ten small baggies of 20 M&Ms. Favoring smaller packages can help you reduce the number of calories you consume by up to 25% without even noticing.
Reduce Choices
Reducing the variety of food flavors, colors, and textures you’re exposed to will help prevent you from eating more junk food. Research shows that having a wider array of food options can lead you to eat up to 23% more. Scientists call this phenomenon sensory-specific satiety. The basic idea is that your senses tend to get numb after being exposed to the same stimulus many times — for instance, the same flavors. Having a wide variety of flavors in the same meal can delay this natural numbing, pushing you to eat more. Merely believing there’s more variety can also fool you. Researchers found that participants given bowls with ten colors of M&Ms ate 43 more candies than those given bowls with seven colors, despite all M&Ms tasting the same. To make sensory-specific satiety work for you, try limiting your choices. For instance, pick only two appetizers during cocktail parties and stick to ordering the same drinks throughout the evening.
Keep in mind that this mainly applies to candy and junk food. Eating various healthy foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and nuts, is beneficial to your health.
Choose Your Dining Companions Wisely
When dining in groups, sit next to people who eat less or slower than you. This can help prevent overeating. When you are with one other person, you’ll devour 35% more; with a group of four, it’s 75% more, and with seven or more, it’s 96% more! Be mindful next time you’re in a group. Scientists believe that this is especially true if you eat with family or friends, as it increases the time you spend eating, compared to when you eat by yourself. The extra table time can push you to mindlessly nibble what’s left on the plate while the rest of the group finished their meal. It may also encourage you to eat a dessert you usually wouldn’t. Sitting next to slow eaters or people who typically consume less than you can work in your favor, influencing you to eat less or more slowly. Other ways to counter this effect include choosing in advance how much of your meal you want to consume or asking the server to remove your plate as soon as you’re done eating.
Use Smaller Plates And Taller Glasses
Studies show that people tend to eat 92% of the food they serve themselves. Therefore, reducing the amount of food you serve yourself can significantly differentiate the number of calories you consume. One easy way to reduce portion sizes without noticing the change is to use smaller plates and taller glasses. That’s because big plates tend to make your food portions look small, encouraging you to serve yourself more food. Using 9.5-inch plates instead of 12.5-inch plates can help you quickly eat up to 27% less food.
Studies show that using tall, thin glasses instead of wide, short ones can reduce the amount of liquids you pour yourself by up to 57%. Therefore, pick wide, short glasses to help you drink more water and tall, thin ones to help you limit alcohol and other high-calorie beverages.
Maximize Food Volume
High-volume foods help you feel full and decrease food intake at the next meal. Eating fiber-rich foods is an easy way to do this. Eating large volumes of food tricks your brain into thinking you consumed more calories, helping decrease the likelihood of overeating and weight gain. Researchers examined this effect by serving participants two smoothies identical in calories. However, one had air added to it. Those who drank the greater-volume smoothie felt fuller and ate 12% less at their next meal. An easy way to add volume to your meals without increasing the calorie content is to pick high-fiber foods with low-calorie densities, such as vegetables. That’s because extra fiber and water add volume, which stretches your stomach, helping you feel fuller. Fiber also helps slow down your stomach’s emptying rate and can even stimulate the release of hormones that make you feel satisfied. A good rule of thumb to maximize food volume is to fill at least half your plate with vegetables at each meal.
Follow Your Body’s Clock
Rely on internal cues of hunger rather than external ones to decrease the likelihood of eating more than your body needs. Relying on external cues like the time of day to determine your hunger level may lead you to overeat. A study demonstrated this idea by isolating participants in a windowless room with a clock as their only time cue. This clock was then artificially controlled to run faster. Researchers noted that those who relied on the clock to know when to eat ended up eating more often than those who relied on internal hunger signals. Interestingly, normal-weight participants were less likely to rely on the clock to determine whether it was time to eat. If you have difficulty distinguishing physical from mental hunger, ask yourself whether you would readily eat an apple. Remember, real hunger doesn’t discriminate between foods. Another telltale sign of mental hunger is wanting something specific, such as a PBJ. A craving for a particular food is unlikely to indicate real hunger.
The Bottom Line
Taking control of mindless munching is all about making conscious decisions—deciding to start eating, choosing to stay aware, and deciding when to stop. To transition from mindless to mindful eating, try some of the simple tips above. Keep yourself accountable. In doing so, you will improve your overall health. For the best results, choose just three of these tips and aim to apply them consistently for around 66 days — the average time it takes to create a habit. Excellence is simply a habit. Start now. Not later. Consistency is the key to looking great and staying healthy.
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Published 1/25/2021
Dr. Amar Singh, MD, and Dr. Poonam Singh, MD, are board-certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and American Board of Obesity Medicine. They specialize in preventing, treating, and reversing chronic diseases using an evidence-based holistic approach. They are specifically interested in weight management, hormone re-balancing, and longevity. The American College of Physicians has recognized them as Fellows, FACP, for their excellence and contributions to medicine and the broader community. They enjoy teaching, volunteering, and advocating for their patients. Their mission is to share simple, effective, and proven strategies that lead to meaningful, sustainable, and long-lasting well-being.
