4 Easy Ways to Stop Overeating

Eating healthy is a great start, but if you’re still eating too much, it can sabotage your health goals. Here’s how to stop overeating without feeling deprived.

March is the perfect time to improve your diet. Along with being the start of spring, it’s also National Nutrition Month. There are plenty of easy ways to eat more healthy. All it takes is a few simple changes and you’ll soon be on the road to glowing good health.

Healthy food might have healthier calories, but they’re still calories. If you overeat, you’ll gain weight. And before you ask, exercising more won’t help. Unless you’re thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, burning off excess calories is extremely hard to do. 

HOW TO STOP OVEREATING

When we think of losing weight we immediately assume we’ll have to endure a horrible, calorie-restricted diet that consists of kale smoothies and rice cakes. These approaches allow you to eat normally and still slim down. Give them a try and see for yourself.

1. Eat a Big Breakfast

When you start your day with a healthy, calorie-dense breakfast, you’re less likely to overeat later on. This is why it’s a good idea to “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper“.

Science also has shown that eating right before bed can cause weight gain. Because you’re not doing anything to burn them off, those late night snacks are more likely to be stored as fat. Annoying, I know.

2. Practice Hara Hachi Bu

Most Westerners learn to overeat from a young age. Our parents tell us to ”Clean your plat,” or “Eat all our vegetables,” and so on. While well-intended, this approach to nutrition has resulted in us ignoring our body’s full signals and eating more than we need to.

Hara Hachi Bu is a Confucian-inspired adage intoned by Japanese elders before a meal. It serves as a reminder for them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80 percent full. This simple phrase allows them to enjoy food while maintaining a healthy weight.

3. Invest in Smaller Plates

According to Blue Zones researcher Dan Buettner, living longer and feeling better is the sum of a few small, easy choices you can incorporate into everyday life. One thing he suggests is to invest in smaller plates.

His research showed that by switching from a 12-inch plate to a 10-inch plate, you end up eating 23 percent less without even trying. You’re letting your plate control your portion, which means you don’t have to employ willpower to eat less.

4. Don’t Eat in Front of a Screen

Nothing encourages mindless snacking or overindulging quite like eating in front of a screen. Whether that’s your TV, laptop, tablet or smartphone, it doesn’t matter. All devices have the same power when it comes to distracting you from real life.

A report published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition looked at how attention and memory affect food intake. What they found is that people tend to eat more when they’re not paying attention.

How you eat is just as important as what you eat. Cooking and eating together as a family (no screens allowed at the table), dishing up food in the kitchen and bringing your plate to the table, being mindful—all of these things combine to make eating healthy a holistic experience.