Filed Under: Overeating
8 August 2024 | Written by Xenia Ayiotis
You’ve finished eating dinner and you are watching TV. You get a craving for something sweet. You’re trying to be “good” so you tell yourself you shouldn’t. Your mind keeps going to the ginger cookies (my favourite) in the cupboard. You think you’re being reasonable by telling yourself you don’t need them but the craving gets stronger.
When you can’t fight the urge any longer you get up and go to the kitchen and you say to yourself:
“I’ll just have one”
The combination of sweet ginger and the crunch has your tastebuds screaming for more.
You say:
“I’ll just have one more”
And that then leads to 3…4…feeling guilty and then…
“Oh well, I might as well finish the packet and get them out the way”
You blame yourself for having no control around food and promise to be good tomorrow.
Sound familiar?
This was me for many years.
In the 13 years I have been helping women heal their relationship with food, I am always on the lookout for the “I’ll just have one” thought. It may sound kind, but it’s actually restrictive. It almost always leads to some form of overeating. The other problem with this thought is that it’s usually preceded by an internal negotiation about whether you should eat or not.
We think that allowing ourselves to eat what we want will lead to out of control eating yet it’s restriction that increases the chances of binge eating.
Feeling deprived of our favourite foods makes us want them even more. And when it comes to these foods sometimes one cookie is too little to satisfy you and the packet is too much and you end up feeling sick. But saying you’ll “only have one” leads to eating the packet. You need to find your sweet spot of what is too little and what is too much. For me, it’s 3 or 4 ginger biscuits depending on their size.
So how do you practically do this? Try this experiment:
- If you have a craving for cookies, give yourself permission to have them.
- Take more than you would usually have and put them on a plate.
- Eat them with as much as awareness as possible, savouring the flavour and texture.
- As you are eating, check in with your body and your taste buds.
- During this process be curious and let go of guilt.
- Do not judge the cookies!
- Your mouth will always want more, the body knows when it’s had enough.
- Assure yourself you can always have more when you want them.
- If you want more, have more and stop when you feel satisfied (this takes practice).
- Move on with your day.
When you first try this, you may eat more than you want, most likely because you have been deprived. With practice and permission, eventually the cookies will lose their hold on you and you will be able to eat just enough for you. In Intuitive Eating it’s known as the habituation process. That is the power of awareness plus permission.
Have fun eating cookies!
Xen
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