Eating too much – what’s the answer?

Your metabolism slows as you get older, so if you are still eating the same amount of calories but doing less, or no, exercise you are not burning the excess that your body will store.

If you continue following this routine, as you get older you will see an increase in weight gain, which will become progressively more difficult to remove.

We all know how much we should eat, but when we eat out, go to a friend’s for dinner, take a holiday on a cruise, or to a hotel where food is provided, or are simply just comfort eating, we force more, much more, food into our bodies than is really needed.

It is better to leave the table feeling somewhat satisfied than extremely bloated, full and uncomfortable.

If you feel you are eating too much, unless you fit a gastric band, only you can put it righ.

The worst case scenario is to feel you are eating too much and then become bulimic. This is a serious eating disorder and will cause irreparable damage to your body through the internal organs, and could be fatal.

There are various ways to control your ‘overeating’. However, it will require some commitment. It would help if family and friends could support you, as in some cases it is their fault that you are overeating in the first place.

Many mothers see feeding as an expression of love and therefore a healthy appetite. Seeing their children, and later adult children, eating the huge meal placed in front of them is satisfying and gives the mother a feeling of doing the best for her children.

If you are one of those mothers, it is the worst kind of love you could give your child – especially if the food is the wrong food.

I met the parents of a four-year-old overweight child who asked my advice to help with their child’s weight gain. When I discovered what the child was eating, the situation became clear.

I was told the child would eat nothing but ice-cream. My first question was: “who buys her the ice-cream?” The response was that she would eat nothing else. I repeated my initial question.

The parents could not see the child was not to blame for this situation. They were raising a child destined to live a very short life.

When giving up smoking or drinking or any bad habit, you have to want to give it up. If you are a person who overeats consistently, the desire to stop has to come from deep within you. If you can identify that passion and desire, then you are already on the road to healing the problem.

There are some options to controlling overeating. Not everyone is satisfied by three meals a day. For some – let’s call them grazers – eating several small meals per day would suit them much better than the conventional way of eating.

Providing that meals are kept small and healthy, the body is satisfied by the continual grazing of food, just like cattle. However, this form of eating requires careful planning. Usually six meals are the optimum and can be planned as follows:

Breakfast, mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, then either tea and dinner or dinner and supper, depending on your schedule, or hours of work, and the time you go to bed.

It is vital to plan using a food diary to begin with, so that you don’t eat six large meals and defeat the object of the exercise. Alternatively, you could control your desire to eat with constructive snacking.

Medical doctor David Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Research Centre in Connecticut says that “snacking helps you avoid the waning of energy that comes with consuming large meals”.

He goes on to say that “there is even evidence that spreading calories out in frequent mini-meals and snacks requires less insulin, which can reduce your risk of developing diabetes”.

Effectively, when you snack, you fill in nutritional gaps. This can be done by boosting your intake of fruits and vegetables. It keeps your mood on an even keel and ultimately helps with appetite and weight control.

This plan could go completely wrong if those snacks or mini-meals were the wrong type of food.

For example, snacking with crisps, chocolate and sweets is not the answer. If a sugar craving is your problem, eat plenty of fruit in a huge variety. After a few weeks, you will lose these cravings.

So how can you begin to organise your life to change your eating habits?

The first thing you need is a food diary. Begin by writing down your present food intake for a whole week and review it. If you are totally honest you will be shocked by the volume of food you eat and when you eat it.

Secondly, re-write the diary either as six mini-meals or three meals with a snack in between.

It is important to be practical. Ensure they are foods you like, and can be bought easily and taken to the workplace.

For example, snacks should include all types of fruit, nuts (not salted), dried fruit, crudités, rice and oat cakes, and smoothies.

Small mini-meals could include oat cakes with hummus and a piece of fruit, scrambled eggs, a baked potato, soup, small salad, dips with raw carrot, cucumber or any crudités you prefer, then a normal meal such as chicken/fish with vegetables or salad but on a much smaller scale.

If you eat pasta and rice, include them but on a much smaller scale.

The best solution to eating smaller portions is to put away all your dinner plates and eat from side plates or small bowls. There is always a tendency to fill the plate, so the larger the plate, the larger the portion.

Ultimately, over-eating has become a habit. It is a habit to be broken and following these guidelines will go some way to helping you break that habit. However, in the end, you are the one who must want to do this, so approach it as a challenge.

Remember, a habit is only a habit when you have done it for 28 days.