Make yourself - not a diet - responsible for what you eat

If you see yourself as an overeater, maybe it’s time to ditch the dieting approach and transform the way you think about food. Understanding the psychology of why you overindulge will help change habitual overeating patterns and you’ll be able to maintain a lower, healthier weight without dieting. These three concepts, when used together, work to help you manage your relationship with food:

1. Focus on cause rather than effect
Many people who overeat are overweight. Their preoccupation with weight loss means they stay focused on the effect of their problem (being overweight) and not the cause (overeating).

Learning how to stop overeating and putting this into practice will energise you, improve digestion, help you sleep better, boost self-confidence and allow you to be healthier. And you’ll feel empowered. Acknowledging these benefits and realising that you want them to be a part of your life will enable you to be happier eating less.

First, identify the reasons (other than weight loss) why you’d like to eat less, such as improving self-esteem and well-being. Focus on how you feel as much as how you look. Losing weight is very beneficial (assuming you are overweight), but it’s much more likely to happen – and last – if you also acknowledge the mental and physical benefits other than weight loss. Psychological and physical health both reflect and promote genuine self-esteem rather than an illusory sense of worth that comes from concentrating solely on appearance.

2. Take responsibility
Many overeaters, especially those who have spent years dieting, think about food in terms of what they are or aren’t allowed to eat. This prohibitive thinking creates rules and restrictions that make them think negatively about eating. They think, ‘I mustn’t eat any more biscuits, so I’ll be good and put the box away.’ (Compliance with the rules.) Or: ‘I know I shouldn’t eat any more, but I’m going to be naughty and have another biscuit.’ (Rebellion against the rules.) Being compliant may work in the short-term and is usually how diets work when they are successful. But compliance often encourages rebellion later and most people who rebel end up not only going off their diet altogether, but often feel as if their eating is more out of control than before they started dieting.

Instead of complying with the rules and regulations of a diet, acknowledge that you are completely free to eat anything and everything you want. Making yourself – not a diet – responsible for what you eat will help you make smart decisions about food. Because you are in control of your choices, you won’t feel deprived, even though you will eat less.

3. Embrace temptation
When you accept the feeling of being tempted to overeat, you use it as a means of working through and breaking free from this addictive behaviour.

You’ll still feel compelled to overeat in circumstances when you’ve done so in the past, whether it’s at dinner parties or during Sunday lunches. But by recognising this desire and not fearing it, you empower yourself.

Practicing this helps create a new association in your mind between food and positive habits. You’ll overcome the fear of food, and by realising you can resist the temptation to overeat, you’ll eat less. If you actively choose to resist the desire to overeat, the temptation will fade. In time, when you can identify and live with your addictive desire to eat, you’ll become more aware of your natural hunger, stop eating at the end of each meal and limit junk food and late-night snacking.

Good luck.

Gillian Riley is a writer, counsellor and seminar leader who uses cognitive techniques based on her experience of working with overeaters.