I read a great article (by Krista Scott-Dixon) that gave some great tips on how to stop this cycle. One of them being; Stop Rationalising.
Weekends provide no end of comfortable justifications for eating non-nutritious foods:
• You were busy. Or maybe you had nothing going on.
• You were traveling. Or maybe you were stuck at home.
• You had to work. Or you had no work to do.
• You had family/social meals. Or you ate alone.
It’s almost like any excuse will do. Truth is, we are far from the powerless victims of circumstance we believe ourselves to be.
None of these reasons inherently cause overeating. They’re simply a rationalisation we conjure to make sense of and perpetuate unhelpful behaviours and overeating. The explanation simply matches what’s going on at the time.
It’s normal to sometimes want to eat rubbish. But rather than continuing to fall back in to this ‘victim’ narrative, take the time to ask yourself what’s really going on?!!!
Are you bored? Stressed? Sad? Happy?
Do this over and over and you’ll start to notice patterns. That is your chance to change overeating behaviour and to do something else address those emotions instead of bingeing.
I’ve recently done this myself and have noticed that I eat out of convenience and boredom. When I go around other people’s houses I always found myself snacking but I never did it at home. I put this down to the fact that there was never anything in my house because I never bought it. In fact It bothered me that little at home that even though there is a shop 30 seconds walk away I will never go out to get anything.
With the boredom I often found myself wanting to eat again not long after a meal. I knew I couldn’t be hungry because of the size of the meal and so narrowed it down to boredom. I found that simply keeping myself busy once I felt this urge resulted in me going hours without feeling the urge again, and usually by the time I thought about it again it was time to eat anyway!!