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5 Reasons You Eat Too Much And How To Fix It
By admin | August 4, 2008
Eating too much, along with eating the wrong things and not exercising are the big three reasons why so many people are packing on the pounds.
Let’s take a look at five causes of overeating and what we can do about them so you can start losing weight and getting the healthy fit body you want.
Not Enough Protein
I discussed the importance of protein in a recent post about boosting your metabolism.
However, protein is also important in helping to prevent overeating.
Many people who think they are eating healthy by getting rid of junk food and restricting their fat intake are doing more harm than good.
They are forgetting to include protein. And pure carbohydrate meals are not filling.
You’ll eat more calories at each meal and you’ll be hungry soon after.
Just take a close look at what is considered a “serving” of spaghetti and then look at how much of it you actually eat. Ouch.
Protein helps to balance your blood sugar and helps you feel satiated.
Good protein sources include:
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Chicken
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Turkey
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Seafood
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Cottage Cheese
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Eggs
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Milk
- Lowfat Yogurt
When you eat, your body burns calories to digest the food. The thermic response (number of calories burned to digest the food) is as follows:
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Carbs - 100 calories ingested = 5 calorie thermic response
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Fat - 100 calories ingested = 10 calorie thermic response
- Protein - 100 calories ingested = 18 calorie thermic response.
By eating more protein, as well as eating more frequently (but not increasing calories), you will elevate your metabolism and burn more calories every day.
You Eat Emotionally
This is a big one for a lot of people. People soothe their emotions when they are stressed, tired, sad, unhappy and let’s face it, people use food to celebrate as well.
Research shows that a lot of overweight people are emotional eaters, whether the emotion is positive or negative.
You need to start making conscious food choices instead. Make sure there are healthy, low calorie food choices around and look to relieve stress in other ways, such as exercise.
Not Paying Attention
Multi-tasking is a great way to add unwanted pounds to your body.
If you eat while performing other tasks you’re more likely to eat more than if you were focusing on your meal.
By the way, this includes watching television, not just eating at your desk at work. When it’s time to eat, focus on your meal.
You’re Dehydrated
More people get dehydrated now than they used to.
A big reason for this is that fresh fruits and veggies, which contain a lot of water, were bigger components of our diet in the past.
Now, we are almost all mildly dehydrated.
We confuse the ‘hunger’ pangs of dehydration with being hungry, so we eat.
f you feel mild hunger pangs, drink water and wait a few minutes. The pangs will disappear.
Your Environment Sucks
This is a tough one. So many things center around food - birthday parties, anniversaries, work events.
A lot of work environments also push junk food by having coffee, donuts, cakes, bagels, etc. around all the time - especially if it’s a co-workers birthday.
This is really true for sales people who go out to lunches and dinners with customers.
And sadly, this can happen even more when people know you are dieting as envy, fear and jealously cause those closest to you to sabotage your success.
First try encouraging them to join you on your health and fitness quest.
A lot of times they push junk food at you to relieve their own guilt about how they eat.
Make it really clear to your friends and family what you are trying to do and that if they can’t respect that, they’ll need to stop being around you.
I know that sounds harsh but if friends and family can’t respect that your health is important to you… well, enough said.
Fix these five overeating problems and you’ll start eating less, eating better, and watch your body burn fat faster than it ever has before.
Topics: Nutrition |