IN modern life overeating is increasingly used as an escape from negative emotions and experiences. I love it negative emotion They are in a hurry to eat something tasty.

What are reasons for overeating ?

The first reason for overeating:

Stress at work. Anxiety caused by problems in the family. People do not use food to satisfy primary needs...

Food is the shortest route to pleasure. When the stomach is full, signals are sent to the brain evoking feelings euphoria, akin to the effect of taking narcotic drugs. Of course, from consequences of overeating woman it will be difficult to get rid of, and cosmetics and shapewear will no longer be able to hide excess weight.

People ignore other sources of endorphins – the “enzymes” of happiness – sports. For men this is volleyball, football, for women - aerobics, fitness.

How to deal with gluttony.

Self-realization in work and creativity, music, dancing can bring no less pleasure than pleasure in food. And then, acquiring problems with overweight woman, is embarrassed to receive satisfaction from the listed alternative sources. Woman, which is the most negative thing, begins to acquire tensions not only in sex, in sexual communication. Woman embarrassed to make acquaintances, addicted gluttony with redoubled force, explains his timidity and failures in his personal life precisely to the ever-increasing excess weight.

The second reason for overeating:

– uncertainty, inability to defend one’s rights. . In a conflict situation, a person who has complexes about excess weight , inclined to yield to the opponent. But negative energy doesn’t go away, and women there are two ways out, either take out your anger on someone weaker - perhaps a child, but the negativity has no outlet - and the only way to get emotional “release” is overeat.

And finally

Third psychological reason for overeating:

– in a person’s life there are no other sources of pleasure, personal hobbies, or activities to his liking. The resulting empty niche is firmly occupied by insidious food - and, as a result, the hated gluttony.
That is why, along with studying the usefulness of a particular diet, treatment overweight with the help of medications, it is important to first find out the psychological reasons for overeating, liquidation methods consequences of overeating.

How to cope with gluttony.

First of all, this is a change in eating behavior: this includes correcting the eating style, helping a person to understand negative emotions, changing his view on the problem of nutrition, general behavior in society. When a person openly expresses negative emotions, he learns to resolve conflicts on his own, and the need to consume food in unlimited quantities often disappears dramatically.

If you have already decided to overeat, then eat a variety of effective fat-burning foods. They contain fewer calories and taste very good.

The most important thing is to remember that the world is multifaceted and diverse, do not put up a fight with your excess woman's weight, to the fore, eat to maintain the necessary tone, look for your activities and hobbies, learn to be confident and you will see - reasons for overeating will disappear by themselves.

Coping with gluttony You can either independently or together. Don’t be left alone with the problem, believe me, there are many like-minded people. Both those who were just at the beginning of the path, and those who successfully overcame this path, were defeated by a huge excess weight and is ready to support you with my advice. Go to forums on the Internet. Look for people like you, and then you will definitely be able to change your destiny.

Feelings of boredom, disappointment, anger, joy, fear, guilt, depression, fatigue can push us to consume food without any feeling of hunger. For example, to escape from unpleasant feeling and oppressive thoughts or to compensate for the unpleasant moments experienced. To figure out how we can resist this dependence, first of all, let’s consider how it is formed, and already knowing its nature, we can change something.

One day, when I went into a store, I noticed one of my patients, T., who was trying on clothes. She asked for size 48 pants. Since the trousers were too small, the seller offered to bring larger size. T. refused and left the store with an unhappy look. A few minutes later, walking past the nearest cafe, I again saw T., “eating” her disappointment with a large piece chocolate cake with a milkshake. Isn't it a familiar picture?

Who is guilty?

Very often it all starts in early childhood. We hear from mom: “If you behave well, you’ll get a pie,” or, in response to some failure: “Don’t cry, it’s better to take candy,” or after wrapping a broken knee with iodine, “Take a chocolate bar, and everything will go away right away.” Thus, we gradually get used to the fact that when things are bad, candy will make things good, and the pie begins to be associated with mother’s warmth and support.

Now let’s remember Pavlov’s famous experiment. For a month, he rang a bell when giving the dog food. As you know, salivation increases during eating. A month later, when the academician rang the bell again, but no longer bringing food, the dog still salivated. This is a classic conditioned reflex. And we, too, are walking sets of conditioned reflexes collected over our entire lives. And the search for something “tasty” after yet another disappointment in life is, figuratively speaking, the same dog salivating in response to the ringing of a bell.

If you look at “psychological hunger” a little deeper, you can easily trace a certain order of actions and thoughts, which, as chain reaction, leads from experience to food (see diagram)

When we encounter something unpleasant, or unwanted, or unplanned, we feel some discomfort. For example, boredom, stress, fatigue make us feel anxious and weak. Since we are all reasonable people, these sensations immediately form into a thought, which we, as a rule, do not even notice. In most cases, this thought will be associated with food (conditioned reflex - see above). Here are some examples.

What to do?

You can try to “hack” one or more links in the cause-and-effect chain. Most likely, you will not be able to intervene in all links at once - habits accumulated over the years do not give up so quickly. But if you step on them in small steps, starting with what is easier and only then moving on to more difficult moments, then success is guaranteed. So, how can you get to each link in the chain:

1 RIGITAL CAUSE It can only be identified and prevented. For example, one of my patients complained that every time an argument with children or parents inflates her to the limit. And then she “has to eat something sweet” to calm down. After she learned to avoid arguing with her parents and recognized the children’s right to make their own mistakes, the gluttony stopped as if by magic - the root cause simply disappeared.

2 FEELINGS AND SENSATIONS Of course, we cannot influence them. But we can influence the thought of food that creeps behind this feeling. You can try to catch this thought and change it. For example, to the thought “food calms down”, which flashes in a situation when we are angry, we can add “food calms down only for a minute.” If you repeat this to yourself many times, eventually the self-hypnosis will work. It's only important to remember Golden Rule: in order to catch this thought, you need to develop the habit of asking yourself “why?” every time your hand reaches for the refrigerator. Many of my patients have said that a note hanging on the refrigerator will remind you of this issue at a crucial moment.

3 REACTION As we spread the sandwich, we realize that this is already the eighth one in the last half hour. We swear to ourselves that it’s the last one. And after 5 minutes we do the next one. How to stop?

There are certain techniques that allow you to pull yourself together and correct the chain so as not to fall into the trap of a vicious circle.

Abstraction

Let's give an example. Sometimes while eating the phone rings, we answer, return to the table and realize that we no longer feel like eating. In the same way, in a moment of weakness, you can find something distracting: call a friend, walk the dog, keep your hands busy with knitting or the computer, etc.

Repulsion

While devouring the 9th cake, it is unrealistic to say “this is the last” and immediately stop. If this is the ninth cake, then this fact itself suggests that there are no mental strength We don’t have any self-control left, and we’re losing some self-control. It takes time to regain these strengths. Therefore, it is much more correct to look at the clock and say to yourself “okay, I eat whatever I want, but only within an hour.” As a rule, in an hour you can mentally prepare to stop “eating.” Many people reasonably remark: “but does this mean that we will continue to overeat this hour?” Perhaps, but most likely we would have continued anyway. And this hour will save the whole evening.

Replacement

You can try replacing high-calorie “delicious” foods with products containing less energy. For example, energy value A good handful of seeds or nuts is equal to eight slices of bread, and a handful of popcorn is only half of one slice. You can prepare a dish in the refrigerator in advance with hard vegetables that you can chew: carrots, celery, kohlrabi - they are low in calories and can be a good replacement, for example, for “innocent” cookies of 100-200 kcal each, which we chew out of boredom.

Monotony

The more varied the food, the more we can eat. Let me give you an old parable as an example. One day, a rich neighbor invited a poor neighbor to dinner so that he could eat properly at least once in his life. They brought the poor man a huge cauldron of the first course. He ate everything, exhaled with difficulty and said “ugh, I’ve eaten too much.” Then they brought the same large cauldron of the second course. The poor man ate everything again, exhaled with difficulty and said “ugh, I’ve eaten too much.” They brought even more of the third course. And the poor man drank it all. Then the rich man could not stand it and asked: “Tell me, poor man, why do you say every time that you have eaten too much, and then eat the same amount without any problems?” The poor man asked to bring a box, a bag of stones, a bag of sand and a large bottle of water. “Look, rich man,” he pointed to the box, “this is my stomach.” Then he filled it to the top with stones. “This was the first course,” he said, “you see, the box is full and won’t fit anymore.” Then he poured sand there, which found a place between the stones. “It was the second course. You see, the box is full again.” And finally, he poured water into it. And again the box was full... The same thing happens to us. Try eating a lot of purees. It seems that just a tiny spoonful of puree and everything will go back. But at the same time, we can eat something else without any problems, for example, a cake - and it’s as if we hadn’t eaten at all. And that’s why, when we grabbed waffles “in search of something tasty,” then if we want something else, we need to take waffles again, and not chocolate, cookies or halva. Since variety allows you to eat, as in the parable, infinitely much.

Autotraining

Prepare in advance and repeat short sentences to yourself in times of crisis. For example, “Should I choose chocolate or health?” etc.

Shutdown

If we find ourselves eating and eating and cannot stop, it’s worth, for example, leaving the house to simply switch off.

Promotion

You can create a new conditioned reflex in which food is replaced with something else. For example, if you want to buy candy, put the amount of their cost aside. Once a month, use the collected money to buy something nice (not useful, but pleasant) for yourself (not for your family, but for yourself personally). And gradually a new habit is created in which food no longer appears as a consolation prize.

Returning to the chain of cause and effect, it is important to remember that no one has yet recovered from a one-time outbreak of gluttony. But! When the whole chain goes along vicious circle, every overeating causes remorse, and this requires mental compensation, which again ends in overeating. Therefore, the main thing is not to let the circle close. You can’t give up on yourself and say “I’m already broke anyway, so I’ll eat everything I see.” This is equivalent to the fact that, having gotten lost, we continue to quite deliberately get even more confused (“maybe I’ll get out”), instead of returning to the starting point and finding the right road. It’s even worse if we tell ourselves “okay, I’ve already broken everything anyway, now I’ll break it for the rest of the evening, and tomorrow I’ll do a fasting day.” Such surges disrupt the balance of the body at the cellular level and force it to accumulate fat both on the day of overeating and on the fasting day.

Irina Strogach

Reason one: chronic otitis media

Frequent inflammation of the middle ear in childhood develops a tendency towards excess weight - in the course of a large-scale study, American epidemiologists were able to prove this. Having carefully studied eating habits and the health status of schoolchildren and adults with frequent ear infections, experts have discovered that this disease is harmful nerve endings taste buds. This manifests itself in the fact that we begin to give preference to fatty and sweet foods. The result for the figure is sad: according to statistics, those of us who regularly have to suffer from ear pain, are 62% more likely to carry extra pounds.

Action plan: the most ridiculous thing in this situation is to try to forever give up your favorite buns and forcefully choke on celery and carrots instead of sweets. This the right way cause stress and make you fatter.

Fatty and sweet – not necessarily rich buns and milk chocolate. Cut back little by little and look for healthy alternatives. If you want cream, you can eat low-fat pudding, yogurt, fruit jelly or oatmeal with cinnamon and fruit. Instead of sweets, you can snack on raisins and dried cherries.

Train yourself to have a hearty breakfast and lunch. To do this, fuel up with “long-lasting” carbohydrates and proteins: omelette with broccoli, tofu/cheese cheese and bell pepper; sandwich with slices of avocado, tomato and feta; porridge with a handful of berries and walnuts(oatmeal, rice, millet, buckwheat); dishes with legumes. They provide for a long time normal level glucose in the blood and relieve attacks of “sweet fever”.

Reason two: a delicious challenge

Intense mental work can backfire: it provokes spontaneous outbreaks of hunger. In blood samples that Canadian nutritionist Angelo Tremblay and his colleagues from the University of Laval periodically analyzed during the experiment, subjects during and after periods of intellectual work were found to have increased level stress hormones cortisol, glucose and insulin. These substances send hunger signals to the brain and increase the desire to urgently eat something.

Action plan: Choose the right candidates to be your allies. These products should, on the one hand, quickly give a feeling of fullness, and on the other, maintain it for as long as possible, at least several hours. Therefore, you will need food rich, firstly, in fiber ( whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes), secondly, an abundance of liquid (juicy fruits), thirdly, proteins (beef, fish, legumes).

Australian doctor Suzanne Holt and a group of colleagues, through experiments, identified the most satisfying foods. In descending order of satiety:

• potato,
• fish,
• oatmeal,
• apples and oranges,
• whole grain pasta,
• beef,
• legumes,
• grape,
• whole wheat bread,
• popcorn.

In addition, food rich in unsaturated oleic acid quickly “quenches” appetite and erases the feeling of hunger in the brain: walnuts, avocado, olive oil, salmon.

Sweets, alas, cannot boast of a high satiety index. On the contrary, chocolates, cream cakes, croissants, cookies and similar gastronomic delights not only burden us with extra calories, but also sneakily make us feel hungry. Reason – a large number of fats in confectionery products.

Reason three: wrong gender

Men are better able to resist the appetizing smells and tastes of their favorite foods than women - specialists from the Brookhaven Laboratory at the US Department of Energy received visual confirmation of this during an experiment.

The men and women tested were given positron emission tomography while they were tempted by their favorite foods (kebabs, pizza, cinnamon rolls, chocolate cake). The scanner images showed that it is harder for the weaker sex to resist food temptations than the stronger sex.

It sounds disappointing, but it’s a fact: hence the tendency to overeat and susceptibility to disorders eating behavior(nervous gluttony, anorexia, bulimia) in difficult life circumstances in women. The natural impulsiveness of nature also makes its contribution: to withstand for a long time starvation diet most women can't do it. Such methods of losing weight only provoke obesity.

Action plan: Try to eat, if not by the clock, but at a certain time: breakfast, lunch, dinner, plus two snacks. This style of eating normalizes hormonal background, promotes healthy digestion and brings to life a “corroded” stomach. For those who are used to swallowing food at great speed, it is better to exchange European cutlery for Chinese chopsticks: this will slow down the process of food absorption, and the brain will have time to receive a signal of satiety.

If you can’t keep up with your eating schedule, you can simply eat little and often (green vegetables, yoghurts, bread, cherries, plums (including frozen), citrus fruits) and big amount fiber. Recharge with endorphins and fill the deficit Have a good mood will help physical activity: walks at a brisk pace, jumping rope.

Reason four: chaos around

Dirt and clutter in the kitchen can cause unsuccessful attempts to lose weight.

This curious dependence on own experience discovered by American graphic designer Peter Walsh. In his book on how to turn a cluttered den into a cozy home, Walsh gave readers, basically simple tips: get rid of unnecessary things, get more air, moderate your appetite for new unnecessary purchases. To his surprise, Walsh turned out to be quite popular as... a nutritionist! Grateful readers flooded him with letters: it turns out that as soon as they cleared away the rubble in their kitchen, their diet also became more rational and organized.

Inspired, Walsh wrote new book″The chaos in the house puts fat on my butt?″ (Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? In it, he again calls for ridding your home of unnecessary things, and at the same time of food waste. The argument is ironclad: excess things are a consequence of an excessive unhealthy appetite , and an excessive appetite leads to an excess of extra centimeters at the waist.

Action plan: Once you put the surrounding space in order, the desire to overeat will appear, and with it the excess weight will begin to recede. Walsh advises “putting yourself on a diet” first of all in the kitchen. First, you should part with everything that is not used for cooking, serving and storing food.

Cracked dishes, a non-working mixer, an old toaster, a cutting board cut beyond recognition, a fondue pot and a microwave that haven’t been used for years.

It is also important to monitor the temperature in the room: the colder it is, the more you want to eat, warn experts from Harvard. This human “weakness” is often taken advantage of in restaurants, deliberately supporting low temperature in the halls.

Reason five: fast food

Addiction to fast food is a dangerous thing. The fact is that fast food, in addition to a huge amount of preservatives, flavorings and additives that are far from beneficial to our health, for the most part represents... simple carbohydrates. Once in the blood, they provoke a sugar attack - the level of glucose in the body decreases sharply, and after an hour and a half we experience an unpleasant gnawing feeling in the stomach - the body, hooked on fast food, requires a new “dose”.

Action plan: It’s worth trying to give up fast food and processed foods for at least a week or two and switch to healthy food, made with your own hands: making a vegetable salad, an omelet with tomatoes and herbs, mixing a fruit smoothie or a sour-spicy puree soup in a blender is not at all difficult and does not take much time. Or you can try baking your own homemade whole grain bread. This menu will allow you to feel full for a long time – primarily due to fiber. Gradually, your clogged taste buds will wake up, and you will be able to see fast food in its true light - a pile of salt, sugar and fat.

Polina Lungardt

Feelings of boredom, disappointment, anger, joy, fear, guilt, depression, fatigue can push us to consume food without any feeling of hunger. For example, to escape from unpleasant feelings and oppressive thoughts or to compensate for the unpleasant moments experienced. To figure out how we can resist this dependence, first of all, let’s consider how it is formed, and already knowing its nature, we can change something.

One day, when I went into a store, I noticed one of my patients, T., who was trying on clothes. She asked for size 48 pants. Since the pants were too small, the seller suggested bringing a larger size. T. refused and left the store with an unhappy look. A few minutes later, walking past the nearest cafe, I again saw T., “eating” her disappointment with a large piece of chocolate cake with a milkshake. Isn't it a familiar picture?

Who is guilty?

Very often it all starts in early childhood. We hear from mom: “If you behave well, you’ll get a pie,” or, in response to some failure: “Don’t cry, it’s better to take candy,” or after wrapping a broken knee with iodine, “Take a chocolate bar, and everything will go away right away.” Thus, we gradually get used to the fact that when things are bad, candy will make things good, and the pie begins to be associated with mother’s warmth and support.

Now let’s remember Pavlov’s famous experiment. For a month, he rang a bell when giving the dog food. As you know, salivation increases during eating. A month later, when the academician rang the bell again, but no longer bringing food, the dog still salivated. This is a classic conditioned reflex. And we, too, are walking sets of conditioned reflexes collected over our entire lives. And the search for something “tasty” after yet another disappointment in life is, figuratively speaking, the same dog salivating in response to the ringing of a bell.

If you look at “psychological hunger” a little deeper, you can easily trace a certain order of actions and thoughts, which, like a chain reaction, leads from experience to food (see diagram)

When we encounter something unpleasant, or unwanted, or unplanned, we feel some discomfort. For example, boredom, stress, fatigue make us feel anxious and weak. Since we are all reasonable people, these sensations immediately form into a thought, which we, as a rule, do not even notice. In most cases, this thought will be associated with food (conditioned reflex - see above). Here are some examples.

Since it is thought that determines behavior, the response will be gluttony, which in itself can become a new root cause for the next discomfort, since many of us feel guilty when overeating. Thus, the circle is closed, and everything starts all over again.