Ep 57 - Why You Eat Past Fullness (& How to Stop Overeating)

March 13 ,2025

Do you find yourself eating past fullness, even when you know you’re not physically hungry?

Maybe you finish your meal and still feel the urge to grab something sweet, or you eat until you're stuffed and then wonder why you couldn’t just stop.

When you understand why you’re eating past fullness, you can start making changes that actually work.

In this episode, we’re breaking down four common reasons why you eat past fullness and practical strategies to help you stop overeating

TRANSCRIPT:

  Hello, confident eaters. Happy Thursday. Today we are going to be going over the top four reasons you are eating past fullness and you continue to consume food even though your body doesn't need it.

Now there is going to be a worksheet that accompanies this episode. So make sure you go to the show notes for that. I am trying to create a worksheet for every episode for you to help you really dive in with the content a bit more and apply these concepts to your own life in a way that's really effective because listening is one thing, but actually implementing it is another. So make sure you go check out the show notes for this episode and everyone moving forward to find that worksheet.

Now, this first reason, I don't want you to turn the episode off because this reason is important. And I know you might've heard it before, but I want you to keep listening to all of these because you might be surprised by what actually resonates with you the most.

So the first reason why you're continuing to eat past fullness is because you are actually still hungry, because your body needs more food. So let's talk about this. When you stop dieting, we often have an unrealistically low expectation of what our bodies actually need at a meal.

I remember when I first stopped dieting, I was completely shocked at how much food my body actually needed. I used to eat these really tiny, quote unquote, clean meals, and then I'd binge later and wonder what was wrong with me. But now, today, my meals are probably like twice as big as they were when I was binge eating because I stopped restricting.

It wasn't that in the past that I had no willpower it's that I was under eating without even realizing it. I am personally not a big snacker nowadays either. I really like my meals to last me four or five hours or so, so I want them to be truly satisfying.

When you are under eating, your body will do everything in its power to make sure you get more food because our brains are built from thousands of years ago. They haven't actually changed that much and it wants to make sure we don't starve.

So if you feel like you are constantly overeating, I first want you to look at what you're eating.

If you were eating plain salads with chicken for lunch and dinner, you might feel physically full, but your body still might not have gotten everything it needed or enough calories. You might need to add in more carbs or protein or fat or all of the above, or just a larger quantity of those foods to make sure you're getting enough.

Now, if you've been dieting for a really long time or restricting in a calorie deficit, you might not even feel super hungry, but you still might have this desire for food. Because the thing about a calorie deficit is if it's been a large deficit too quickly for your body, your body sees that and wants to make up for it.

Think of it like borrowing a really large amount from the bank and suddenly needing to pay that debt back. That is what your body is looking at. It's saying we have had too little calories. How can we get that big sum back? So this is why sustainable weight loss actually happens very slowly. Because the calorie deficit needs to be small enough that it doesn't send your body into this alarm panic mode.

So, for what most research suggests is that no more than like 100 to 200 calories in a deficit a day is sustainable. And that is definitely a lot smaller than what I was doing. I was doing like five, six hundred, seven hundred calories at a time to restrict and that is way too much for our bodies.

Now, this doesn't mean you need to count calories, it just means that you need to make sure you're fueling your body properly if you ever want this to stick, because if you're still trying to restrict and you're still binge eating, chances are you're actually gaining a lot of weight. And so I know sometimes we go to, I just want to lose weight, I just want to lose weight, but we need to pause that at first to make sure we stop gaining weight and we need to stop binge eating and focus on that goal first.

So your brain needs to know that there's an abundance of food and feels safe around it. It needs to know that food is not disappearing anymore, that diet doesn't start tomorrow. So ultimately if you feel like you're eating past fullness a lot, you're constantly wanting to eat past fullness, it might just be a judgment on your body of how much you think it needs. You might think you're actually eating too much, but it could be the perfect amount for you in this moment.

Now, in my Confident Eater program, we do what I call a four W's food diary. We look at four things. When you started eating, where you were eating, what you were eating, and why you were eating. And this is something you can start for yourself this week, but I personally take a look at every single one of my clients food diaries to make sure that you are in that enough range. So if you have questions on, will this problem apply to me?

And Am I truly getting enough food? We'll take a look at your diet history and see if this extra hunger may apply to you. So my solution here is I really want to make sure your meals are truly satisfying. So try adding in some carbs, some fat, some protein. See if that makes a difference. Just look at it as a big science experiment.

And I want you to normalize for yourself eating more at meals. So you're not constantly thinking about food all day. Look at what other natural normal eaters around you are eating. Not to completely copy them, but just to get an idea of like, what a normal meal looks like, because I know that perception can get skewed at times after years and years of disorder, dieting, eating.

The second reason why you might be eating past fullness is because you're getting into a scarcity mindset. So take a moment and imagine this. You might've had this happen before where you're on vacation and there's a giant buffet with all of your favorite foods and you think to yourself, I need to take advantage of this because when I get back home, I'm going to eat clean again.

I'm going to be good. I'm going to get healthy. So then you eat everything, you pile up your plate at the buffet, and you end up overly full, stuffed, guilty, telling yourself that you have no self control. The truth is though, it's not about self control here, it's that you've gotten into a scarcity mindset.

So a scarcity mindset is when your brain believes food is scarce. Whether food is actually scarce or not in the world does not matter, because for the majority of us, Fortunately, we have food abundance. There's food all around us. There's a grocery store every half mile. There are gas stations and fast food. Food is all around us.

But if we've ever restricted food in the past, your brain thinks that food is a scarce resource because we've artificially taught our brain that there are only limited amounts of food on this planet. And again, because we have a brain that's built for survival, limited resources will impact our decision making.

And our brain will want to hoard everything when we do have a lot around to try to help us. So the second you're around an abundance of food, your brain says, wait a second, we might need this. So that leads to overeating. This can also lead to actually hoarding food. This is a big thing I see when you're starting to recover, is you're constantly going to the grocery store, buying all the foods on sale, your cupboards are overflowing, your fridge is overflowing, you have three freezers, because you feel like food is going away and that's your brain trying to protect you.

So your brain's trying to get all the food in right now while it's still available and overeat because it might not be there later. A scarcity mindset can look like thinking, there's never enough or I need it all right now. And a scarcity mindset can also come up when there's thoughts of future restriction.

So even if you're not currently restricting your food, if you're thinking about being good or cutting things out tomorrow, that also counts and can trigger this mindset. So this might sound like today I'll have this final cookie, but tomorrow I'm going to cut back on all of my sugar and be good so I can lose more weight.

Or, I can be bad at the birthday party today, and I'll get back on track when I'm home later. Or, let me eat all of the ice cream in the freezer now, and then I just won't buy it again next time. Those are all examples of scarcity thoughts that are going to lead you to eating more. This mindset encourages all or nothing thinking because we believe that the food is going away soon, so we might as well get it in all right now and keep eating. So the solution to this is to remind yourself that food is always available to you and to get rid of these artificial rules and guidelines that you have for yourself because you're the one who made them up. That's the good news, is because your brain made these rules up, you can decide to stop believing them and to let them go. And I know that it can feel scary at first, but just try to ease up on them a little. Even if you don't fully get rid of these food rules, it's okay to still have guidelines and boundaries for ourselves, but all of these strict rules of, I have to be good tomorrow, I can't have any more sugar, those are all the things that are triggering this overeating. So be aware of these mentally restrictive thoughts.

The third reason you're eating past fullness is because you're getting perfectionistic. You're trying to get eating exactly right. The perfect portions, the perfect level of fullness, never eating too much, never too little. I used to get so confused on why when I was full I would actually end up binge eating more.

I was like, okay, I'm fueling myself really well. And so this might be on the other side, if you like, are like, I am clearly, I am eating three meals a day. I'm eating snacks. They are filling. They are delicious. They keep me satisfied. And I still want to eat more when I'm full. Maybe you'll find yourself deciding that because I'm already full I've ruined it and I might as well keep going. So the second you feel slightly too full, a little bit uncomfortable, you think that there's no way of correcting this and so you just keep eating. So maybe you had lunch, you had a few bites too many of your chips, and so you figure might as well have a big dinner as well and start fresh tomorrow.

So notice how this quest for perfection around fullness and around our body signals and around food is actually making us less perfect. It actually ruins it more. Where the truth is, there's no such thing as a perfect eater. I am not a perfect eater. I can promise you. Sometimes after a meal, I choose to go back for a little more or have a little sweet, and I just don't make it a big problem.

I just move on because I know it doesn't happen all the time. And I also know I don't have to be perfect to get the results I want. You don't have to be perfect to feel amazing in your body. You don't have to be perfect to have the health you want. You don't have to be perfect to have the body you want.

You can have flexibility within it. And the ironic part is, is when you are more flexible, you are actually going to get to your goals faster. You want to aim to just be a good enough eater. Good enough that you feel good enough in your bodies, most of the times. And when you make a choice that doesn't feel good for your body, learn from it, forgive yourself, and move on.

So the final reason we're going to cover today is you might be eating past fullness if you are zoned out. Now we can be two types of zoned out. You can be zoning out with distractions, so whether that's your phone, the TV, you're working while you're eating, or we can zone out emotionally. So let's talk about zoning out with distractions first.

So, as I mentioned, if you are scrolling TikTok on your phone while you're trying to eat lunch, or you are deep into a TV show, or you're at the movie theaters and you hit the bottom of the popcorn bucket, you didn't even realize it, that is because these things are pulling our attention away from the food and from our body and onto them.

We only have so much attention we can use at one time. If you've ever tried to work with loud music or people in the background, you might notice it's a little bit more difficult because our brain is trying to pay attention to those things and it's hard to pay attention to multiple things at once.

So this makes us less aware of our true fullness. You might not even recognize that you're full. Or you might think you're not full when you really are because you just didn't even because you weren't even present for the sensations that were happening in your body. You also might leave your meal feeling less satisfied even if you ate enough. Because you barely tasted the food you might come out of that and saying I want more of the taste. That taste was supposed to be delicious and I didn't get to experience that so now I want to go back and eat more.

Then the second part is if we're zoned out emotionally. So if you had a stressful day and instead of sitting with that discomfort, you zone out with a pint of ice cream, you are not processing your emotions.

I'm going to redo that because that notification came up. So if you had a stressful day and instead of sitting with that discomfort, you zone out with a pint of ice cream, you are not processing that stress. You are letting your nervous system become overwhelmed and not doing anything about it. So, you're not going to be present for the experience of that emotion, which is going to lead you numbing out and trying to escape, escape it through food.

So we need to stop resisting how we're feeling and start allowing our emotions, because it's not the ice cream that's the problem, it's the fact that you weren't present for the experience of the ice cream because you were so in your head, you were so distracted, you were so zoned out because you didn't want to feel how you were feeling.

So, I want you to try eating without distractions, even if it's just for a couple bites. See if you feel more satisfied. See what you can notice. I, just before recording this podcast, I had a little bite of cookie dough, I keep this little cookie dough package in my fridge for like little treats when I want it, and I can feel 100 percent satisfied with just like three bites of little cookie dough because I'm fully present for the whole experience.

I get what I want out of it. And you might surprise yourself of how little food you actually need when you notice how good it tastes from being present with it. Food tasting good is not a problem. It's not a bad thing for you to enjoy food. You're supposed to enjoy food. But the good news is when we're present for the experience of enjoying food, we actually get what we want out of it and then we want it less.

And then check in with yourself. Am I eating this food right now because I'm physically hungry or because I'm looking for relief from something else? If hunger is not the problem, food is not the solution. Food cannot do anything for you other than give you energy. And give you energy in the sense of filling your hunger. It can't actually give you energy if you're already full. If you're already full, it'll make you more sluggish and take away your energy.

So questioning, what am I, might, so questioning, what might I need instead if it's not the food? Now, I finally want to let you know,

the last thing I want to leave you with is to not demonize feeling full. We are supposed to feel a comfortable level of fullness and satiation after we eat. Natural eaters feel sensation of fullness. They feel a little bit of stretched in their stomach. They feel their food in their body. And that's a natural feeling that we're supposed to feel.

Just like we're supposed to feel hot, we're supposed to feel cold, we're supposed to feel the need to go to the bathroom. It's just information letting us know something. And also, natural eaters do overeat at times. I still overeat on occasion. So not over, so not every single instance of eating past fullness needs to be ultra assessed, looked at in depth, and analyzed.

Sometimes it's just, whoops, I had a little bit too much to eat. I ate a few bites past fullness and I'm just going to move on. Now, if it's happening frequently, of course, we want to look at it and see why that might be, but I want you to get out of this perfectionistic mindset and know that eating past fullness every now and then is not a problem.

And when we can accept that, that is going to allow you to be even that much more of a natural, normal eater. Talk to you next week.