How to Identify Triggers for Overeating

Knowing how to identify the triggers for your overeating behaviors is the first step in changing your habits and attitudes toward food. These triggers can consist of social patterns (eating out at restaurants frequently), emotional patterns (eating when sad or upset) and situational patterns (eating at certain times of the day as opposed to when you are hungry).

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Journal

1. Identify the social triggers for your overeating behaviors. For instance, review your eating habits when you are at restaurants and parties, and determine whether you eat more when you are out than when you're at home. Notice how much of your social life revolves around food, and take steps to engage in social activities that aren't centered around patterns of overeating.
2. Look at emotional cues that may trigger your patterns of overeating. Many people eat when they feel sad, lonely or depressed. Even saying that you overeat because you "like to eat" may be attaching or creating an emotional element to overeating behaviors.
3. Determine the situational triggers in your everyday life that may cause overeating behaviors. For instance, if you eat lunch because it is noon, and not because you are hungry, you are using situational cues to determine when you should eat. In addition, many people may suddenly develop and indulge a craving while driving past their favorite restaurant, or smelling a particular food that they enjoy, even though they are not hungry at that moment.
4. Keep a daily journal of your eating patterns to help you identify your triggers for overeating patterns. Write down everything that you eat each day, the time of day that you eat, and whether or not you were actually hungry at the time. Most dieters report that they often feel surprised when they see their total daily food intake actually written down on a piece of paper.
5. Make a conscious effort to ignore these triggers and cues whenever possible. For instance, simply refuse to give into a particular craving by engaging in a non-eating behavior such as exercising, drinking a big glass of water or even brushing your teeth. The ability to overcome a craving will make you feel much more in control of your eating patterns.

Tips & Warnings

• The National Institute of Health reports that two-thirds of all people who lose weight through a diet plan without changing their eating patterns gain all the weight back within one year.