Why is it so hard to stop overeating?
(16 minute read)
Imagine if overeating wasn’t a challenge. Obesity is wiped out. The rates of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke plummet. And everyone starts living longer, healthier lives.
It isn’t crazy.
For most of human history, being overweight was exceedingly rare, and the majority of our ancestors possessed six-packs. Think about that. The six-pack was average.
Compare that to today. Nearly three out of four American men are overweight or obese. And we now have a childhood obesity problem.
The contrast is stark. And it raises a question. What changed? How has it become so hard to avoid overeating?
In this guide to overeating, I’ll show you. .
Let’s get started.
Why is nearly everyone struggling with overeating?
Is it because we’ve become gluttonous?
No, it isn’t. In 2018, nearly half of all adult Americans tried to lose weight. And people on average try 126 different diets over the course of their lifetime. The will is there, even if the results aren’t.
Did our genes change over the intervening millennia?
No, it doesn’t look like it. For one thing, significant genetic changes don’t occur that fast. For another, genes seem to have a relatively modest impact on being overweight. Of course, there are exceptions and some people face a greater genetic challenge then others. But genes aren’t fate.
Is it because they ate a special diet?
Nope, probably not. Our ancestors thrived on almost every imaginable combination of foods. Some diets are probably more in line with the average ancestral diet than others. But the point here is that you can find examples of our ancestors thriving on a fairly wide range of diets.
This is also confirmed by modern anecdotal evidence. For any given diet, you can find a parade of healthy, lean exemplars. It doesn’t seem that success and failure hinges on any specific diet, even if some are better than others.
Is it because hunter gathers move more?
This is a bit more complicated. Movement is great and healthy. It has many important health, fitness and lifestyle benefits. Moreover, moving more is a great weight loss strategy.
So it matters.
But it doesn’t seem to directly impact the energy balance differences between westerners and our ancestors. And therefore it probably isn’t directly responsible for the contrast in weight.
In other words, it’s certainly possible to maintain a healthy weight while being mostly sedentary. But you typically can’t salvage a terrible diet with just exercise.
Key Message: modern overeating is not due to individual failings. People weren’t more virtuous or disciplined ten thousand years ago. Overeating and diet failure is therefore primarily environmental.
So what changed in our environment? What are the root causes of overeating?
1) Food Overabundance
One of the biggest environmental changes is food availability. We evolved under food scarcity. We worked hard for every meal. If we were lucky enough to take down a large animal, we most likely gorged. No self-restraint. No discipline.
But in our modern environment, food scarcity is no longer a problem. Now we have an overabundance of food. Our impulsiveness, our sense of hunger and our satiety signals are not well adapted to that. You can probably imagine how this plays out in practice.
How hungry do you need to be to risk your life hunting?
How hungry do you have to be to open a candy bar wrapper while binge watching Netflix?
Making food even a little inconvenient can influence consumption. Whether or not you store food on the kitchen counter effects how much you eat. Simply clearing the counter and adding the inconvenience of opening cabinets can reduce overeating.
Similarly the size of your portions effects how much you eat. The more food you have on your plate the more you are likely to eat. Simply building awareness of your portions and learning to put less on your plate can reduce overeating.
We are impulsive creatures driven by external cues. A large percentage of our daily activities are mindless habits. They occur without a conscious decision. Our consumption of food all too often operates like this. We eat what’s available, and we do it without thinking about it.
In other words, our hunger and satiety signals have not evolved for a superabundance of food. We are not adapted for it. We are wired to grow hungry enough to spend long hours searching and working for food. And we are wired to overeat at every opportunity.
That’s the bad news.
Here’s the good news: the majority of your habits can be controlled by your environment. By shaping your food environment, you can make it easier to eat according to your plan.
Shaping Your Food Environment
Do you keep food on your counter? Is it healthy or unhealthy?
The foods you can see are more likely to be eaten then foods you cannot see, and having food visible increases your sense of hunger.
In your kitchen it should be more convenient to eat healthy than unhealthy. Treats and moderation foods should be hard to find, and the kitchen counter should be free of food. This may seem like an obvious mental trick, but it works.
What size plates and cutlery do you have?
Nutrition experts will unwittingly eat 31% more when given a larger bowl and 14.5% more when given a larger spoon. These are nutrition experts. The psychological impact is powerful.
What do you keep in your fridge and pantry?
What do you keep in your fridge and pantry? That is what you are going to eat. This goes for both healthy food and unhealthy food.
A house with nothing but healthy food makes a healthy diet easy. A house with nothing but unhealthy food makes it impossible.
Do you have enough healthy food available?
Keep the fridge and pantry stocked. If you run out of the healthy foods you like, you will struggle. Hunger is the number one killer of diets.
Do you have good grocery shopping habits?
Grocery stores are designed to bypass your executive brain and cause impulsive purchases, and you do not impulsively buy health food.
Therefore, bear in mind that the grocery store has been designed to cause you to buy unhealthy food. It is an attempt to manipulate you.
Luckily, with some practice you can avoid impulsive purchases with three simple rules.
Do not shop hungry.
Make your shopping list in advance.
Do not buy food that is not on your list.
These may seem like silly mental tricks.
They are silly mental tricks! But they work. They have been studied extensively. You can give your diet a huge push in the right direction with some creative planning. If your favorite healthy snack takes 15 minutes to create, and your favorite unhealthy snack is just a plastic wrapper away, which are you going to eat?
Take Home Message: Food preparation is what separates the pros from everyone else.
2) Industrial Food
Living under food overabundance is far better than living under food scarcity. There’s nothing fun, romantic or good about struggling day after day to find your next meal.
One of the reasons we no longer struggle is the advent of industrial food. That’s obviously a huge plus. But it makes it difficult to avoid overeating.
One recent study demonstrated just how much it matters. The study participants were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. One group ate highly processed food (think burgers and fries).
The other group ate minimally processed food (think salmon salad). After two weeks, the groups swapped diets for another two weeks. Again both groups were allowed to eat as much as they wanted.
At the conclusion of the study, the researchers discovered that when the groups ate highly processed food, they ate about 500 kcal more per day.
Think about that!
The group eating whole foods ate 500 less kcal per day. And they did it on accident. They weren’t trying to diet.
Let’s put that in perspective. 500 kcal per day is 14,000 kcal every 4 weeks. That’s about 1.5 pounds of fat loss per month.
Imagine losing 1.5 pounds per month by accident. No hunger. No depravation. You can see how movie stars get shredded. They hire a personal chef and nutrition coach. They eat amazing gourmet meals and just let the magic happen. It’s basically cheating.
So how exactly does this work?
First, industrialized foods are calorically dense.
Processed foods have more calories by weight than minimally processed foods. This matters because, how full you feel depends primarily on the volume of food you eat. A big plate of food is more filling than a small plate of food. You have stretch receptors in your stomach that communicate fullness to your brain. As you eat, your stomach stretches, and as a result, you feel full. It takes time for all of this to happen, and that’s why eating slowly and mindfully matters.
The difference between the caloric density of ancestral foods and modern foods can appear small. But small differences add up fast, and this is one of the reasons those study participants ate 500 kcal less per day.
Second, processed foods have a lower thermic effect of food.
What does this mean?
Essentially the manufacturing of industrial foods is similar to aspects of digestion. Industrial foods are refined, broken down and made easier to digest. Think about an apple versus a potato chip. And think about the amount of work involved in digesting the apple versus digesting the potato chip. That difference in work adds up in the form of Calories.
The result is that calorie for calorie whole foods result in fewer calories than processed foods once the thermic effect is factored in.
Again the difference at first glance can appear small. But again, a little advantage or disadvantage can add up fast.
Third, industrial foods target our tastes and reward center.
Everyone likes the same foods: sweet, salty and savory. The desires for these flavors correspond to specific reward pathways related to glucose (sugar), fats, salt and glutamate. They are the means by which your body gets all the nutrients it needs.
If you only liked sweet, you’d get sick from a lack of fats and proteins. If you didn’t like sweet, you’d miss out on all the calorically dense and nutritious fruits. For this reason, everyone likes the same basic tastes.
When food companies refine these substances, they increase the amount of dopamine they produce. Over time, this increased stimulation of the reward pathway increases our desire for these foods.
This makes it even harder to avoid overeating the overabundant, calorie dense foods that surround us.
Fourth, industrial foods are less nutritious.
Processed foods have fewer nutrients than real food. This makes it quite easy to over eat day after day and still fail to meet the FDA recommended daily intake of many micronutrients. It’s possible that this lack of nutrition increases our appetite, as our bodies search for more nutrients.
So what’s the opposite of industrial food?
Whole foods
Just like the participants in the study, you can switch to eating more whole foods. Eating more whole food helps counter the effects of industrial foods.
Whole food has a higher thermogenic effect.
Whole food is calorically less dense.
Whole food is nutrient dense.
Whole food is not designed to trigger the reward circuits in your brain.
What exactly are whole foods?
You can think of it as a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum, you have chips, most breakfast cereals, candy, cake, soda, white bread and pizza.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have steak, salads, fruit, eggs, chicken, fish and sautéed vegetables.
Here are four questions you can use to decide how processed a food is.
Can you recognize where it came from? Generally, you know where nuts, eggs, fish or fruits came from. On the other hand, fish sticks don’t look like fish and French bread doesn’t look like grains.
Does it have an ingredients label? Fresh whole foods rarely come with a food label. And if they do, you can pronounce everything on the label. Processed foods on the other hand come with long lists of ingredients, and unless you’ve studied chemistry you probably can’t pronounce most of it.
Does it rot fairly quickly? Real food doesn’t last. It isn’t loaded with preservatives and industrial food products. Conversely processed food is designed to last. Humanity will likely live on Twinkies during the zombie apocalypse.
How many steps did it take to get to you? Whole food is food you can easily picture eating if you were an eighteenth century farmer. It’s simple. In contrast, the production of most processed food is difficult to untangle with a lot of steps. How do you make margarine?
2 fun facts about eating more whole foods
First, if you give your brain a break from engineered foods, you will likely lose your taste for them. Your brain will rewire itself. You’ll start to notice the nuances of whole foods. You’ll even develop an appreciation for bitter tastes.
Eventually a day will come where you can’t imagine choosing potato chips over fresh strawberries. The transition can be difficult, but in the end, there’s no deprivation or suffering required to eat healthy.
Second, eating whole food is relatively dose responsive. This means the more you focus on whole food the better, and it means that even small steps towards whole foods can create results.
Therefore, if you want a better physique, to improve your performance and to eat healthy, focus on real food.
Final Thoughts
When you combine industrial foods with food overabundance, you create a fundamentally unnatural environment.
But the situation is far from hopeless. The steady advance of nutrition science is offering more and more solutions for people who struggle with dieting. We understand both the challenges and the solutions better than ever.
I hope you pick up one or two of these recommendations and get after it. A little more whole food today can lead to the body you’ve always wanted tomorrow. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Thanks for reading!
