Taming Your Primal Appetite
Give it up! You can't conquer the biology of hunger with willpower. Here's how to outsmart the 7 situations that trigger your nature-given urge to overeat.
Photo by Amy Neunsinger
We live in a society of overwhelming abundance and variety, where grocery store shelves are jammed with a selection of foods that would have amazed previous generations. A constant barrage of advertising urges us to nibble, munch and load up our plates, and it's all too easy to satisfy our desire for fat and sugar.
Ironically, our bodies evolved when food was scarce and we had to work hard to hunt it and gather it. Nature designed us to eat as much as we can whenever we can, and to conserve every calorie we consume, storing any excess as fat. "We are genetically hard-wired not only to eat when there's food available but to overeat," says James O. Hill, M.D., director of the Center for Nutrition at the University of Colorado and co-founder of the National Weight Control Registry.
So we do. In the last two decades, the average American diet has expanded by hundreds of calories per day, and nearly two-thirds of the population is now overweight. If current trends of what researchers have dubbed an "obesigenic environment" continue, virtually all Americans will be dangerously overweight within a few decades.
We can't change our genes--yet. But we can become aware of this vicious cycle of oversupply and overdemand. By recognizing the following seven triggers of overeating, we can mix and match simple, natural solutions to withstand them.
1. "lack" of willpower
You can't discipline yourself out of your desire for food. "Hunger is such a basic biological urge that no one can use willpower alone to resist it," says Bess Marcus, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University Medical School in Providence, R.I., and co-author of Active Living Every Day. "If you rely on willpower, you're almost destined to fail."
the solutions:
2. eating on the run
Everyone's overloaded with obligations, so a lot of meals are grabbed on the go--and too often that means high-fat, calorie-dense fast food. These meals-in-a-bag are usually wolfed down in minutes, which doesn't give your body time to signal that you're full.
"It takes 10 or 15 minutes for satiety signals to kick in," says Hill. "Eat too quickly and you're almost guaranteed to overeat."
the solutions:
3. nervous nibbling
Stress makes some people overeat. "The fight-or-flight reaction to stress is hardwired into our brains; it's the equivalent of thinking, Oh my God, there's a lion in the grass," explains Brenda Wade, Ph.D., a family psychologist in San Francisco and co-author of What Mama Couldn't Tell Us About Love. "If you're eating something, it must mean there's no lion in the grass, so everything is fine. Eating becomes a way to ease anxiety."
the solutions:
