Super Bowl Tips to Avoid Overeating

 "If we add an inconvenient pause to a series of actions, we create opportunities to do the bad habit less often or not at all." - Ali Virtue, MS NTP

This is your new Game Plan for Super Bowl Snacking:

Tips to Avoid Overeating

Let me be clear - the purpose of this BLOG IS NOT to tell you to AVOID eating fun foods while watching the Super Bowl with your friends and family. 

My goal is to help you FEEL GOOD and prevent you feeling too full and uncomfortable. That’s it. Your personal goals might be to eat less sugar or to eat more protein or veggies and less of other foods. That’s fine. I have struggled with overeating/binge eating in the past and I want to help you overcome it.

Keep reading if you are tired of feeling bloated and stuffed at social gatherings. 

The Main Points: 

1. Eat Mindfully. 

2. Change your focus

3. Serve yourself on a plate (Portion control). 

4. Eat normal meals before & after. 

5. Hydrate. 

6. Plan ahead (if needed). 

7. Be done when you are done. 

8. Offer to bring something you enjoy and will feel good eating or drinking.

9. Don’t make exercise a punishment. 
   

Let me elaborate on these …

1. Eat Mindfully. 

This is the foundation of my “Pre-Diet Approach” with clients. Many people know how to “diet” or should I say, briefly cut their calories. Very few know HOW to physically eat in a different way that doesn’t contribute to stress or promote under or over eating. When I say eat mindfully, I mean you are conscious of what you are doing at that moment. Your attention is on your food, not zoned out watching TV or scrolling on your phone. Binge eating requires us to check out and not be present. Aim to be conscious of the food on your plate, and your hunger and fullness signals from your body. Check in throughout a meal to see if you are no longer hungry and if you can stop eating at that point. Make sure to chew your food thoroughly, taste it, savor it, enjoy it, focus on the quality of the food and not the sheer quantity. I have a full mini-course available HERE on how to eat more mindfully to stop overeating for good. 

2. Change your focus.

Often during social events that involve food, it can be about how much you can eat or to purposely overindulge on “cheat foods”. Let’s make these SOCIAL events about the people, the making of memories, and let the food fall to the background. If your goal is to make the best of your time together, then feeling good in your body is also a priority. This mindset shift helps us align our actions with what is really important to us, both short and long term. 

3. Serve yourself on a plate (Portion control). 

This tip is a simple but powerful. This is a great way to STOP focusing on food restriction. We are merely adding a barrier to an action we need to learn to moderate (AKA GRAZING). At social things like this my clients are not calorie counting, they are practicing all of the action points we are talking about here. If you can master your healthy habits & positive mindset on these types of occasions you will make long term changes that truly STICK. Make bad habits harder (snacking or grazing on the food when not hungry). Instead put any food you want to enjoy, on a plate. Firstly because then you get a visual of all the food you have eaten and that can help you gauge how much you have eaten and if you should (logically) be satisfied by then. Secondly, you create a barrier, even a minor one, to just grabbing food off the table. If we add an inconvenient pause to a series of actions, we create opportunities to do the bad habit less often or not at all. 

4. Eat normal meals before & after. 

Don’t go into a social situation feeling stuffed or starved. Especially starved, knowing there might be a lot of “food without breaks”. Which just means it’s easy to overindulge on. Firstly, it’s one event and you don’t need to starve yourself all day to “make more room” especially, if you know this will only make you overeat food later. Don’t sabotage yourself like that. Secondly, it can only help us out if we nourish our body’s with balanced meals running up to and after an event like this. Having food that makes you feel mentally and physically well, will only help you make positive and logical decisions. Whether that means enjoying some more fun foods than you normally eat or not, you can do so without any guilt. This is key to preventing any future “punishment” or sabotage following the event. The faster you can move on and continue with a routine that makes you feel good the more consistent progress you will see towards your health goals.

5. Hydrate. 

Things go better when we are hydrated. Period, simple as that. Sometimes we think we are hungry when we are thirsty it’s true but honestly, there are no real downsides to being properly hydrated. This again can help us regulate our snacking habits and consume excess energy in beverage form. 

6. Plan ahead (if needed). 

This one is only relevant to some. If you are newer to making nutrition changes or want to get more serious about changing certain behaviors then by all means let’s make a plan and tell a close friend about it so they can support you and hold you accountable to those actions you state are important to you. Caveat - I don’t think you should always need a plan. After you have mastered these mindfully eating skills I would love for these actions to be second nature. Stopping eating when no longer hungry or full shouldn’t take a second thought … eventually. It might feel difficult now but that is the true end goal. So do forget to practice that end goal once you build your confidence over time. 

7. Be done when you are done. 

There are many strategies to help you be done eating after a meal. Again I hope you don’t need these forever but they have really helped me when I struggled with overeating. The last one is important - practice following up on the things you say you are going to do, this is how you build and strengthen your discipline.

• Brush your teeth (yes I keep a travel toothpaste & brush in my purse). 

• Put your plate away.

• Help put the food away completely or in the kitchen farther away (barriers to grazing). 

• Chew gum.

• Decide to be done & focus on the people. 

8. Offer to bring something you enjoy and will feel good eating or drinking.

Not sure what the host will have available? I get it. We don’t want to be an inconvenience to those hosting but we want to have food that makes us feel good. For me personally - our house is normally gluten & dairy free, but we don’t expect every host to cater solely to us. Sometimes this means we eat before, or we ask if we can bring a big side salad to add protein too or something similar. This way we know our food is taken care of and no one has to go to extra trouble. Don’t be shy, if this is important to you, your health and these people care about you, they will understand. Don’t be afraid to have a conversation about it.

9. Don’t make exercise a punishment. 

Some will make sure they get a big workout in before the festivities - which is fine but be conscious to make sure exercise doesn’t become a punishment. The approach of trying to “burn off” extra calories from the bad food - doesn’t work. You can't out exercise a poor diet. Don’t encourage that cycle of behavior. Move everyday whether that's activity, exercise or both because it’s good for your body & mind - simple as that.

Was this helpful? Share this with someone else who needs to read this.

Other resources to help you stop overeating. . .

Next steps?

Here are some tips to keep you working towards reducing overeating.

• Journal your thoughts, feelings, etc to help you learn WHY you over eat.

• Check out the mini-course on Mindful Eating Here.

• Talk to a licensed councilor or therapist to addess your mental health needs.

• Make sure you are subscribed to the Email List at ParksideNutrition.com to get all the latest resources going out.