foods, and other instantly available pre-packaged foods is linked
with the tendency to overeat. The World’s Healthiest Foods—while
very simple to obtain and prepare—are not “instantly available.”En-
joying them as the main components of your daily meal plan takes
a little bit of effort. This little bit of effort may in fact pay big divi-
dends by limiting your risk of external overeating.
Restriction-Triggered Overeating
The best-researched pattern when it comes to overeating may be the
pattern that is referred to as restriction-triggered overeating. In this
pattern, there is basically a rebellion that goes on inside of us when
we have put too severe limits on the foods we allow ourselves to
eat. The more unreasonably we restrict ourselves, the greater our
risk of overeating.
In some cases, researchers have speculated that a specific region of
our brain, called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VmPFC), may
be involved in this pattern of restriction-triggered overeating. The
VmPFC is partially responsible for our ability to consider long-term
consequences when making an immediate decision. Individuals with
damage to this region of their brain more often make decisions that
focus only on the here and now, without figuring out how to make
long-term consequences work to their advantage. Overly restric-
tive diets may put us in the exact same kind of predicament: we will
tend to forget about the long-term aspects of weight loss and life-
long health and instead think only about all of the foods we’ve miss-
ing out on in the past 24 hours. The Healthy Weight Loss Eating
Plannot only avoids overly restrictive eating, but actually en-
courages daily meal plans that feel normal, natural, tasty, and freely
chosen.
Overeating Due to Misjudgment
Overeating does not necessarily mean huge portion sizes that look
ridiculously large on your plate. It does not necessarily mean second
or third helpings either. When it comes to weight management, most
people have a difficult time estimating the amount of food they are
Healthy Weight Loss — Without Dieting