What Is Compulsive Eating?

Are you wondering, what is compulsive eating? Perhaps you are worried about yourself or a loved one. 

“I feel so out of control with food. It usually happens at night – once I start eating I just feel like I can’t stop and keep eating and eating until I feel stuffed. I’ve tried to stop so many times but I just can’t. I feel powerless to stop myself”

If the above resonates, you are not alone. Compulsive eating is more common than you might think, and the good news is there are proven strategies and treatment options to help overcome it.

If you are wondering why do I compulsively eat? And how can I stop compulsively eating? This article will aim to provide the answers and give tips to help you feel more in control around food again.

Compulsive Eating Vs Overeating

Another term that is often used interchangeably with compulsive eating is binge eating and overeating. It is important to distinguish between normal overeating and compulsive or binge eating.

It is normal to overeat and is part of being human – we can overeat naturally in social settings (hello Christmas lunch) or alone (i.e. Netflix and takeaway). Overeating may be by choice or accident and is when we eat to the point of feeling uncomfortably full. We may overeat because the food tastes really good, when bored or distracted because it comforts us after a tough day or just because it’s there! This is all part of a normal relationship with food, although diet culture may make us feel otherwise.

A binge or compulsive eating episode is different from overeating. It is an intense, involuntary drive to eat that occurs repeatedly over time. It is accompanied by feelings of shame, guilt and loss of control. Binge eating can cause a lot of distress and can greatly affect a person’s mental and physical well-being, as well as the ability to engage in daily life.

Compulsive Eating Symptoms & Signs

How someone experiences compulsive eating can be very individual but some general signs include:

• Eating past satiety or until feeling uncomfortably full
• Eating despite feeling full or not feeling hungry at all
• Eating much more quickly than usual, or eating slowly and consistently throughout the day and/or night
• Eating alone due to shame or embarrassment about the quantity of food consumed
• Feeling disgusted, depressed or guilty after overeating
• Eating impulsively
• Hiding food and eating food out of the garbage
• Eating what most people would think is an unusually large amount of food in one sitting

Does the above sound familiar? If so, keep reading for more info on how to get on top of compulsive eating.

Is Compulsive Eating a Disorder?

There are two diagnosable eating disorders which commonly experience compulsive eating. These are Binge Eating Disorder (BED) and Bulimia Nervosa. However, people who don’t meet the criteria for diagnosis with these eating disorders can still experience compulsive eating.

Binge Eating Disorder

There is a difference between a ‘subjective binge’ (what YOU define as a binge or compulsive eating episode), and an ‘objective binge’ (what a psychologist uses to define an Eating Disorder).

Binge Eating Disorder (BED) is defined as regularly eating a large quantity of food in a discrete time period with a sense of feeling out of control. The binge eating episodes are usually accompanied by three or more following: 

• Eating past the point of uncomfortable fullness
• Eating alone due to embarrassment 
• Eating faster than usual 
• Feeling upset and guilty afterwards
• Eating a large amount of food when not physically hungry

Bulimia Nervosa

Bulimia Nervosa is characterised by the same signs as BED with the key difference being immediate engagement in compensatory behaviours to “make up” for the binge such as vomiting or exercise.

A person with BED or bulimia nervosa can be of any body shape, size or weight.

If you suspect you may have BED or Bulimia, I encourage you to discuss this with your GP. Check out this leaflet from BEAT UK for tips on how to prepare for your appointment. Whilst the rest of this article will likely be relevant in some ways, it is mainly intended for individuals who do not have a diagnosable eating disorder.

What If I don’t meet the criteria for BED or Bulimia Nervosa?

If you don’t meet the diagnostic criteria, it doesn’t mean you aren’t suffering and you still deserve help. A ‘subjective’ binge eating episode may still be accompanied by embarrassment, guilt, eating fast, or eating a large amount of food…. but not enough food to be considered an ‘objective binge’ for a psychologist to diagnose an eating disorder. At Nude Nutrition we work daily with people who struggle with compulsive eating, and most don’t meet the criteria for an eating disorder. 

Why do I compulsively eat? 

The reasons why we come to struggle with compulsive or binge eating can be layered and highly nuanced. However, they ultimately boil down to ….restrictive eating.

Sounds crazy right? We are too often told to “just find more willpower” but stick with me as I explain how this is actually keeping you stuck in the cycle of compulsive eating.

Research shows that when we place rules around what and how much we eat, we begin to feel more obsessed with it. These rules can be self-inflicted rules that we’ve picked up over the years (e.g. from media, family members), or stem from an external source (e.g. a diet/pursuit of weight loss).

Restriction can be physical or psychological, or both:

1. Physical restriction: food is “forbidden/not allowed” under certain circumstances and you are prevented from eating it (by yourself or others). E.g. no lunch before 1 pm, no carbs after x time, points, calorie or meal limit. 
2. Psychological restriction: when certain foods are labelled as “naughty” or “bad” and we carry guilt and anxiety for wanting to eat them, or actually eating them.  

If you’re in the latter, chances are that diet culture has taught you to label foods as “good” and “bad”. This is where we feel “good” for eating a salad, and “bad” for eating a cookie.

Placing a moral value on foods can interfere with our relationship with food in a negative way. 

More often than not, food restriction leads to feeling deprived which leads to binge eating. Before you know it, you’re in the continuous restrict/binge cycle that looks like… 

So how do we break free from the cycle?

How can I stop compulsive eating?

Finding freedom from compulsive eating is not about training yourself to eat less, or finding more distraction from eating. It’s about getting your needs met, honouring your hunger, and giving yourself more permission to eat foods that truly satisfy you. This is a process and is not something that can be done perfectly or all at once. It is a process you go through to help you realise that you can trust your body and realise that food doesn’t have to control you. Once you stop restricting, the drive to compulsively eat will fade and you can start to enjoy all the fun, meaningful things in life again.

For more nitty-gritty on how to stop compulsive eating check out previous articles we have written:

I Literally Can’t Stop Eating

How to Stop Food Obsession

How to Stop Binge Eating at Night

I’d also encourage you to check out our free 7-day guide:

Are you wondering “Why do I eat if I’m not hungry?” 

We’ve all been there. You’re sitting on the couch after dinner and the next thing you know you’re in the fridge searching for something to round it off. Or you’re working hard on a deadline but can’t resist the urge to keep heading to the pantry for snacks. But all the time you’re thinking “I’m not even hungry”!

Should I only eat when I’m hungry? 

The short answer is “no”. As humans, it’s very normal for us to sometimes eat when we’re not hungry.

You are not a robot! You have emotions to deal with, celebrations to attend, and friends to meet up with over brunch.

That being said…

Do you find yourself frequently eating to the point of feeling uncomfortably full? Maybe this leaves you feeling guilty or worried about what will happen to your weight. If so, this is something worth addressing. We will get into how further down the article.

In my work as a Registered Dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor, I am all for listening to your body’s signals and “eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full”. But too often this can get twisted into a hard and fast rule (which it was never meant to be). This can really mess with our heads and become another form of restrictive eating that keeps us stuck in an unhealthy relationship with food.

Pssst…are you sure it’s not physical hunger?

I see it so often with my clients… they tell me they are emotional eaters or addicted to sugar. But actually, when we dive into it, years of living in diet culture has warped their idea of what a healthy amount of food is. 

We are sold an idea that we should be able to subsist on 1200-1500kcal/day and then wonder why are feeling out of control around food! 

Is it possible that you are just not eating enough food throughout the day through restriction (trying to lose or maintain weight), or just busyness? If so, by the time the evening comes, there can be a primal drive to want to eat which can induce nighttime binges. That judgy voice can then creep in, labelling it as an ‘emotional’ or ‘comfort’ eating episode, which is also judged as ‘bad’. When actually you were just genuinely hungry because your body has been needing fuel all day. This can trigger compensatory behaviour, such as restriction or over-exercise to ‘make up’ for it. Restriction usually only exacerbates the cycle of overeating at some point later to happen again.

Sound familiar? If so, Intuitive Eating is a framework I use with clients that can help them figure out how to eat enough throughout the day to prevent this from happening. More on this below.

If you’re pretty sure you’re eating adequately and still left wondering “Why do I eat if I’m not hungry?”….here are some other factors that could be playing a role.

5 reasons you may eat when you’re not physically hungry

1. You want the taste

Taste hunger occurs when you are craving a specific food. This can accompany physical hunger or occur when you are not physically hungry. Basically, taste hunger is when a food just sounds good! It’s really normal to have the desire for a little something to round off your meal and provide the “satisfaction factor”. Like sweets, biscuits, ice cream, fruit, yoghurt, hot chocolate etc. This is not bad, and it’s not emotional eating.  If you’re feeling the desire to eat something sweet after your meal, maybe that’s just what you need to hit the satisfaction factor.

If you’ve identified that you’re 100% not physically hungry, it’s not taste hunger, you have worked on making peace with food and no amount of food will fill you up, then it’s likely that you’re experiencing emotional hunger.

It’s really normal to have the desire for a little something to round off your meal and provide the “satisfaction factor”.

2. You’re experiencing uncomfortable emotions

Do you find yourself eating when bored, procrastinating, lonely or anxious? 

Again, it can be normal to turn to food sometimes for comfort. However, if food is your main coping mechanism for dealing with tough things, and it’s causing you distress, this is something worth addressing.

Emotional eating is really common and something we see often with clients. For strategies and information on how to address emotional eating see my other article: How to Navigate Emotional Eating

Are you someone who actively tries to avoid “bad food”, but then when you’re bored, stressed, or lonely, find yourself uncontrollably diving into all of the foods you’re trying to avoid? Sometimes emotions get in the way and interfere with your restriction. It’s a backlash effect of the restriction. Interestingly, research shows that former or current dieters have higher emotional eating than people without a history of dieting. Basically, dieting (any pursuit of weight loss) can exacerbate emotional eating.

3. You’re full, but you’re not satisfied

There is a difference between feeling physically full versus being satisfied with food. For example, if you eat enough garden salad you will eventually feel full from the sheer volume of food in your belly, but you probably won’t feel satisfied. This can leave you hankering for more food and wondering “Why do I eat if I’m not hungry?”.

As well as physically filling you up, your meals and snacks need to mentally and physically satisfy you so that you do not feel restricted (remember: restriction leads to deprivation and more thinking about food). This means choosing foods that we crave or that “hum” to us. If you’re craving a crispy pizza but opt for soup, you’re unlikely to feel satisfied. 

To ensure physical satisfaction, I often talk about the importance of choosing options with “staying power” with my clients. These are usually those which include a source of each fat, protein, carbohydrate, and fibre.

4. Your restrictive eating is having a backlash effect

Are you trying to not eat certain foods to be healthier or lose weight? Perhaps you’re trying to cut back on carbs, fatty foods, sweets and chocolates. If this sounds like you, it could be paradoxically making you eat MORE of these foods when you’re not even hungry.

Annoying huh?! But that’s just the way our human brains are wired. Research on thought suppression tells us about this. Thought suppression is intentionally trying not to think about something (i.e. a plate of chips or a creamy bar of chocolate). A large body of research indicates that thought suppression is ineffective. Moreover, it can lead us to think more about the very thing we are trying not to do. Imagine being told, “Don’t think of a pink bear.” This is an example of thought suppression. Give it a try—close your eyes for a minute and try not to think of a pink bear. What happens?

The solution? It’s to allow yourself permission to eat ALL foods. When we allow ourselves this permission we are likely to eat these so-called “naughty” foods in more moderate amounts and feel more in control around them.

This can sound scary or you may be doubting if it will work for you. My free guide below will walk you through the process.

5. It’s a habit

Reaching for a snack when you walk through the door? Automatically grabbing something sweet after dinner? Mindlessly munching in front of the TV?

A lot of our eating behaviours are automatic. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with this. But if you’re finding these habits are leaving you feeling sluggish or uncomfortably full, intuitive eating strategies can help.

Try bringing more awareness to the habitual eating occasion that’s bothering you by:

1. Check-in with your hunger level prior to eating (this doesn’t mean you can’t eat if you’re not hungry, it just means you get to make the conscious choice)
2. If you’re not hungry – can you label what you are feeling? Ie. are you bored, lonely, or procrastinating on a task that needs doing?
3. Sit down to eat in a pleasant environment, without screens
4. Remain present with the sensory experience of eating the food (ie. what does it taste, smell and feel like when you’re eating?) 

All these strategies help us stay mindful of the eating experience and interrupt unhelpful behaviours that aren’t serving us.

How do I train myself to eat intuitively?

Intuitive eating is a tool that can help you learn the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger. It can help you understand why you eat when you’re not hungry.

Intuitive Eating is an evidence-based approach to help improve your relationship with food and have better self-control around food. This framework can help you learn to honour your health by listening and responding to the messages of your body. This helps you to meet your physical and mental needs based on your terms and move away from external diet tools such as the time of day, points systems, calorie tracking, rigid rules or meal plans  – which can all make us more likely to eat when food isn’t really what’s going to satisfy us. You can learn more about Intuitive Eating here.

Another great place to start is my free guide which runs through some of the key principles of Intuitive eating.

Want more individualised support? I run a private practice with a team of Dietitians and a Psychotherapist, to help you navigate your way to a more balanced and nourishing relationship with food. You can find out more about that here. and get in touch for a free 20-minute discovery call.

Are you wondering “why can’t I stick to a diet?”. If so, you’re not the only one. I have worked with countless clients who feel a sense of despair, helplessness and exhaustion when it comes to dieting. 

So, why exactly are diets so hard to stick to? The narrative around dieting is that when we can’t stick at it, it’s our personal failure…we lack willpower and discipline. It can certainly feel that way when face-diving into a tub of ice cream after vowing not to eat a single scoop for the next month. 

“I must have tried almost every single diet out there and haven’t been able to successfully stick at one or keep the weight off in the long run”

You may be surprised to learn how research shows that usually, it’s a failure of the dieting system itself, rather than the individual on the diet that leads us to be unable to stick at it. And around 75% of those who lose weight on diets put it back on again.

Let’s take a closer look and see if you may resonate with any of these reasons why you’re left asking, “why can’t I stick to a diet?”

7 Reasons why you can’t stick to a diet

1. Diets can make us feel out of control and cause “backlash eating”

Usually, when we embark on a diet, the underlying belief is that the diet’s rules about what, how much and when to eat will help us have control over our eating, and thus help us lose weight. 

Sound familiar?

The reality is usually the opposite. Often there is a honeymoon period on a new diet where we are able to stick to it perfectly for a few days or even weeks. But after a while feelings of deprivation inevitably set in, leading to intense cravings that are hard to resist. We can group this deprivation into 2 categories:

A) Physical/physiological deprivation – this is where your body is registering the fact that it is not receiving enough calories to survive long-term. It sees this as a threat to your survival. It then ramps up your hunger hormone, ghrelin in an attempt to get you to eat more adequately. You’re also likely to experience increased brain space/thoughts being taken up by food in your brain’s attempt to get you to eat.

B) Psychological deprivation – this comes from when we are told by diet rules that we can’t or shouldn’t eat certain types/amounts/groups of foods. As humans, when we are told we can’t do something, we naturally think about it more and feel tempted to do it. For example when someone says “don’t look down”.

The deprivation that comes from dieting is a powerful force. And for good reason. Our biology is set up to ensure our survival and most modern diets do not allow adequate nutrition to ensure long-term survival. Therefore our bodies have our back and we are neurologically, psychologically and hormonally wired to NOT diet. Of course, this can be extremely frustrating if you have a goal of weight loss. However, there is another way to feel in control of food, nourish yourself and maintain a healthy weight. It’s a framework we teach our clients called Intuitive Eating, but more on that is at the end of the article.

2. Diets can make us want to rebel

As adult humans, we have a natural desire to have autonomy over our actions. When we have food rules placed on us, even if we place them on ourselves by embarking on a diet, our brains naturally want to rebel against this. Therefore, many people on diets may break the diet rules as a subconscious form of rebellion. 

3. You can’t stick to a diet because they’re anti-social

Diets are usually anti-social. Take this example…you’re following a low-carb diet and you receive an invite to a dinner party with some friends. You find out that the menu for the evening involves pasta and pudding. You have 3 choices. 

A) you go to the party and try to avoid carb meal components (which let’s face it, is kind of awkward). 

B) you don’t go at all

C) you go to the party and decide to have a “cheat night” off of the diet. But you know from past experience that breaking the diet rules can lead to a spiral so don’t really want to risk this. 

Options A and B can really interfere with our sense of social well-being. Humans are social creatures. Evidence shows that a sense of social well-being and interconnectedness are just as important for our health as diet and nutrition. So if a diet keeps us from our social life…it just isn’t going to be a) good for us holistically or b) sustainable in the long term.

Your way of eating ideally needs to fit in with your life to be sustainable. Not the other way around.

4. Diet often focus is too heavily on weight loss, instead of health and wellbeing

Weight is not as much under our individual control as we are led to believe. We may be able to effectively manipulate weight in the short term but in the long-term genetics have a large role to play. In fact, studies suggest that up to 70% of human body weight is determined by genetics. More on that in this article all about set-point weight. 

The diet industry relies on the false narrative that if we only eat and exercise right, we can make our body look any which way.

The fact is, if we all ate and exercised the same, we would all still have different-sized bodies. 

Weight is not a behaviour, therefore we can’t directly control it. What we CAN directly control are our health behaviours…how much sleep we get, how we move our bodies, our nutrition, our social relationships, and our stress management. THESE are the things we want to focus on.

A heavy focus on weight loss can lead to neglecting healthy behaviours if they don’t result in weight loss. Implementing these behaviours may or may not lead to weight loss. But regardless if they do or not, they can improve your health. You see, it’s actually possible to be metabolically healthy across the size spectrum, despite what you may have been told. And if the desire for weight loss is there, that’s ok too.

5. Diets encourage “all or nothing” thinking

There is little flexibility in dieting. We are either “on” or “off” the diet. This is problematic because it encourages an unhelpful thinking style known as “all or nothing” or “black and white” thinking.

For example, you’re on a diet that forbids more than 2 squares of chocolate per day. But one day you can’t resist the urge to eat more than that (because chocolate is yum and you’re human). The diet rules encourage us to think “screw it, I’ve broken the rules now so I may as well have more and start again on Monday”. We may then proceed to bypass our fullness levels, mindlessly eating all the foods the diet forbids whilst we’re not “on” it anymore. Whereas if we weren’t dieting we might be able to approach this in a more balanced way, recognising that a bar of chocolate cannot make or break our health or body shape.

6. Diets don’t consider emotional eating

Diets rely on external rules and pay little attention to our internal worlds. Many people I work with use food to cope and comfort themselves and diets just don’t account for this. 

Picture a stressful day at work and a lecture from your boss. Your thoughts immediately turn to getting home, raiding the fridge and getting a takeaway for dinner to make yourself feel better. Even if you’re meant to be “on a diet”, if food is your only way to self-soothe you’re eventually going to need to break the diet rules so you don’t implode from intolerable discomfort.

If so, this is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it’s very normal to sometimes turn to food for comfort. But if food is your main or only way of dealing with uncomfortable feelings, this can be harmful to your overall well-being, especially if accompanied by guilt and shame. 

To combat this we need to work through underlying causes of emotional distress and learn strategies and skills to sit with and deal with tough emotions that aren’t just food. 

You can read more on emotional eating in this article.

The framework I use with clients has a whole principle focused on managing emotions and emotional well-being.

7. Diets discourage us from thinking for ourselves

As we follow diet rules about what and how much to eat, we are prevented from thinking for ourselves. You will likely benefit from getting back in touch with your inner wisdom so that you can figure out which foods and portion sizes feel best in YOUR body. 

Diet rules are often too simplistic and don’t teach you to get in tune with your hunger and fullness signals. If a diet plan tells you to eat a certain amount of food at lunch and you still feel hungry afterwards, your body is telling you that you need more food. But, trying to follow the plan you’re likely to try and override what your body is telling you. Another example would be if a diet suggests that you eat 3 meals and don’t snack, yet you feel hungry between meals. 

Your body has a lot of information to give you about the way of eating that suits you best. But most of us need to re-remember how to listen to our bodies, especially if we’ve been dieting for some time. My clients and I work with a specific set of tailored tools to enable them to re-learn the wisdom of their body, enjoy eating and feel more in control around food.

There IS an alternative to dieting

Perhaps you’re fed up with dieting but don’t know what the alternative is. You’ll be pleased to know there IS an alternative…It’s called Intuitive Eating. Intuitive Eating is an evidence-based approach to help improve your relationship with food, have better self-control around food, and break free from the diet mentality. Intuitive eating can help you learn to honour your health by listening and responding to the messages of your body. This helps you to meet your physical and mental needs based on your terms and move away from external diet tools such as the time of day, points systems, calorie tracking, rigid rules or meal plans.

Learn more about Intuitive Eating and how to get started with it through these links:

What is Intuitive Eating?

Intuitive Eating Tips for Those Starting Out

Intuitive Eating 4th Edition (book)

 And download my free 7-steps to food peace and freedom audio guide to get started. 

Do you want to work with a qualified dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor who nurtures a good relationship with food? You can read more about what that looks like here.