Why Can't I Stop Eating?

Why Can't I Stop Eating?

Filed Under: Overeating

26 March 2025 | Written by Dominic

Have you ever found yourself staring into the depths of the fridge as if you’re in a trance?  How many times have you said to yourself “I’ll start again tomorrow” only to find yourself in front of the fridge again the next day. The guilt and shame start festering and you beat yourself up and you wonder: “Why can’t I just stop eating?”

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. I remember the despair I felt; promising myself I’d “start again tomorrow”. I believed I was deliberately sabotaging myself. For years, I thought if I could just get my eating under control — then I’d be free. But no matter how hard I tried, I kept falling into the same patterns. It wasn’t until I stopped trying to control my food and started listening to my body that things began to shift.

What I learned is that when we can’t stop eating it isn’t because of a lack of willpower. It’s way more nuanced and complicated. It’s about meeting your basic needs and about deeper, unmet needs. The story that the diet industry has sold us for years: If you could just be more disciplined, you wouldn’t have this problem. But the truth is, overeating isn’t about discipline — it’s about your body, mind and heart trying to meet needs that aren’t being satisfied.

Why Willpower Isn’t The Answer

When you try to fix overeating with more rules, more restrictions, or more willpower, it only feeds the problem. The more you try to control food, the more out of control you’ll feel. Here’s why: restriction creates a sense of lack. When your brain perceives scarcity — whether it’s real or imagined — it creates a sense of urgency. This is a survival response. Your brain is designed to keep you fed and safe.

I know how hard it is to trust yourself around food when you’ve spent years feeling out of control. I used to feel like food had power over me — like I couldn’t be trusted around a packet of chips. I was deprived of eating pleasurable foods and disconnected from my body’s signals.

When clients tell me they can’t stop eating, these are the three areas of their lives we explore:

Three Main Reasons Why We Can’t Stop Eating

1. Are you restricting your food or disconnected from your body?

🍏 Are you limiting your food intake by counting calories, points, or macros?

🥗 Have you just come off a diet?

🍞 Have you cut out any food groups?

🍕 Do your meals have enough variety and carbs?

🚫 Do you have any forbidden foods? Are you judging or mentally restricting any foods?

⏰ Are you only allowing yourself to eat within certain time frames?

🏃‍♀️ What is your eating environment like? Rushed? Chaotic? Calm?

What if you’re not out of control and you’re just out of tune?

If you’ve been dieting or trying to control your eating, your body may be responding to that deprivation by driving you to seek out food, it’s a type of restriction rebound or backlash. Years of dieting and following external rules may have made it hard to recognise what true hunger and satisfaction feel like and you might be disconnected.

2. Are your basic needs met?

The next thing we explore is meeting your basic needs. We look at your sleep and rest. Are you always running from one thing to the next? Is there “too much on your life plate”? Do you have enough downtime to relax or for pleasurable activities? The opposite is also possible, maybe you have too much time on your hands and you have a lot of empty time. Whether we have too little time for ourselves or too much time, this can have an impact on how we eat. There could be an unmet need for more “me time” or an unmet need for connection.

3. How are you handling your emotions?

When emotions are overwhelming and life feels challenging, food becomes a way to soothe and comfort. It can be a form of stress relief, eating triggers a dopamine release that temporarily calms our nervous system. The way through emotional eating is to understand the why behind it and gain awareness of our triggers and our unmet needs. Mindful or wise action, is to respond to these triggers and unmet needs with care.

As we learn to become more aware of our body and its signals for hunger and fullness, we also learn to become aware of the thoughts and emotions that often cause us to overeat. This helps us to become aware of our triggers and once we know what the common triggers are, we can expect them and plan for them by taking care of our needs.

Here are some gentle steps you can take to help you address why you can’t stop eating:

Start Noticing Your Hunger and Fullness Cues

Check in with yourself before and after meals. How hungry are you? How satisfied do you feel? Don’t judge yourself — just observe.

Give Yourself Permission to Eat

Let go of the “good” and “bad” labels around food. When you stop labelling certain foods as forbidden, the urge to overeat often decreases. Eat enough food and try make sure you have a variety of foods including “fun” foods.

Tune Into Your Emotions

Next time you find yourself reaching for food when you’re not hungry, pause and ask yourself: What am I feeling right now? Are you stressed? Tired? Lonely? You don’t need to fix it — just naming the feeling is a powerful first step.

Tune Into Your Body – Notice Your Energy Levels

Notice if you are tired and need to sleep or rest. Perhaps you’ve been sitting for long and you need to stretch or move. Notice if your nervous system is activated and you have a lot of nervous energy, sometimes we eat to ground ourselves.

Ditch The Guilt

Guilt only fuels the cycle. If you overeat, practice self-compassion. Tell yourself, I’m learning. It’s okay. Let’s take it bite by bite and meal by meal.

When you can’t stop eating, it isn’t about weakness — it’s about survival. Your body has been working hard to protect you, even when it hasn’t always felt that way. The good news is that you can rebuild trust with food and your body.

If this resonates with you, you’re not alone — and you don’t have to figure this on your own. Rebuilding trust with food takes time and approaching yourself with compassion. You don’t need more rules — you need more connection. And that starts with trusting yourself again. ❤️

Wishing you well,
Xen

👉 If you’d like support with this, I offer free 30-minute Discovery calls to help you understand your relationship with food and take the first step toward peace.

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“From our first meeting - two faces on Zoom across the world from each other, there was a sense of familiarity and comfort that was a healing balm for a lifetime of food struggles and dieting. Without realizing how much damage I had done to myself by adhering, for decades, to restrictive food plans and rigid diet programs, Xen had a way of redirecting the harsh and negative self-talk and sending me forth each week with compassion, mindfulness and a new way of seeing myself in the here and now. Gone are the maybe somedays, and if-only, and when-I’m-smaller thinking. Now I am committed to the imperfect and rocky path to listening to my body, accepting my perfect imperfections, and rejecting diet mentality. Those negative voices will revisit me from time to time, I know, but Xen has offered valuable tools for meeting each day as a fresh start - another choice, another chance. Her devotion to this work and her belief in her clients is a remarkable gift; I am so fortunate to have found her. It is never too late to let go of the drama and embrace joy, ease and self-acceptance.”

Karen L, Denver, USA

Certified by The Life Coach School Certified and Trained by The Original Intuitive Eating Pro Professional Member of The Center for Mindful Eating