3 Reasons Eating Less Can Be Challenging

When you try to eat more mindfully, you may discover that you don’t need to eat as much as you think you do. This means you’ll probably eat less, between eating less often and not eating as much at a time.

But even with the best intentions, it can sometimes be challenging to eat less for a few reasons.

1: Habit

One of the greatest difficulties is changing your habits, and habits can be very sticky, especially food habits.

Consider when you eat. If you’re used to eating at certain times, but now you realize you’re not actually hungry at that time, it can feel hard not to eat then because that’s just what you do at that time. You may need to find something else to do so you don’t eat, and it can make your morning or afternoon feel longer because one of your activities – eating – isn’t there anymore.

I hadn’t thought about the time involved in preparing food, eating, and cleaning up until about twenty years ago, when I was scheduled to have surgery at 10 a.m. Because I’d be going under anesthesia, I couldn’t eat anything for 12 hours beforehand, and I couldn’t drink for 6 hours beforehand. And since I get up early, I had several hours to get through before heading in.

Not being able to eat anything – which also meant not spending time preparing food – or even being able to have a cup of tea made the time drag out more than I had expected.

That’s an extreme example, of course, but it’s a reminder that even if you’re not usually out of boredom, eating and food prep and cleanup can take a fair amount of time, and if you’re not doing that as often, you might feel at loose ends.

2: Buying or serving too much food

Another challenge with eating less is that until you get used to it, you’re very likely to buy and/or serve yourself more food than you need.

If you buy extra food, if any of it is perishable, you’re then in the difficult position of possibly having to throw some of it out. I never feel great about doing that, and I try to avoid it, but it still happens occasionally.

If you also have trouble with the idea of wasting food, you may feel like eating the extra food is a better option. The problem with that is that you are still wasting the food, just in a different way. When you eat more than you need, you’re not going to use those calories or nutrients effectively. You may also feel uncomfortable, tired, sluggish, or even ill.

The same applies if you serve yourself more than you need and then feel compelled to finish it. You can choose to do that, but you should carefully consider if it’s worth the negative effects you’ll experience. If you can save the food for later, that’s ideal, but if not, you could consider composting or throwing out the excess food.

3: Societal expectations

The other challenge is when you try to eat less around people who are expecting you to eat a certain amount or at certain times.

When you’re changing your eating habits, it can be hard at first to eat just the right amount, or at the right time, so you’ll be hungry when you normally have lunch or dinner. That’s fine if you have a flexible schedule, but if you have work conflicts or if you’re planning to share a meal with someone, this doesn’t work as well.

Similarly, if someone prepares a meal for you for a special occasion, but you only eat a small amount, they may feel insulted. This can be tricky to navigate.

My best advice is this. Before a big meal, let people know that you’re trying to change things and may not eat as much as you used to. See if you can bring leftovers home as a way of showing how much you liked the food. Be generous in your praise of what you eat when you’re there.

In these situations, even if you’re not hungry, as long as you’re not extremely full, it may be worth having at least a small amount of what’s been prepared so the cook feels like you appreciate what they did.

Eating less takes practice

On the surface, it seems like eating less should be easy, especially if you’re not hungry. But it can bring some unexpected challenges. For most of us, our eating habits are deeply ingrained, including what and when we eat as well as how much. And it can have an impact on other people in your life.

The good news is that this does get easier with practice. You’ll have a better idea of how much food to buy, and you’ll figure out when to have a snack – or not to – so most of the time you’ll feel hungry when you have a shared meal. You’ll develop new habits, and other people will adjust, so eventually it will simply feel normal.