Why Do I Eat Even When I’m Full?

Have you ever found yourself aimlessly scrounging in the pantry, trying to find something to satisfy a craving? You might have just eaten dinner, but now you want something else, especially as the night winds down and you’re about to watch your favorite show.  Let me tell you…I have been there! I knew I wasn’t hungry, how could I be, I just ate dinner an hour ago! But I wanted something and for me, that something is 9 times out of 10, something sweet. 

So why do we eat, even when we are full? It seems like a no-brainer; we eat when hungry and stop when full. But as you and I both know, this is easier said than done. Why is this? We are naturally born with the intuition to know when we are hungry and stop when we are full. I learned this quickly with my two children. My oldest son ate slowly when he nursed, taking 20-plus minutes on each side. When I had my second, I used that as my guide and tried to get him to eat the same way. He wasn’t having it! My youngest would turn away when he was done and scream if I tried to encourage more. I quickly realized I was not in charge of when he was done eating; he was!

So what changed? How did we lose this innate ability to tune into our body signals of hunger and satiety that we once had as infants? Our natural ability to recognize and respond to our body’s cues is altered by our experiences throughout childhood. In this blog, I am going to discuss the impact of trauma on our eating, how the loss of body awareness influences our eating habits, the influence of emotional eating, and how healing from trauma and reconnecting with your body is foundational for finding peace with food. 

Trauma’s Impact

As we grow and develop, we are presented with experiences that shape ourselves and our view of the world. Depending on the nature of those childhood experiences, we find ways to cope and survive in that environment. For example, if you grew up in a household with emotionally unavailable parents, parents who told you things such as “suck it up” or “stop crying” when you were expressing your emotions, you likely learned that it was not safe to express yourself. So, instead, you had to find other ways to cope with your emotions without expressing them. 

As adults, drugs and alcohol are common unhelpful coping mechanisms used to deal with emotional experiences we want to avoid. However, those are not available to children, so food becomes an easy substitution. You might have found yourself turning to food as a way to numb your emotions or even as a way to feel something positive in a difficult situation. For many, food becomes a source of comfort—a way to soothe emotions that feel too overwhelming to face. While these coping strategies may have helped you survive then, they can become unconscious patterns that are hard to change. 

Losing the Connection to Our Body's Signals

Trauma can also impact how you experience and respond to your body’s signals. When you experience something overwhelming, being connected with your body might feel unsafe, so to survive, you disconnect from your body's experiences. This can manifest as not recognizing hunger or fullness cues, feeling disconnected from your emotions, or feeling in a constant auto-pilot state. 

Many of us have become accustomed to being disconnected from our bodies and, therefore, don’t recognize or act on our body’s signals in the moment. For example, we might ignore the cue to go to the bathroom until we’ve finished picking up around the house or ignore the exhaustion telling us to go to bed because we want to finish a show. This habit of ignoring our body’s needs can also extend to eating. We might eat because it’s “time to eat” or because we’re bored or stressed rather than hungry. This disconnect makes it difficult to know when we are actually full, leading us to eat past our point of satisfaction.

Emotional Eating to Avoid Feelings

Emotional eating is a common way to avoid facing difficult emotions. Instead of feeling sadness, anger, or anxiety, we turn to food to feel something different. Eating can temporarily distract us from what we don’t want to feel. Food might have been the only reliable source of comfort in your home where emotional expression was discouraged or unsafe. However, this often leads to eating even when we’re not hungry and can contribute to a cycle of disordered eating and guilt. When we eat to avoid our feelings, we disconnect from our emotions and our bodies, making it harder to understand our actual needs.

Relearning to Connect with Your Body

Healing from trauma involves rebuilding trust with your body. This process can include learning to feel your feelings without turning to food and reconnecting with your body’s signals by relearning how to recognize hunger and fullness cues. This means mindful awareness when eating and listening to your body’s signals. In doing so, you can build a peaceful relationship with food—one that isn’t based on coping with emotions but on meeting your body’s needs. Therapy can help you process your trauma and tune into your emotions and your body's needs in a compassionate way. By becoming more aware of these cues, you can break the emotional eating cycle and develop a more intuitive relationship with food.

Your struggle with eating when you’re not hungry isn’t about willpower or a lack of discipline—it’s about using food as a coping mechanism for emotions you’re not ready to face. Childhood trauma and a lack of healthy coping mechanisms can lead to emotional eating as a way to avoid or numb feelings. This can cause a disconnect from our body’s natural hunger and fullness cues. Recognizing this pattern and understanding its roots in trauma can be the first step toward healing. You can find peace with food and yourself by reconnecting with your body and learning to cope with your emotions in more helpful ways.

Remember, healing is possible, and it begins with compassion for yourself and a desire to reconnect with your body. If you are ready to heal from the trauma causing disordered eating and negative body image, please click here to schedule a free 15-minute consultation with me. I would love to support you in finding peace with food and your body. 

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Jarae Swanstrom is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor practicing online throughout Idaho. She believes in a holistic approach to therapy, focusing on healing the whole body. Jarae helps women heal trauma causing disordered eating and negative body image. Learn more about Jarae or schedule a free consultation at mountainrivertherapy.com.