The perils of overeating

We are going to specifically look at the issues with your pancreas and insulin production when you overeat.
It is obvious what happens when you habitually overeat however you may not be aware of the issues of eating a lot in one sitting compared to 3 balanced meals per day.

"Try to aim for 3 balanced meals a day as overeating disrupts the migrating motor complex that helps to keep bacteria in the correct area of the digestive tract. Overeating also places extra burden on the pancreas by having to continuously produce insulin."

Your Pancreas and Overeating

Consuming excess food triggers your pancreas to go into overdrive and produce extra insulin to process the larger sugar load and remove it from your bloodstream.

Your pancreas will continue to produce insulin until your brain indicates blood sugar levels are safe again. However by the time the brain stops the production of insulin too much sugar has been removed from your blood and the cycle continues.

Sugar addiction

There are a lot of hidden sugars in processed foods.

The World Health Organisation recommends adults consume less than 25g or 6 teaspoons of added sugar a day for optimal health benefits (there is about 4 grams of sugar in one teaspoon).
Children should have even less. A four year old should have less than three teaspoons of sugar a day, while under the age of two, kids should have no added sugar.
An average 330ml can of sweet fizzy drink can have between nine and 11 teaspoons of sugar in it - well over the daily quota of sugar for an adult in one drink.

source: SBS Exactly How Sugar is Harming us and Our Kids

So when you see advertising of people drinking softdrink this is in fact an unhealthy habit.

Solution: Dilute your softdrink down

We know sugar is addictive, and as mentioned above 1 can of soft drink is over the World Health Recommendations - why not dilute your softdrink?

Your brain will quickly adjust - on relative terms you will be getting some sugar but not at damaging levels. When your brain does adjust you may never look at a can of softdrink the same again.

Simply buy soda and treat the softdrink as you would cordial.

Emotional Eating: refer to our article Is Food to Blame

Is Binge Eating Overeating?