I know I overeat at meals, but I can't help it. If I limit my portions, I'm hungry an hour later. How can I avoid overeating and have better control of my appetite? My stomach aches, thought it becomes fine in a day, but still it pains regularly, what to do?

Dr. Saul PereiraPsychologist46yrs exp

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I think you have an emotional eating disorder. You need to identify the emotion that is behind the excessive eating: are you sad, angry, afraid or happy that you tend to want to eat every time? When you have done that it is as simple as addressing the feeling that feeds into the over-eating and you will cease to have a problem. This can be done with a counselor, ideally. Many of us over-eat when emotionally distraught. I don't know if you are over-weight and for some people weight gain is an effect of the depression. Apart from that it is likely that your metabolism might have reduced considerably making you susceptible to gain weight even with small quantities of food. If you still want to eat (I mean healthy food of course), you can consume more, if you did some noteworthy exercise, after getting approval from your doctor. Exercise boosts your metabolic rate and help produce anti-depressant quite naturally. Foods also boost metabolism: egg whites, lean meat, water, chili peppers, coffee, green tea, milk, whole grains, and lentils. Cucumber is a zero calorie food and takes long to digest and much metabolism too. If you have it before each meal and any amount too, it will curb the amount of consumption - even tea and coffee has that effect. Even so, the addictive aspect of eating involves the obsession and compulsion i.e. your mind will be always thinking about food and then it will feed into a compulsion to consume something. So, if you occupy yourself, (not busy) then the mind will not think too much on food and therefore it will negate the compulsion. 

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