Which eating type is causing your weight gain?

If you’re an experienced dieter, you might think eating has only two types - regular and dieting.

This binary thinking is everywhere in diet culture. Whether it be labelling foods good or bad, healthy or junk. Whether you lost the weight or didn’t. With binary thinking there are no grey areas.

In the same way shame shuts down any conversation about weight, binary thinking also blocks us from thinking deeper.

When you are taking action to lose weight, you need more information not less. And, arming yourself with more descriptive categories and language for your eating helps with the complexity of what you’re trying to achieve.

Yet, without identifying which of your eating types is causing your weight gain, every diet will fail.

Once you know all your eating types and the rules, sensations and emotions that go with them, you have the levers for permanent weight change.

In the Weighting for Happiness Project, we identify eight different types of eating that cover all the avenues you take in calories. Some are obvious and others are not.

In this Blog I cover the four major types. Let’s start with your largest daily food intake.

1 Functional Eating

This category describes your regular, daily meals. Eaten whether you’re hungry or not, it’s primary function is to refuel the body. The most common reason for weight gain in functional eating is the food type and quality and portion sizes. When you eat past the point of satiety the common emotion you feel is regret.

2. Social Eating

Social eating is as the name implies. Whether eating out or at home, with friends or family, it is eating in the sight of others that risks having your eating and weight judged by others. If you are someone who wants to avoid any criticism you might eat before or after the social event, so you can eat ‘lite’ when there and not draw any attention. Or you might choose the salad option to be seen doing the ‘right’ thing for a woman who ‘should’ lose weight. The common emotion with social eating is anxiety.

3. Comfort Eating

You’ll be familiar with eating something to make yourself feel better. Whether it’s chocolate, potato chips, pizza, or ice cream, all comfort foods have a history that can be traced back to an earlier time. This type of eating is usually associated with high-calorie foods and it’s the eating frequency that leads to weight gain. The common emotion with comfort eating is guilt.

4 Relief Eating

Relief eating is caused by an eating system where emotions and food have been linked. When difficult emotions build-up, eating brings relief. The eating is done alone, in secret and often hiding the evidence of what’s been eaten.  Highly processed foods like chocolate, chips and ice cream that are engineered for limitless eating making them the shortest path to getting relief. This eating triggers a deep sense of shame. 

Now you got an understanding of these four primary types…

Start solving how all your eating types are causing your weight gain...

Examine the full 8 Eating Types in our Food Choices and Eating Patterns Program >.

You can also join our Learning Lab > and download the FREE summary of the 4 Primary Eating Types