Overeating: Digestion OVERLOAD
Nobody wants to create a digestive overload! This can happen when we either eat too much at any one time, or if we eat many small meals or snacks throughout the day. Are you a serial snacker?
As we investigated in Day 1 of our 10 Day Digestive Challenge, it is important to know and feel true hunger, and then only eat when truly hungry to optimise digestion.
It’s extremely important to eat a sensible amount as this leaves less stress on your digestive organs. To break down food, the stomach produces hydrochloric acid, the liver produces bile and the pancreas produces digestive enzymes to break the food down. Eating too much food requires all these organs to work harder.
Also, overeating increases pressure on the valve at the top of the stomach, which increases the chance that stomach acid may back up into the oesophagus, causing reflux and heartburn.
Overall, overeating not only overtaxes the ability of your digestive system to process the food but also puts a load on the rest of your body to deal with, leading to metabolic problems. Remember the importance of chewing and how it slows down how fast you eat? Don’t wait until your belly feels uncomfortably full – when your satiety hormone has had a chance to kick in, your brain will tell you that you’ve had enough.
So stop already!
