Indulging vs. Overindulging

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Full Episode Transcript:

Hi there, welcome to the podcast. I’m so happy you’re joining me today. I want to talk to you about indulging versus overindulging. The reason I thought about doing this as a podcast episode is because whenever you add the word, “over” to something, it can be unclear as to what that really means. That’s because adding the term, “over” to anything, can be very subjective, right?

So in this episode, I’m going to define what it means to indulge, and give some examples of what you can indulge in. I’m also going to discuss the benefits of indulging and explore if there are any downsides to indulging.

I’m also going to of course define overindulging. I’ll give some examples of scenarios where you can overindulge and common ways of overindulging. I’ll also talk about the downsides to overindulging and will explore any potential benefits of overindulging.

I’m also going to explain to you how you can tell if you’re indulging versus overindulging. I actually have 4 different ways you can tell, so you’re definitely going to want to pay close attention to that. Also, I’ll share with you what you can do to help prevent overindulging.  So, as you can see, we have a lot of good stuff to cover in this episode today.

I just want to do a quick announcement before we get into all the good stuff with indulging and overindulging though. If you haven’t snagged the free class yet on How to Break Bad Eating Habits, I encourage you to do so. I just completely re-did the class and it’s a 4-step process to break your bad eating habits, using behavioral science, not willpower. I also made a worksheet to go along with it, that you’ll receive with the class.

The worksheet is really simple and just helps make the 4-step process that I teach in the class, even easier. So get the free class at katemjohnston.com/free-class or you can find it on the episode page, or on my homepage at katemjohnston.com

Alright, let’s indulge in some useful knowledge, and talk about eating habits and indulging vs overindulging.

So let’s just flip over to the Merriam Webster dictionary for a moment here. When I look up the term, “indulge,“ it states “to take unrestrained pleasure in.” But what does unrestrained mean? Wouldn’t that mean an endless amount of indulging? But wouldn’t that be overindulging?

This is part of the reason why I want to clear up the difference between these two terms. When I then look up overindulging in the Merriam Webster dictionary, it states that it means “to indulge too much.” Not very helpful here, I must say.

I think probably a more accurate definition of indulge might be to take pleasure in without having guilt in the moment. I added “without having guilt in the moment”, because when you’re indulging in something, you’re focused purely on the enjoyment or pleasure of it, right? You’re not stuck in these feelings of guilt as you’re indulging. (That might come afterward, but during the act of indulging, it’s purely pleasure.) If you were feeling guilty while you were indulging, then this would mean it’s not a pleasurable experience, right? That’s why I would define indulging as taking pleasure in something without having guilt in the moment.

So, what are some examples of things you can indulge in? Well certainly because this is a podcast on eating habits, you can indulge in food, right? This is of course a very common thing to indulge in. It can be one specific food, or it can be multiple foods in one sitting.

In addition to food, it can be beverages, non-alcoholic or alcoholic. A non-alcoholic example would be maybe a fancy, sugary, coffee drink That you might not normally have, but is a real treat for you. And of course, an example of an alcoholic drink, would be maybe indulging in a glass of wine if you are not really a drinker, or indulging in several glasses of wine.

You can also indulge in things that are non-food and drink. Such as watching a guilty pleasure movie or a TV series, reading a guilty pleasure book, or going on a shopping spree. It might even be getting a massage, or getting a mani/pedi.

For the purposes of this podcast, we will stick with taking about eating habits. So, examples of types of foods that we often love to indulge in are sweets, such as chocolate, cookies, ice cream, and cake. Sometimes they can be specific breakfast foods, like bacon, donuts, or pastries. Or it might be dinner foods, like a big thick juicy steak at a restaurant, or pizza.

It can be a specific food, or it can be an amount. The important thing that I want to note here is that indulging can mean that you’re either getting pleasure from any food in general, a food that you don’t typically eat, but really enjoy, or an amount of food that you don’t typically eat, because you normally constrain yourself to a limited amount.

So, for example, I love donuts, however I know that if I eat donuts fairly regularly, I will develop a habit and don’t want to do this. Therefore, on my birthday, I decided to indulge in a doughnut for breakfast. So that’s an example of indulging in something that I love, but don’t normally eat.

I could also indulge in volume. For example, when I go for a long run, I tend to not constrain myself to a smaller snack that night after dinner but indulge in a larger snack, because I know I’m probably calorie deficient and I really enjoy snacking. I could certainly eat lots of vegetables to make up for that calorie deficit, however I get some pleasure in snacking, therefore I indulge in a larger snack if I went for a long run that day.

Now, what are the benefits, if any, of indulging? Well, as you could probably already guess, a short-term pleasure that you feel in your body can result from indulging in food. This is of course a temporary pleasure, that is caused by the release of dopamine, the “reward hormone “and dopamine is also released even just with the anticipation of indulging.

You get that little bit of pleasure just anticipating that you were going to be indulging in something, say chocolate for example, or me anticipating having that donut for breakfast on my birthday. And then you get additional release of dopamine when you’re actually eating the food itself.

Therefore, I would say that yes, there is a benefit of indulging, even though it is short term pleasure, it is still pleasure. And why not enjoy some of the finer things in life, right? The problem comes when you overindulge.

Back to the Merriam Webster dictionary definition of overindulge. It states that the term, “overindulge” means to “indulge too much”. What is too much, though?

Too much would be when you’ve indulged enough that the negatives outweigh the positives. The positives being that short term pleasure.

To really understand this, I just want to explain what happens when you get that release of dopamine and along with it the pleasure. Actually, more so what happens afterward. So, what happens afterward is that, when these dopamine levels start to drop, they dip slightly below baseline. This dip below baseline causes that feeling of a craving.

If you indulge only occasionally, or when you indulge, it’s only a small amount, you’re likely not to develop a really strong craving. You’re much more likely to be able to control the craving. However, when you indulge frequently, or when you indulge in large amounts every time, each time that dopamine drops back down, it drops further and further below baseline, creating more of that craving feeling or urge feeling.

Over time, this will make it more likely that you will develop strong cravings, which can be challenging to get control of. You can get control of them, and I have lots of tools in my program, Food Freedom, that will help you, however you can probably see how overindulging leads to less feeling of control with your eating habits.

Also, what happens when you overindulge, meaning indulge frequently or in a large volume each time, is that you get less pleasure each time you do it. That’s because your threshold for the pleasure from dopamine rises. So, the same amount of that treat, or that food, will not produce the same amount of pleasure, but will still produce a craving, and like I said, more of a craving over time.

As you can see, with overindulging, you’ll have less pleasure, more cravings, leading to less control, and most likely the development of a “bad” eating habit. By that, I just mean an eating habit that you don’t feel in control of, that potentially has negative health effects. That’s why I define overindulging as the point in which the negatives outweigh the positives.

Does that make sense?

Now, are there any benefits of overindulging? Maybe. I don’t believe so though. I really tried to think about any potential benefits, and I don’t see any. It’s not like indulging, where you can see the benefit is that temporary pleasure, because overindulging results in diminishing pleasure. So yes, maybe being that you get that little bit of temporary pleasure still, that isolated instance of pleasure is seen as a benefit.

However, like I stated earlier, there are more negative results, therefore I really feel that there is a net negative to overindulging. Also very important to mention here is that because you’re getting less pleasure overtime as you’re indulging, or overindulging, you need more of that thing to provide the same amount of pleasure.

So, you combine this with the craving, and it’s going to be very difficult to not do more of the thing, or eat more of the food that was providing you pleasure. You’re essentially trying to reach that original level of pleasure again, and eating more of that indulgent food, or watching more of that indulgent TV to get you there. That’s because of that pleasure threshold increasing over time with overindulgence. It’s like you’re chasing that pleasure. You may have heard the phrase “chasing the high” with regard to drugs.

This brings me to what type of things you can overindulge in. Certainly, a big one is food. Also, drink. You can also overindulge in seemingly innocent things like types of movies, or books. Now there of course won’t be as many negative physical effects from overindulging in guilty pleasure books, for example.

However, you can still indulge in them so frequently, that the pleasure diminishes overtime and the craving to read the guilty pleasure book increases. This could take up more and more of your time, leading you to not have time for other things that are important to you, and certainly as I mentioned you’re not getting as much pleasure out of it as you once used to.

You can also overindulge in things like porn, recreational drugs, prescription medications like opioids, and nicotine too. Now I just want to mention here, you can also indulge in these things just occasionally, however they tend to have a much larger release of dopamine than foods and other activities, which means there is a larger dip below baseline, causing a stronger craving.

Your threshold for the pleasure also rises more with these things than some other activities and foods, so you tend to have much less pleasure from things like drugs, over just a few uses, than you would with chocolate chip cookies or a guilty pleasure TV show, for example.

All right so now I want to help you out with talking to you about how you can tell if you’re indulging versus overindulging, and what you can do to help prevent overindulging.

The first way that you can tell if you are getting to, or have already gotten to the point of overindulging, is if you’re noticing that you’re getting less and less pleasure each time, especially if it’s significantly less pleasure than originally. If eating the 3 scoops of ice cream at night doesn’t provide nearly as much pleasure for you anymore, then you’ve probably been overindulging.

Or, if you noticed the first time you got takeout for lunch, it felt like such a treat and just tasted so delicious, but then over time, noticed it started tasting, “blah” and wasn’t very pleasurable anymore, you’re overindulging. You just got takeout enough times that your threshold for the pleasure went up.

The second way you can tell if you’re overindulging, is if you’re noticing that you’re requiring more amount or frequency of that thing that you’re indulging in. So like I’ve been talking about, that pleasure threshold increases and you need more of that thing to reach the same or similar amount of pleasure as before.

So, if you notice that you’re no longer just eating two cookies, but three or four, this could be because you’ve been overindulging. You might be eating cookies so frequently, that you have decreased your pleasure, and also increased your cravings for them. So you end up eating more of them over time.

You might’ve guessed what the third way is to tell if you’re overindulging. That would be if you’re feeling like you’re having more and more frequent or stronger cravings for that particular food or amount. That’s because of how you get that dip below baseline, which creates that feeling of a craving after the pleasure from the dopamine has gone away. The more you indulge, the lower it dips below baseline over time, so the stronger that craving feeling is.

And finally, the fourth way to tell, would be if you’re noticing some negative health effects. For example, have you noticed that the number on the scale has increased, or that you don’t feel well because of too much sugar, or just simply eating too much volume and always feeling bloated and too full?

You’ll tend to notice these things more so over time when you’ve been overindulging a lot.

All right so what can you do to help prevent overindulging. I have a few different tips. So, the first one is to choose ahead of time a time to indulge. Meaning, you’re going to plan ahead at least a day in advance, ideally even further in advance like a week in advance, when and what you’ll indulge in. So, if you have an event coming up this would be a really great example of planning fairly far out in advance, that you’re going to indulge at the event.

Or, if you want to indulge every Saturday evening, then choose ahead of time that you’re going to indulge every Saturday evening. Now certainly, you don’t have to indulge every Saturday evening. If a Saturday evening comes up and you don’t feel like indulging, you don’t have to indulge. It’s just that you’re deciding ahead of time and allowing yourself that time to indulge and just telling yourself that you’re going to indulge during that time.

Another thing I recommend doing is deciding ahead of time what the volume limit will be on that particular food. When you choose ahead of time, you’re using your prefrontal cortex, which is a higher level of functioning part of the brain, rather than the more primitive, in the moment brain that is more focused on instant gratification rather than planning ahead what will be in your best interest.

For me personally, I really love fresh-baked peanut butter cookies. I put more peanut butter in them than the recipe calls for, so I feel like they’re extra-indulgent. So, I know that when I bake cookies, I’m going to indulge. I don’t do it frequently, so when I do, it’s SUCH a treat. I indulge on a few when they come out of the oven, and then I help myself to a few more. I really love peanut butter cookies.

Once all the cookies are gone, I know that’s the end of my indulge time with the peanut butter cookies and wait quite a while before I bake them again. So, this is just an example of an infrequent planned out indulgence period. My husband is always amazed at how many peanut butter cookies I eat during that time, but I know I have very good control of my eating habits, so I make very deliberate decisions.

So, one last tip for what you can do to help prevent over-indulging is when you do feel a craving to indulge again, especially if it’s shortly after, allow the craving to just pass you by. Another word for a craving is an urge or a desire. They’re just feelings. They aren’t harmful. You don’t have to act on them, you can just let them pass by.

Don’t fight or resist the feeling of the craving either, because that will just keep the feeling around for longer. Just allow it to pass, like if you were angry and allowed the anger to pass. This takes some practice, but I promise you, it’s an incredibly valuable skill to have once you’ve developed it. You don’t need to always act on emotions or feelings. You can just allow them to pass through you, rather than take over you.

Okay, so that’s what I have for you on indulging vs. overindulging. I hope you enjoyed this episode and don’t forget to get the new free class by visiting katemjohnston.com/free-class or you can find it under the ‘For You’ section on the episode page, or on my homepage at katemjohnston.com.

Thanks so much for listening today, take care and I’ll talk with you soon.