Ep. 362: Why You Eat When You’re Not Hungry — and How to Stop with Dr. Jud Brewer

Ever eat when you weren’t really hungry and wonder why willpower wasn’t enough to stop you?

This week, Rip talks with Dr. Jud Brewer - neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and author of The Hunger Habit - about cravings, emotional eating, and the science behind food habits.

Rip and Brewer explore the difference between true physical hunger and what researchers call “hedonic hunger” — eating driven by emotions, stress, boredom, celebration, cravings, or cues in our environment. Dr. Jud explains why ultra-processed foods are engineered to hit the “bliss point” of sugar, fat, salt, crunch, and mouthfeel, making them especially hard to resist.

They also dig into why willpower is such a shaky strategy. Most diet programs rely on some version of “just don’t eat that,” but Dr. Jud explains why shame and restriction often backfire. Instead, he teaches a more effective path: awareness.

By paying close attention to how overeating actually feels — and how it feels when we stop at satisfied — the brain can begin to update the reward value of those habits. In other words, we can learn, through direct experience, that certain behaviors no longer serve us.

This episode is a compassionate, science-backed invitation to stop blaming yourself and start getting curious.

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