You’re wanting to enjoy a mellow unwind with some cannabis after work one night….

But you can’t stand the fact that your high is constantly being tainted by physical discomfort from eating past fullness.

You swear this time will finally be the night that you DONT eat out of control when high.

But as soon as the cannabis kicks in, you’re hit with the munchies and find yourself unable to stop thinking about all the dreamy snack combinations in the kitchen.

You go to make yourself a snack, hopeful that you’ll  be able to eat a comfortable amount and then stop this time…

But once you have the savory snack you HAVE to go for sweet…

Then back to savory…

Then back to sweet…

And so it goes until next thing you know your stomach feels funky from a mix of lots of different foods.

You wish there was a way to enjoy the experience of using cannabis without the unwanted side effects of eating out of control.

The first step to stop feeling out of control around food when high is understanding the root cause of why you’re binge eating in the first place.

It’s a common misconception that binging while high happens because of the cannabis. However, there are plenty of people who don’t binge when high, so we know that the cannabis in and of itself can’t be the cause.

The truth is, binging while high has much more to do with conscious or unconscious disordered eating habits.

Below are four of the most common reasons that could explain why you’re feeling out of control around food when smoking weed or consuming edibles:

#1 Using the High as a Permission Slip to Eat your Favorite Foods

When we think about “munchies,” most of the foods that typically come to mind are energy-dense foods– aka the foods that diet culture considers “junk.” 

If you’re someone who has been influenced by diet culture, it’s likely that you feel guilty allowing yourself unconditional permission to enjoy your favorite foods. As a result, you might feel like you need an excuse to justify eating your favorite foods. Whether or not you are conscious of doing so, you might be using cannabis as a “permission slip” to eat everything you’ve been wanting to eat when sober. When you only allow yourself to eat certain foods when high, your brain registers those foods as scarce. Scarcity triggers a “last supper mentality”– a phenomenon where you feel the need to gorge yourself on the foods you had been restricting before you lose your chance.

To address this problem, you might consider intentionally incorporating your munchie foods when sober.

#2 “Saving Up” Eating for when High

If you tend to binge when high, you might find yourself “saving up” calories throughout the day to compensate. Perhaps you’re inclined to save eating for when you’re high due to the heightened pleasure sensations. Saving up eating for when high can cause you to enter the cannabis experience very hungry, triggering the body’s primal compensatory response to eat past fullness.

Try entering into the cannabis experience adequately nourished to avoid the pendulum swing from extreme hunger to extreme fullness.