I’ve said it many times. The reason people are overweight is simple: they eat more food than their bodies need.

Our bodies have an amazing ability to tell us precisely how much food we need to be our naturally healthy weight. We just have to take a moment to listen to them. If you’ve forgotten how to do this, all you need to do is this: don’t eat until you are physically hungry and stop when you are lightly full. You can read more about that here.

When I started eating in response to my body’s wisdom, I lost a lot of weight. If you eat that way, you will lose weight too. That’s the most obvious benefit.

You probably already know that there are many benefits to losing weight, including reducing your risk of developing some of the deadliest diseases, like heart attack, stroke, diabetes and cancer.

But this isn’t about the benefits of losing weight. It’s about the benefits of not overeating. Even if you aren’t overweight, there are wonderful benefits that come from stopping eating when you’re lightly full.

Here are two reasons why you should want to eat less.

1. Improved digestion. This was a huge benefit for me. I’m one of those people who suffered from an assortment of digestive problems throughout my life. I had stomach aches on an almost daily basis, lots of intestinal gas and constipation. For about a decade, I was incorrectly diagnosed with IBS (see note below). Since changing how I eat, which resulted in eating less, those problems are now history. That’s because the cause of most of my digestive problems were caused by eating too fast and putting too much food into my digestive track.

Many of my clients have seen great improvements in their digestion since adopting my approach to eating, and no longer need medications like Nexium, anti-gas preparations, proton pump inhibitors and the like.

2. More energy. Some of my clients have said they’re concerned that they’ll feel weak if they eat less. Actually, the converse is almost always true. When you don’t overeat, you actually feel lighter and more energetic. Your body isn’t spending as much energy digesting food it doesn’t need and storing it as fat. You might even find you need a little less sleep.

So while you may want to lose weight so that you can once more fit into your favorite jeans or that dress that’s been hiding in the back of your closet, who couldn’t use a little more energy and less indigestion?

If you're ready to lose weight for good, and even end your desire to overeat, check out my newest program, Freedom from Emotional Eating here! ​

NOTE ABOUT IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome): I’m not a doctor, but I strongly urge anyone who has been given this diagnosis to dig deeper into what is causing your gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms. IBS is not an illness. It is simply a catch-all diagnosis for a wide variety of GI symptoms and elimination problems. To heal, you need to find out what is actually causing your symptoms. Seek another opinion, and don’t hesitate to see a nutritionist or use alternative health professionals, such as naturopaths or practitioners of Ayurveda or Traditional Chinese Medicine. They look at the whole person, and often can figure out what’s wrong when a traditional medical doctor has not.