Hotel Breakfast Psychology: Why Buffets Trigger Scarcity Behaviour

Why do we walk into a hotel breakfast planning to “eat something small”… and walk out wondering how we ended up with a plate full of pastries, fruit, eggs, bread, and a backup croissant? No, it’s not lack of discipline. Hotel breakfasts trigger a set of responses that have everything to do with how our brains handle uncertainty, novelty, and disrupted routines. This is a classic example of hotel breakfast psychology, where our brains respond differently to food in unfamiliar environments. Here’s what’s actually going on.

Hotel breakfast buffet.

Your brain doesn’t fully trust food availability in new environments

At home, your brain knows exactly how eating works: when to eat and what’s available. Travel disrupts all of that. In a new environment, your brain becomes cautious because it can’t rely on past patterns. Even though you’re standing in a perfectly safe hotel dining room, your brain registers uncertainty: “Better take more now. I don’t know when the next chance will be.” Those are not conscious thoughts. It’s the same built-in survival response that kept humans alive long before hotel buffets existed. This is why your plate gets fuller than usual even when you didn’t plan for it.

Too many options lead to impulsive choices

Buffets are a perfect recipe for decision overload. You’re suddenly faced with 4 types of eggs, 5 types of bread, fruit you never buy, pastries you’ve never seen, and tiny jars of jam. When there are too many choices, your brain becomes overwhelmed. And when overwhelmed, it makes decisions faster and with less awareness. This is why you end up grabbing things you don’t even want. It’s not impulsiveness in the moral sense, it’s your brain trying to reduce anxiety by resolving the options quickly.

Novelty triggers your reward system

A buffet has a high variety of unusual foods in unusual combinations, plus everything looks attractive. Novelty increases dopamine, which drives curiosity and motivation. Suddenly, trying a little of everything feels right. This isn’t “overeating.” It’s your reward system responding exactly as nature intended when something feels new, exciting, and temporary.

Travel disrupts your hunger cues

Even before you reach the buffet, your appetite is already affected by jet lag, poor sleep, stress, irregular eating times, dehydration, and overstimulation. All of these make hunger cues unreliable. You might not feel hungry until you start eating. Or you might feel hungry but not know for what. When the body doesn’t know its needs clearly, it defaults to safety: “Take more now. We’ll sort it out later.” This is why you may feel disconnected from your usual hunger sensations or end up eating more than expected.

So what does this all mean?

It means nothing is wrong with you. Hotel breakfasts feel chaotic because your routine is disrupted and your brain is uncertain about food availability. You’re not “indulging too much.” You’re responding like a normal human adapting to a new environment.

Travel changes more than just scenery, it changes your eating context, your appetite, your decisions, and the way your brain interprets food. If hotel breakfasts (or travel in general) tend to throw you off, you’re not doing anything wrong. Your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do when routines disappear.

And if you want support navigating eating when life gets unpredictable, whether you’re traveling, moving abroad, stressed, busy, or constantly adjusting, that’s exactly why I created the Nomad Eating Deck. It’s a simple tool to help you understand what’s happening with your eating habits and adjust without guilt or rules.

You can find it in the products section of my website.

Can you be a nutritionist while recovering from an eating disorder?

Or should I ask a different question. Is it true that you cannot help others until you help yourself? And is it even the same?

Managing your own health, body AND mind has to be a lifelong process. It’s a never-ending story, a journey. And each journey has its challenges.  

Everybody faces challenges. Even nutritionists.

A lot of people (myself included) got into nutrition BECAUSE OF the disordered eating. And there is nothing wrong with that.

It allows us to use our own unique experience to  provide empathy people need. It is rare to find professionals who are truly passionate about their job. This relation to the issue is what makes us honest and our contribution extraordinary. 

You can’t learn everything just by watching others. Without being in your clients shoes it might be difficult to get a full picture. That is why psychotherapists need therapy themselves. 

It helps a lot to have that special experience as you can empathise with the people you’re working with. 

However, it’s important to be aware of your own issues. There’re will be certain topics that may trigger you. Simply put, you have to know how to manage it well enough to not get in the way of helping others. 

It’s natural to understand people with similar issues, people like us. So, if you feel like nutrition is something for you, and you are ready to overcome obstacles, go for it!

Nutrition is not black and white...

Nutrition is not about trying to find the most nutrient-dense food. It simply doesn’t exist. Nutrition is about your healthy relationship with food. This means anything can be part of your meal plan, as long as you enjoy it. And stop labeling food as “harmful” or “healthy”, it ruins the satisfaction of eating.

At some point, I decided to replace bread with rice cakes. I even tried to persuade myself it tasted okay… But it wasn’t the rice cakes that was the problem, it was me. I struggled to admit that it wasn’t the right food for me. If everyone says it’s healthy, then it has to be healthy? Right?

No one is the same. Everyone’s lifestyle is different. Therefore, there is no food that is right for everyone. And it leads to another conclusion. There’s only one person who knows for sure whether food is “good” or “bad”, and that person is you.