Uber - The short answer to your question of eating without your brain kicking in to suggest otherwise... yes. Definitely.
The long answer... About a year ago I started doing some reading about eating disorders. I knew the way I had spent most of my life eating wasn't normal, but I had no idea what was wrong with me. I couldn't label it or understand it and, therefore, I couldn't figure out a way to fix it. I wasn't anorexic or bulimic. The number of binge episodes I've had in the past ten years is easily in the single digits. The problem was that I just couldn't stop eating and that kind of issue goes beyond something that a straightforward diet is designed to address.
I've tried multiple ways of dealing with this compulsive eating. In retrospect, most of those ways seemed to be focused on ways of figuring out how I could eat how and what I wanted to eat without suffering the negative consequences. So be it. You live and you learn.
What I have found (so far) is that two things work for me. First, I'm pretty militant about limiting the abusive/unhealthy people and situations I'm around. If I eat as a response to my environment, it only makes sense to manage my environment. What I'm encountering right now is an exception for a number of reasons, but on the whole the people that I'm close to are emotionally solid and my lifestyle is a good, positive one. I put on my emotional Ebola protective gear for people and situations that don't fit that mold.
Second, I have a plan that works for me. On most days I stay under 1,500 calories. If I eat out I try to keep the day under 2,000 calories with my best guesstimating. I avoid processed carbs and fried foods because those tend to trigger this craving to eateateat but it's not the end of the world if I do have them. I just have to anticipate the cravings that may follow and realize it's something to be dealt with. I can't go anywhere near nuts or chips or little candies because once I start with those, I can't stop until everything is gone.
So when you're talking about moving between these three different headspaces, I interpret it through my own lens as: 1) I'm on plan and am fine with it; 2) I'm kind of on plan but my compulsive eating hookers are starting to get their claws out and I'm looking for reasons to eat; and 3) I'm eating at will, terrified that the eating will never end while still enjoying the familiarity of it all, and am both longing for and dreading the time when I know I have to get back on plan.
The voice in my head that tells me something is a bad idea has never been a very effective deterrent for anything, ever. What constrains me and compels me to get back on plan has to come from the same place as the urge to eat. If the latter is all about internalizing and reinforcing all these messages about how awful and worthless I am, the former has to be grounded in an even deeper sense that I as a person do have some value and my life does have some meaning even if only by virtue of the fact that it's a life like any other.
Long story short, I think I get what you're saying. I've certainly been in that place where you feel out of control with the food and then put on the brakes hard to get back in control. I think your expectations with respect to our capacity for rational thought when it comes to food are perhaps a bit high, but maybe that's just me.
Hang in there. You're not alone in this.