Principle number six of intuitive eating is feeling your fullness. Feeling your fullness is really getting used to understanding where your body feels comfortably satisfied. This can be a challenge for a lot of people starting their intuitive eating journey. I don’t expect anybody to always stop eating at their comfortably full place. Sometimes you are going to overeat and that’s okay. Feeling your fullness is about learning how to listen to your hunger signals. This can be a difficult thing if you have been in diet culture for a very long time. Your intuitive eating journey is about starting to trust your hunger signals and understanding what your body is really feeling.
I’m here to share two quick tips that you can use to work on experiencing that comfortably satisfied place!
Tip #1 – Limit Distracted Eating
We live in a multitasking world. It’s really important to pay attention to being in the moment of your meal. Avoid eating in front of the TV, at your computer, on your phone, or while you are working. When you are not engaged in your meal, a few things happen:
- You are not present in actually tasting the meal. Is the meal hot? Is it sweet? What is the texture of the meal? Do you even like it?
- You are not feeling satisfied by the meal. One of the intuitive eating principles, the satisfaction factor, is allowing yourself to feel pleasure around food.
We want to allow ourselves to enjoy our meals and when we eat in distracted places, we’re not really present to be able to do that. Eating your meals sitting down and in an undistracted place can be really helpful to see how comfortably full you are and to find a place to stop eating.
Tip #2 – Take Your Time When Eating
When you start eating a meal, hormones are released that let your brain know that you are getting full. If you are eating quickly and inhaling a meal in 10 minutes, your brain doesn’t register that you’re starting to get full. In this scenario, about 30 minutes into the meal, you will realize that you are completely stuffed and overfull. One way that you can practice to slow down your meal is by eating with your non-dominant hand. When you eat with your non-dominant hand, your brain doesn’t register what’s going on, and you can really slow down your intake which will give you time to hone in on your feelings of fullness.
Feeling your fullness is challenging. You may overeat a bunch of times while you’re trying to figure out where your comfortably satisfied place is. That is totally normal. The best thing you can do in those moments is to not judge yourself. Sometimes the food is going to taste really good and you’re just not going to want to stop eating and that’s okay! Remember that we can always eat that meal again tomorrow. We can always cook it again or order it from a restaurant in the future. One of the best things about intuitive eating is that whatever it is that you crave or you love, you have permission to eat it whenever you want!
If you enjoyed this blog and want to learn more about intuitive eating, check out my blog Will I Overeat Forever?
