Intuitive Eating 101 Series - Principle #5: Feel Your Fullness

Learn how to tune into your fullness cues and feel good after eating, not uncomfortably stuffed.

**Disclaimer: Please note that the information in this or any other blog posts on this site may not be suitable or apply to you, depending on where you’re at in your mental health and/or eating disorder/diet recovery journey. This information is for educational purposes only and not meant to be a substitute for medical or psychiatric advice. Please consult your healthcare practitioner before making any changes. See full disclaimer here.

Welcome to part five of a ten part series, breaking down each principle of Intuitive Eating, a non-diet and weight-neutral approach to health. If you missed the introduction about what Intuitive Eating is and the deeper dive into the first principle, read this post first. You can also read the last part in the series here.

This post is going to be all about Principle #5: Feel Your Fullness.

Are you someone who sits in awe when you see someone leave a few bites left on their plate without issue? Do you think, “How can they just leave a few bites and not just finish what’s on their plate?” If yes, you may not be tuned in to your fullness cues.

It is not uncommon for dieters to be part of what Tribole and Resch (2012) call the “clean-plate club”. When you diet, there are usually rules about what, how much, and when you can eat, which means there are times when it’s OK to eat and other times that are not OK to eat. For example, if a diet you’re following asks you to eat a shake for breakfast and lunch and then a “real” meal for dinner, you better believe that you’ll be cleaning your plate at dinner time! Or if your diet “allows” you to eat “real” meals but they are very small in portion sizes, you will also most likely be cleaning your plate every meal. Or lastly, maybe you’re not on a diet per se, but you’re counting your carbohydrates, so you eat as much fatty foods as you want regardless of your fullness cues.

Essentially any kind of dieting (a.k.a. Following a bunch of food rules), can create a sense of scarcity around food, which then enables the behaviour of cleaning your plate when you’re “allowed” to eat or when you’re eating “good” foods. Because you’ve been feeling deprived, you will take any chance you can get to eat everything on your plate.

Now there’s nothing wrong with finishing all the food on your plate. The problem is when it’s such an automatic behaviour that you’re not even tuning into your fullness signals and before you know it, you’re feeling uncomfortably full.

There may be other reasons why you clean your plate, even if you don’t diet, such as:

• You were told that you had to finish everything on your plate in order to get dessert, or to be able to leave the dinner table.
• You were told to think of the starving children in Africa and not to waste food.
• You grew up with a lot of siblings and had to “compete” for food.
• Food was actually scarce growing up, so whenever there was food, you had to get it all in for enough nourishment.
• You just find it hard to leave any food on your plate. You believe that you’re only done eating once there’s nothing left on your plate.
• You don’t honor your hunger and eat in a ravenous state, which usually leads to overeating.

The idea behind Feel Your Fullness is to learn how to tune into your fullness or satiety cues and respect them, in order to prevent uncomfortable feelings of fullness. This doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to overeat sometimes if you choose (there are no rules in Intuitive Eating, remember?). This is about dealing with the automatic, mindless behaviour of eating too much and often the negative consequences of being physically uncomfortable and/or mentally distressed about it.

Before learning how to tune into your fullness, it’s suggested that you practice the two previous principles before this, Honor Your Hunger and Make Peace With Food first. Why? If you’re not respecting your hunger and eating only when you’re ravenous, you will most likely always eat way past comfortably full. Moreover, if you still believe certain foods are off-limits, or that you can only eat a certain amount of said food, then how are you NOT going to totally clean your plate of this food? Only once you have given yourself unconditional permission to eat all foods will you be able to be OK with leaving some on your plate.

Next is learning what “comfortably full” means to you. This might be challenging to answer if you’ve been part of the “clean-plate club” for a while. Some examples of what it could feel like are:

• A subtle sensation of physical fullness in your stomach.
• Feeling content, satisfied, or energized after a meal.
• Not feeling hungry nor full.

Once way to start tuning into your fullness cues and discovering what “comfortable fullness” means to you is to practice what Tribole and Resch (2012) call “conscious eating”. This is not about being obsessive about every bite, but about bringing attention and awareness to what your body is telling you as you eat a meal. The steps of conscious eating go something like this:

Step One: Take a pause in the middle of a meal and ask yourself two questions:

1. How does the food taste? Is this food actually worthy of my taste buds? This is a great question to ask, because sometimes we eat food not because it tastes good, but just because it’s in front of us.
2. Am I starting to feel full or satisfied? Is my hunger going dissipating?

If the food tastes good and you’re still hungry, keep eating. Stay open and curious. This step is not about feeling like “I have to stop eating at any sign of fullness”.  Don’t turn this step into another rule or dieting behaviour. This is just about increasing awareness around meal time.
​
Step Two: When you finish your meal, ask yourself where is your fullness level now? Do you feel comfortable full? Or uncomfortably full? Or maybe you’re still feeling hungry and didn’t eat enough? 

Using the Hunger/Fullness Scale can be a useful tool to start knowing what level of fullness you’re at. This is the same scale I talked about in Honor Your Hunger. But I’ll write it out here again:

0-1 = Totally empty, starving
1-2 = Ravenous, “hangry”
2-3 = Set, comfortably hungry
3-4 = Pangs, starting to feel some hunger
5 = Neutral, neither hungry nor full
6-7 = Satisfied, no longer hungry
7-8 = Full, slightly uncomfortable feeling
8-9 = Stuffed, uncomfortably full
9-10 = Sick, waay too full

Generally, comfortably fullness is around a 6 or 7. You can use this rating scale as one way to tune into your level of fullness. Again, this is not another rule, as in you “have to” stop eating at a 6 or 7. This is just one tool that can increase your consciousness around eating. The more you can practice tuning into your fullness cues, the more likely you’ll be able to recognize either if you’re still hungry, if you’re comfortably full or if you’re eating past comfortable fullness. When practicing this exercise for a while (and simultaneously practicing Honor Your Hunger and Make Peace With Food), you may find it easier to actually leave some food on your plate, because you’ll notice that you’re comfortably full and there’s no need to keep eating. Or you’ll notice that maybe you aren’t eating enough in a meal and therefore choose to eat more until satisfied.

Now it might feel challenging to even practice conscious eating in the first place, especially if you often eat on the go, or quickly, or in a distracted way. So here’s a few suggestions to create a more conscious environment while eating:

• Slow down. Before a meal, take a few deep breaths and make a conscious effort to take some time to eat. Even if it’s just 10-15 minutes. Chew your food before swallowing and take a pause or two during the meal. Not only will slowing down help you digest your food better, but it will help you tune into your fullness cues more easily.
• Eat with little to no distractions. This can be challenging, especially in the screen-obsessed world we live in. How often do you eat in front of the T.V., or while checking email or surfing the internet? Or maybe you often eat while driving or reading a magazine? This is all OK to do. But if you’re noticing that you tend to eat past fullness while you’re doing other things, you may want to try to just eat when you eat. If doing this with all meals seems unrealistic, try it with just one meal. Distractions take us out of our body, so the less distractions there are while eating, the more likely you’ll be able to tune into your fullness cues.
• Once you’ve recognized you’ve had enough to eat and that you want to stop, you can reinforce this choice by putting your utensils or your napkin on your plate, or even just pushing your plate away from you. Or maybe you get up and put any leftovers in the fridge. Again, this is not a diet trick to make you eat less, this is about respecting your fullness.
• Lastly, if you’re at a dinner party or event, you can start exercising your right to say “no” to more food. Often hosts are well-meaning “food-pushers”, but know you’re allowed to say “no, thank you, I’m full already”. You don’t have to eat more food just to because someone wants you to.

When practicing Feel Your Fullness, you may notice that sometimes a meal will keep you full and content for many hours or other times you might feel hungry an hour later. How much you may need to eat to feel comfortable fullness may vary meal to meal or day to day, because our feeling of fullness after a meal, can be influenced by many factors, including:

• How long it’s been since your last meal. If it’s been a while, you may need a bigger meal to feel satisfied. Some people prefer smaller, more frequent meals, and others prefer larger, less frequent meals.  There’s no one “right” way. Do what works for you.
• What you actually eat. Complex carbohydrates, fibre, protein and fat all help influence your feeling of fullness. Generally more nutritionally-dense foods, a.k.a. “Whole foods” will leave you feeling fuller longer than less nutritionally-dense foods a.k.a. “Highly processed foods”. Now again, this doesn’t mean you can’t a cookie. It’s just understanding how certain foods may affect your hunger/fullness cues differently. Also, be aware of “diet” foods, such as rice cakes, popcorn, shakes, or salads (with just veggies), for example. These types of foods can create a sense of physical fullness in the your stomach, but it’s often short-lived, and leaves you wanting more. There may be a place for lighter foods and snacks, like a protein bar, to tide you over until your next meal. But also be OK with eating foods with more substance most meals to help keep you fuller longer.
• Who you’re eating with. Sometimes people eat more in social settings. Sometimes people eat less, especially if they want to be “good” in front of others and only eat diet foods. Either way, people tend to ignore their hunger or fullness cues when eating with others, so these are also great times to practice conscious eating and making informed choices about what and how much you eat.

To sum up, Feel Your Fullness is an important skill to learn to help get you out of the “clean-plate club” and to get you in tune to your satiety cues. This principle is another tool to teach you to start trusting yourself around all foods and feel in control of your not only what you eat but how much you eat.

And just an FYI - As you practice this principle you may notice a couple things that can happen:

1. You may feel like even though you are aware that you’re full, you still can’t stop eating. This may be due to eating for emotional reasons rather than hunger. This will be discussed in detail when I go over Principle #7.
2. You may notice that you feel physically full but you’re not satisfied. Maybe you’re still thinking of food or craving certain foods even if you’re not hungry anymore. This may be because you’re not eating foods that you actually want or that satisfy you. I delve deeper into this in my blog post next in the series, all about the sixth principle of Intuitive Eating: Discover The Satisfaction Factor.

References
Tribole, E. & Resch, E. (2012) Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press

Are you struggling with eating and body image concerns?
​Learn more about my psychotherapy & counselling services, and how I can help you here.
​
If someone else you know could benefit from this article, please share it!​