Ways to Feel Full and Eat Less

If part of your health journey includes weight loss, a common struggle is that HUNGRY feeling. While you might assume that being hungry has to do with how many calories you consume, you’d be wrong. That feeling of satisfaction, called satiety, actually comes from a variety of factors unrelated to the caloric content of your food. If the calories don’t matter, what does? Satiety IS directly related to the nutritional content of your food. The quality of your meal really does matter more than the quantity. Knowing that can help you find ways to naturally feel full even when you eat fewer calories. 

What is Satiety?

Satiety has two main purposes. Feeling full and satisfied helps you stop eating when you are full, and then suppresses your appetite until it is time to eat again. There are a number of factors that trigger satiety when you eat. 

First of all, satiety is triggered by the sensory experience of consuming your food or drink. This includes the flavor, texture, mouthfeel, smell, and appearance of food. This is why programs that include meal replacement shakes rarely work as long-term solutions. Your body is looking to experience the food you eat.

Second,  the expansion of the stomach tells your body that you’ve had enough. This sensation can be delayed, which is why it is important to eat slowly and to give your body time to register what you’ve eaten. Adding low-density foods can be helpful with weight loss because they fill you up. Simply put, high-density foods give you a lot of calories in a little bit of food. For example, one doughnut can have around 250 calories, most of which are carbohydrates, with some fat and protein. If the doughnut was made with enriched flour, there may be some folate, iron, and thiamine added to it, but that does not make it a nutritional choice, and it’s one doughnut. Low-density foods have few calories in a lot of food. Kale, for example, has 33 calories per cup. If you were going to eat 250 calories of kale, you’d be eating over seven cups of kale, raw. Even if you decided to make kale chips with olive oil and sea salt on them, you’d be eating over four cups of kale to reach 250 calories, and you’d also be gaining fiber, magnesium, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, folate, potassium, and thiamine, in addition to the fat and carbohydrates. You gain a lot more bang for your buck. 

The third factor involved in satiety are your hormones, particularly a pair of hormones that are released during digestion and the absorption of nutrients. Ghrelin is the hormone that signals hunger, and leptin is the hormone that suppresses it. If your leptin receptors get desensitized, your brain will not get the message that your hunger has been satisfied and you will continue to feel hungry. 

What Other Factors Lead to Overeating?

Besides feeling full and satisfied, there are several other factors that may cause someone to eat more than they need. 

1. Palatability. Palatability refers to how tasty and appealing a food is. Besides the fact that processed foods are packed with non-food ingredients and generally have a lower nutritional profile than foods in their raw state, processed foods are also loaded with the things that make you want to eat: salt, fat, and sugar. These foods are hyper-palatable, because they have been manufactured to contain higher concentrations of these three things than any food that occurs in nature. Your body naturally craves these three things, and in fact needs all three, but not in the amounts that hyper-palatable foods deliver them. By choosing natural sources of these three things, in healthy fats like olive oil and coconut oil, fruits and vegetables, and using modest amounts of salt on our food, you can re-train your palate to recognize just how EXTRA those processed foods are. 
2. Portion sizes. People tend to eat what’s in front of them. If you’ve bought yourself a lunch with your hard-earned money, you don’t want to let any of that go to “waste.” The problem is that portion sizes are all out of proportion with the amount of food you actually need to be satisfied. As with palatability, it is possible we’ve trained our bodies and minds to think that the amount put in front of us at a restaurant is what we “need” to be satisfied, when in reality our nutritional needs might be met with half or a third as much food. A portion of meat is about the size of a deck of cards. A portion of fat is about the size of your thumb.
3. Variety. Have you every walked away from a potluck feeling too full, even though you thought you only “tried” a little bit of everything? When there is a large variety of food, it is easy to overeat just to get a taste of everything in front of you. This is why holiday meals can be difficult too. Especially when there are special foods that you only eat once a year, it can be easy to overload your plate and end up feeling stuffed. Simplicity is a powerful practice when it comes to meal planning, whether those meals are everyday dinners or special holiday meals. Choose a protein source, add a little healthy fat, and a couple of vegetables. You don’t have to sit down to a full-course meal every night to be satisfied. 
4. Emotional states. Foods can activate the dopamine portion of our brains. This gives us a quick, feel-good hit of dopamine, and then sends us back for another portion to do it again. The problem is, it might require a little bit more that second time to get the same effect Being able to clearly see when you are eating something in order to deal with emotions can help you avoid overeating, because you can choose something else to help you cope with stress or feel better. Building awareness without shame is important in this area. If you find yourself reaching for a snack, take just a moment to check in. Ask yourself, “Am I really feeling hungry?” You can try drinking a full glass of water as your first response to the temptation to open the pantry cupboard. You can take a quick walk instead. Then check in with yourself again, and ask yourself what you really need. If the answer is, “I do need a little treat,” then enjoy it and move on. Being aware of your patterns and actual needs helps you make the choices that support your goals, and fit your treats into that framework.
5. Food availability and advertising. Snack food is ubiquitous. You see it advertised everywhere you look. You see it when you check out at the grocery store. It is available in vending machines and corner stores and in airports. All this advertising is indeed meant to get you to grab a bag of chips or a candy bar and be on your way, every time. The sheer number of times you have to turn something down can be overwhelming. You can feel like you’ve done a great job and avoided twenty offers over the course of the day, but then say yes to the candy bar at the gas station, every day. It’s not likely that food advertising is going to be regulated more stringently any time soon. This is another area where it does help to build awareness and clearly identify what is going on. You can tell yourself, “Yes, that burger sure does look good! But I know what it will actually look like when I unwrap it, and I know what I’ll feel like fifteen minutes after I eat it, so I’m just going to head home for the dinner I already planned.”
6. Social situation. This is a highly personal area that deserves some thought so that you can build your awareness around your needs. For some people, eating with friends is such an enjoyable activity that they forget about monitoring what they’re taking in and keep eating just to prolong the enjoyment. For some people, eating together can bring the satisfaction and connection of community. They feel more satisfied after a meal together, regardless of what was consumed, and may overeat when they are alone because that social satisfaction is missing. 
7. Physical activity levels. What you do in a day makes an impact in how hungry you feel. Anyone feeding high school athletes can attest to this fact. Adding exercise to your day may make you feel more hungry, and it is even more important to be aware of how you are refueling your body and make choices to nourish your body with the quality that it needs so that you don’t make the mistake of consuming a larger quantity instead. 
8. Alcohol and sweetened beverage consumption. Alcohol can stimulate your appetite and also contributes extra calories to the meal. The process of chewing helps your body determine when to be done eating, and consuming many of your calories as a liquid, either in alcohol, soda, iced tea, sweetened smoothies, or another high energy density beverage, can make it more difficult to determine when you’ve had enough. 

So what are the best ways to feel full and lose weight?

1. Mindful eating. Simply paying attention to what you are eating, taking the time to be grateful and to appreciate the colors, textures, and flavors of your food, can help you slow down and enjoy it. Eating slowly and mindfully allows the satiety signals to reach your brain. 
2. Share your meals. Sharing a healthy meal together can bring the satisfaction of connecting and communicating, as well as the enjoyment of the food. 
3. Plan meals with a mixture of high and low energy density foods. Foods such as soup or stew have the advantage of containing a lot of water, which adds volume to the meal, and can also include a wide variety of vegetables and a reasonable portion of meat or protein evenly distributed. If you are feeling really hungry, two bowls of soup go a long way in both filling you up and delivering easily digested nutrients.
4. Include fiber in your meals. Leave the peels on your apples, and add another vegetable or two to each meal. Vegetables contain many nutrients and also a lot of water and fiber, so they can be satisfying on both the quality and quantity levels. 

Here are 8 things to add to your meals to help you feel full and eat less.

You might notice that these foods are a combination of both low energy dense foods that you can eat a lot of, because they contain a lot of water and fiber, and also high energy dense foods that offer satisfying protein and healthy fats and fill you up in smaller amounts. It is helpful to balance both of these things as you seek quality over quantity.

1. Leafy greens. 

Remember the kale example? Leafy greens are low energy density foods. If you want to add some nutritional punch, try mixing some higher energy density foods with your leafy greens. A portion of nuts, a portion of high-quality fat as a dressing, and a hardboiled egg can make any salad into a filling meal. Just eating more lettuce won’t make you feel full, because it won’t deliver all the nutrition your body needs, but adding some fat and protein will increase your satisfaction and keep you full longer. Mixing leafy greens with other vegetables, like roasted sweet potatoes or cauliflower, or root vegetables such as beets, radishes, and carrots, and also with some herbs, can add flavors and textures that will increase your satisfaction as well.

2. Sweet potatoes.

Roasted with olive oil and a little salt and pepper, sweet potatoes offer sweetness and nutrition that is very satisfying, and are high in fiber as well. 

3. Eggs.

Eggs are perfect nutritional powerhouses! If you eat breakfast, consider making eggs your go-to. The good fat and protein at the beginning of your day will help stabilize your blood sugar levels and prevent the desire for a mid-morning snack. 

4. Soups and stews.

Soups and stews offer a wide variety of flavors, textures, and readily available nutrients for digestion and absorption. If you make your soups with bone broth, they will do double duty by both filling you up and nourishing your cells. Brothy soups are less energy dense than cream-based soups, but still deliver potent nutrition. 

5. Avocados.

Healthy fats give your body energy. Half of an avocado has about 160 calories, and is packed with good fat. This makes it both filling and satisfying.

6. Berries.

Berries are fantastic to snack on because they fulfill several of those satiety factors at once. They are brightly colored, they have vivid flavors and textures, and are packed with antioxidants. 

7. Nuts.

Like berries, nuts offer a lot of nutrition in a tiny package. However, berries are low energy density foods, and can be eaten by the handful. Nuts, on the other hand, are high energy density foods. They contain protein and healthy fats along with vitamin and minerals and can be satisfying in small amounts. Mixing these two can be the key to a good snack - a handful of blueberries along with 8-10 pecans or almonds gives you the right balance between the two. 

8. Water and herbal tea. 

Drink plenty of water between and before meals, and drink herbal tea as a treat or with a snack. Sometimes it is easy to mistake a thirst cue for a hunger cue. If you make a habit of drinking a glass of water first when you feel the urge to snack coming on, you give your body time to tell you what you really need. If you’ve already filled up on water and tea you are less likely to overeat even when you’ve determined that you do actually need a snack. A good cup of hot tea can also be the treat you need to help you slow down and process if you find yourself reaching for a snack to calm your emotions. 

These ways to feel full and eat less can help you shift your eating from a quantity perspective to a quality perspective. You can honor your body by giving it the nutrition that it needs, and by nourishing your body you will feel full and satisfied. Whether you have a weight loss goal or you just recognize that you haven’t been giving your body the fuel it needs, there are resources available to help you make the choices to support your goals. Dr. Kiernan’s cookbook, Eating on Purpose, is chock full of proven strategies for sustainable health and the wide variety of recipes will give you options for healthy versions of old favorites and new flavors and methods to explore as well. All TruBalance offices are equipped for virtual appointments.