What happens if you don't feel *that* full?

“But I never eat until I’m too full.”

Those were the words from one of my clients when we were talking about listening to hunger cues. This might seem hard to believe coming from someone who was well over 200lbs. Buut...

She wasn’t lying! She was experiencing what many folks do when they have overeaten for so long: her stomach was used to stretching and she was used to the feeling of being overfull. It never occurred to her that the feeling that she considered normal was actually more than she needed.

It typically looks like this: there’s a point when you feel satisfied/full. But you can keep eating quite a bit more because you don’t feel any more full. So the natural tendency is to just keep eating because food is pleasurable.

So what’s the solution?

Try stopping when you first notice you feel full.

Now your brain is gonna have all kinds of things to say about this...don’t worry, it’s just trying to protect you!

• It’s gonna tell you that’s not enough food.

• It’s gonna say you’re gonna be hungry.

• It’s gonna tell you that you shouldn’t waste the other food.

• And it’s gonna tell you that the food tastes good and you really want to eat the rest.

This is normal!

Then you’re going to tell your scared brain that you’re testing things out. That you can have more food in an hour if you’re hungry. That you can put the rest of that tasty food in the fridge and get it whenever you want. But for now, you’re going to stop there.

And then you experiment!

Eating intuitively is an experiment. Every single body is different. What foods and what amounts will be different. Don’t worry about what your spouse, friend, coworker, sister is doing...you do you! And trust that you can figure this out!