Intuitive Eating Principle #6: Feel Your Fullness
Feeling your fullness goes beyond the physical sensation of satiety; it encompasses a deeper connection with your body and emotions, fostering a balanced and mindful approach to nourishment. In a world often driven by external cues and societal pressures, tuning into your body's signals and recognizing what foods you desire and when you're truly satisfied can lead to a more harmonious relationship with food and self. This principle of intuitive eating encourages you to shift from rigid diets and portion control to attaining a profound understanding of YOUR individual needs. By embarking on a journey to feel your fullness, you embark on a path of self-discovery and well-being that transcends mere consumption and nourishes your entire being.
Clean Plate Syndrome
The "clean plate syndrome" refers to the tendency or social habit of eating all the food on your plate, even when you’re no longer hungry or satisfied. This behavior often stems from childhood teachings or cultural norms that emphasize not wasting food (e.g. “You can’t leave the table until you eat all your food”, “No dessert until you finish your dinner”).
As you enter adulthood, it can lead to overeating and a disconnection from your body's signals of fullness. For example, have you ever felt the need to finish a whole bag of chips or finish your plate of pasta at a restaurant, even when you are no longer hungry? In these situations, you are unknowingly relying on external cues rather than internal cues, i.e. eating until the food is gone vs stopping when you are full.
How to Respect Your Fullness
The key to moving away from external cues to internal body cues is conscious awareness eating - being fully present and attentive while consuming food, engaging your senses, thoughts and emotions during meals:
Pause in the middle of a meal or snack for a time-out:
How does the food taste? Are you beginning to feel full?When you finish eating, check-in with yourself and your fullness level:
Is your fullness pleasant, unpleasant or neutral?Explore your sense of fullness, recognizing your point of satisfaction for those final few bites
Remember to Honor Your Hunger (Principle #2)It’s ok to leave food on your plate
Give yourself unconditional permission to eat (Principle #3), but do not make it a rule that you must leave food on your plate (there are no rules in Intuitive Eating!)
How to Increase Your Conscious Awareness
Eat without distraction
Reinforce your conscious decision to stop
Defend yourself from obligatory eating
Factors that Influence Fullness
The amount of time that has past since you last ate
The kind of food you ate
The amount of food still remaining in the stomach when you start eating
Initial Hunger Level
Social influences
