Column: Amy Pleimling, Dietitian Speaks

Have you ever sat down for a snack at night and looked down at the bag you are eating from and realized the chips or crackers you were eating are gone? Have you ever grabbed a cookie with the intention of having one or two and in the end you can’t say for sure how many you had? Or how about going into a drive-through feeling famished, proceeding to drive and eat and being done in five minutes flat?

These are examples of what goes on all the time – mindless eating. Not paying attention to the food you are eating is mindless eating. It is also not paying attention to your bodily cues of when to eat and when to stop eating.

I have been teaching a healthy lifestyle program at Hy-Vee on and off for five years, and one session of that program is entirely focused on what I call “regulating your food intake.”

In this session I ask folks, “Why do we eat?” Believe it or not, many times we get to the end of the list and I prompt the group that we missed one reason, a pretty darn good reason — hunger. The answers that are offered first (before “hunger”) are things like stress, boredom, anger, sadness, time and social occasions.

Have you ever heard the saying “Eat to live, don’t live to eat”? Seems to me that much of the time we don’t use food for what it is meant to be — nourishment.

By no means is someone going to just put the brakes on eating for any reason other than hunger. But it is important to think about, considering the main reason we eat should be because we are hungry. The reason we stop eating should be because we are full. If you stop to think about your internal cues and follow them, we could be a whole different society. Let’s break down hunger and fullness a bit.

Hunger.

What does hunger feel like to you? You might mention that hunger is your stomach growling or a light-headed feeling. Basically, hunger is physical. It is important to note that there is a difference between hunger and appetite. Think of a food you don’t really love, but don’t despise either.

Let’s say it is cauliflower. If you are hungry and are offered cauliflower, you will eat it. If it is just your appetite, you will pass on the cauliflower for sure.

Eating because you are hungry is a hard thing to learn and takes time. Being more mindful and thinking a bit before you eat will help.

One thing to know is that the cues for thirst and hunger are similar. This means that often times when you think you are hungry, you might be thirsty. Drink a glass of water to be sure and wait a few minutes. Even if you did decide you are hungry — you got an extra glass of water in and now you’ll probably eat less.

 

Fullness

When the Blue Zones staff was in town conducting the Vitality Project, they talked about stopping eating when you are 80 percent full. It is hard to know what a fraction of full feels like if you don’t know how it feels to be 100 percent full.

I think in our country we need to redefine fullness. Since fullness is different for everybody — kind of like a pain scale — it is really hard to define.

Far too often “eating until I’m full” means “until I get my money’s worth” or “until the food is gone” or possibly “until I was told I could get down from the table.”

We all can work on finding the right time to stop eating. I do like the 80 percent full idea and think the word that best describes it to me is “satisfied.”

It takes 20 minutes for your brain to tell your stomach when you’ve had enough. Most times we are eating in less time than that. That is why far too often when we leave the table feeling “full,” about 15 minutes later we know we overate because full has shifted to uncomfortable (which means you likely consumed too many calories). Slow down and pay more attention to what you are eating. Chew more. Take more sips of water. Put the fork down purposely. Then decide what 80 percent full or satisfied feels like to you and that is when you stop eating.

Mindful eating is purposeful eating. Recognizing hunger and fullness is only part of mindful eating. Mindful eating is also about slowing down, knowing your food triggers, pinpointing your emotions and changing your view of food. These things will be discussed in next month’s article. But until then, start paying more attention to why you are eating and try to stop at satisfied.

 

Amy Pleimling is the dietitian for the Hy-Vee grocery store in Albert Lea.