Have you ever finished a meal and felt so full you’ve had to undo a button or loosen your belt? Have you gone for that second or third helping and regretted it later? What about having three courses when you’re out for dinner then wishing you’d stuck to two?
Yes we live in the land of plenty and upsizing. What’s more, we’re encouraged from a young age not to waste food and to eat everything on our plate until we feel ‘full’. This culture is one of the factors that have led to Australia’s alarming levels of obesity.
The key is to be mindful of your 1-10 hunger and satisfaction scale. 1 is ravenously hungry and feeling weak or faint. 10 is feeling absolutely overstuffed. When we allow our hunger and satisfaction scale to drop below 3 it can lead to eating far more than your body needs.
At the other end of the scale, being at an 8, 9 or 10, is overeating and leads to weight gain, guilt and regret. And, of course, it also slows down your metabolism so it becomes tired and sluggish.
The goal is to stay comfortably within the 3 to 7 range so you are mindfully connected with real hunger and satisfaction as opposed to creating a vicious cycle of the feast and famine response.
Take a moment to reflect on the times you either at too much or let yourself get too hungry in the last seven days.
All too often, one directly leads to the other. When we overeat there can be a tendency to then say “OK that’s it. I will skip a meal to make up for it” or vice versa you can be so hungry that then you over eat and the cycle begins.
Another key to breaking this cycle is the 3 x 3 x 3. Aim daily to eat three meals and three snacks daily, with no more than three hours in between.
What a great way to keep your satisfaction within the range of 3 to 7.
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