How to Feel Full

Your food choices affect how quickly you feel full and how long you’ll stay full. In this post we’ll break down how our bodies feel hungry and full (the physiology of hunger and satiety). And, the factors (including foods) that impact these sensations. So that you know how to feel full longer And, you can pick the most filling foods to prevent hunger. 

The Physiology of How We Feel Full

Our mind and body work together to give us the sensation of being full - it’s a psycho-biological process.

After ingesting a meal, there are stretch receptors in your stomach lining that signal your brain to release hormones called CCK, leptin, and PYY. These hormones help suppress your appetite and make you feel full. This is the sensation called satiation. It dissipates your motivation to eat

This gut-brain feedback loop maintains our balance between hunger and satiety. Overtop of this feedback loop is what we’ve learned from social norms as cues for our next meal. Meaning that we sometimes eat even when our body is not hungry. But that’s a whole different topic. Check out my video series on cravings where I dive deeper into the non-hunger reasons why we eat: https://youtu.be/oLDq5qCk5Oo

The good news is that there are several factors that you can control that will help balance your satiety. We’ll start with psycho-biological factors that trigger satiety.

Modifiable Psycho-Biological Factors to Keep You Full:

Sleep:

Getting enough sleep is one way you can keep satiety in check. Research shows that sleep deprived individuals have impaired satiation via an impact on the hormones.

Mindfulness:

Social context and distractions influence satiation and explain our tendency to eat more during certain social events, such as holiday gatherings. Studies show that eating with attention (mindfulness) helps with post-meal satiety.

In addition, eating slower can also help you feel full. That’s because hastily eating meals reduces the time our senses are exposed to food.

Perception:

We have all heard the expression “to eat with one’s eyes”, but actually the energy content of food and your prior encounter with a food item influences your perception of the satiety value. This perception is expected satiety.

Another way to manipulate expected satiety: choose smaller portions. Studies show that smaller meal portions induce higher expected satiety values.

Nutritional Factors That Keep You Full:

Food Composition:

Wondering why that fruit smoothie didn’t fill you up? Studies show that semi-solid and solid foods have greater satiating affects than liquids. This may be because the act of chewing is one of the signals our body uses to feel full.

It also takes longer to chew food versus drinking it. As we mentioned already, the longer our senses experience food, the more they communicate satiety cues.

Nutrient Content - Protein:

Evidence shows that you are able to enhance your satiety by selecting foods that are rich in protein. And, some proteins are even more filling than others. Particularly filling proteins are whey (found in dairy products), soy, and pea. These proteins induce a quicker release of satiety hormones.

Nutrient Content - Fibre:

Another nutrient that has shown to increase satiety is fibre. Fibre promotes satiety by slowing down digestion time in the gut. Fibre is found in fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts/seeds.

Nutrient Content - Fat:

There is mixed scientific evidence for fat’s promotion of satiety. The medium chain triglycerides found in coconut oil and diacylglycerols found in olive oil may enhance satiety. To get the most satiety benefit from fat, combine it with fibre. This co-ingestion helps decrease your digestion time which will increases your satiety.

Alexandra’s Thoughts:

Satiety is important for maintaining a healthy weight and is influenced by many factors. It is best to choose nutrient dense foods that contain protein or complex carbohydrates that have high satiety values that will prologue satiety until your next meal. Limiting distractions and practicing mindfulness during meals will help you be aware of when you are full and prevent overeating.

Kristen’s Thoughts:

To experience the most satiety, practice what I call the two “P’s”. Every time you eat, include Protein and Produce. And, choose foods that you need to chew more often than you choose smoothies. For example:

• Breakfast: Steel-cut oatmeal (fibre) topped with hemp hearts (protein, fat and fibre) and blueberries (fibre).

• Lunch: Tofu (soy protein), barley (fibre) and veggie (fibre) salad bowl with an olive oil vinaigrette (fat).

• Afternoon snack: an apple (fibre) and almonds (protein and fat).

• Dinner: salmon (fat and protein) with roasted cauliflower and broccoli (fibre).

 Turn off the screens while you eat and tune in. Take the time to chew your food well. These are simple steps, yet they’re not common practice.

Ready to get control of your cravings? I’ve got a series of videos to help you here: https://youtu.be/oLDq5qCk5Oo

Co-Author: Amazing student Alexandra

Photo credit: Jenn Kosar