Intuitive Eating in Sport Series Principle 5: Feel Your Fullness

Hi there! Welcome! If you are new here, my name is Rebekah De Couvreur. I am a Registered Dietitian, Certified Diabetes Educator and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor specializing in sports nutrition.

We are here at the halfway point, learning about the principles of Intuitive Eating and how we can apply them in sport. Today is all about "Feel Your Fullness".

This principle encourages you to listen to your body's innate wisdom. In our busy busy lives, it can be difficult to slow down and notice things like how our body feels as we eat a meal. When we don't have a chance to eat until we are ravenous then we have a measly 10 minutes to shovel in some food over lunch break or between kids' activities, it can be difficult to notice something as simple as the fullness of your belly.

Things get in the way!

Feeling our fullness gets disrupted by way too many things. I mentioned a couple above but let's explore this a bit more.

Distracted Eating - phones, tv, work, cleaning the house, reading, driving...the list goes on. When we are doing more than just eating, it's difficult for our brains to identify fullness.

Challenge yourself: keep the phone and computer away, sit down at the table, create a pleasant environment. This will give you a chance to focus on the task and joy of eating your meal without those distractions.

Clean Plate Club - Are you a member? Many of us can relate to this learned behaviour, often taught to us as we were told to "finish all the food on our plates or no dessert". What about: "there were starving children in the world so we better finish our food"? Whatever the line, many of us were taught that not finishing every bite on your plate was uacceptable, even if finishing those last bites was pushing you past comfortable fullness. Now, in the ideal situation, you don't waste food. But you don't always put the right amount of food on your plate at each meal!

Challenge yourself: Disrupt the habit! Eat with your non-dominant hand to slow yourself down and give pause to notice when you start feeling full. Aim to stop when comfortably full, even if there is food left on the plate. To avoid waste, you can always pack up the leftovers for your lunch the next day. To further encourage this break in habit, you can try to consistently leave 2 bites of food uneaten at each meal.

Difficulty Saying NO: In many social settings, you may find yourself offered more to eat even when you are already full. It is hard to say no to a friend or family member trying to bestow their love on you through food. BUT - not only can it lead to feeling uncomfortably full but you are unlikely to enjoy or feel much satisfaction from that extra helping if you are no longer hungry.

Challenge yourself: Say no! Here are some common ways to politely say no.

"No thank you"

“I would love to eat more food, but I couldn’t possibly have another bite without feeling uncomfortably full”

“Wow your dish looks amazing. I am really too full to try it, but I would love to get the recipe from you”

“I really appreciate that you made my favourite dish. It looks so yummy, and I know you spent a lot of time making it. I would really like to eat this when I can savour and enjoy it, but I’m just too full right now”.

“Even just one more bite of food is too much for my body right now. Thank you for respecting that”.

Unpredictability of Fullness: Fullness can be confusing. You may eat the same amount of food one day and be comfortably full, yet the next day you feel like you could eat another serving. Many things impact our fullness including how much time has passed since our last meal, the type of food, our initial hunger level, social situations, and whether or not we allow ourselves unconditional permission to eat with attunement to our bodies.

Challenge yourself: Be curious and work on identifying the factors influencing your fullness.

For example, many athletes work on improving the staying power of their meal (improving the feeling of satiety after eating). The nutrients fiber, protein and fat add staying power to meals and snacks. Many foods that are promoted on different diets lack these nutrients. Rice cakes, celery sticks, low calorie cereals, 0% yogurts, cauliflower rice, etc...They may be low calorie but you are likely going to be hungry again very quickly.

Difficulty Identifying Fullness: Identifying fullness can be puzzling in itself, especially for those who have been trapped in a diet mindset for a long time. Dieting encourages you to rely on external cues (what the meal plan says) to tell you what is enough for your body. Your internal cues are typically (I will elaborate on this in a second) much more reliable!

Challenge yourself: Learn what comfortable fullness feels like to you. Do satiety checks before, during and after your meal.

Now I said "typically" your internal cues are more reliable. In athletes, our appetite can be dampened by intense exercise, nerves, anticipation, etc and sometimes it is encouraged to consume foods despite not necessarily feeling hungry to start with to ensure optimal fueling and recovery.

In our busy lives coopted by diet culture, food rules and all the sport nutrition recommendations out there, it can be hard to tune in and listen to your body's internal wisdom when it comes to fullness. I hope this articce encourages you to challenge yourself in identifying what fullness feels like in your body and how to respect it.

If you are ready to take the next step in your nutrition journey, book your FREE DISCOVERY CALL today. I can't wait to meet you!

Talk soon