Learning Satiety

One of the biggest takeaways I had in my journey to healthy eating was learning the feeling of satiety. Our body’s cue that it’s full is not when we’re stuffed and we can’t eat anymore - that’s when we’ve overeaten. Often its when you’re satisfied and you have this desire for a little sweet treat to finish your meal. Recognizing that your body is actually satisfied at that moment and instead drinking a glass of water was revolutionary to me. I learned to start recognizing my body’s cue that I’d had enough and I’d sit in the satisfaction that I had filled my body with lots of great fuel and that I didn’t need anything else.

I learned that having that little sweet treat actually would then trick my body into thinking it wasn’t so full and then I would actually snack and eat more and then an hour later I just felt so gross and overfull; swearing I’d never do that again.

Why do we continue to think that the promise of that sweet treat is going to satisfy us when invariably it will only do the opposite? We need to retrain our brains to learn the feeling of satiety and truly sit in that and enjoy the feeling of being full without overeating!

The science of it comes down to the fact that sugar interferes with the release of satiety hormones that tell your brain that you are full and then triggers dopamine. So basically eating sugar after a meal means that your body stops receiving the signals that its full and then you get a big hit of dopamine telling you that you’ve done a good thing and then you start craving more! After a bunch of sugar, you’ll likely have a sharp blood sugar crash which tricks your body into thinking its hungry again, even though its not.

This spiral shows how just a little sugar after a meal can sabotage your weight loss goals and plays tricks on your brain and your body. Join me in retraining our brains in enjoying the feeling of being full and satisfied… and healthy!