AAT: Stomach Signals

In the chapter entitled 'Discover Your Stomach Signals' author Linda Craighead describes how hunger works and how to recognize moderate fullness. I will discuss what most helped me.

HUNGER AS AN ALARM SYSTEM: " ... hunger is set up to work as an alarm system, not as an indicator of how much our body needs food ... It is quite possible to ignore your hunger for awhile if you are sufficiently distracted ... Your hunger signal gets stronger each time it returns until you have to eat in order to turn it off ... When you have been tuning out your hunger, you may not feel very hungry even though your body needs nutrients ... you can need food even when you don't feel very hungry. Once you start to eat, our attention is refocused on sensations associated with hunger, so you are likely to get back in touch with how hungry you are. People usually eat too fast and have trouble controling the amount they eat when they are truly hungry. Your biological drive to eat kicks in once you start to eat, and this pressure makes it harder to maintain control and stop when you want."

I often mistakenly believed that stronger hunger cues meant I needed more food to satisfy hunger. So I would serve myself a larger meal or even snack while I prepared the meal and expect to eat the same size meal I usually eat PLUS those premeal snacks. Then I would feel uncomfortably stuffed, even though I started eating when I was VERY hungry. Now I understand that hunger is like a snooze alarm, which gets progressively louder (or stronger for hunger sensations). If I let myself get very hungry, I need to remember that my stomach is the same size and will need approximately the same amount it needs when I'm moderately hungry.

LET YOUR STOMACH BE YOUR GUIDE: " ... stomach fullness as your cue to stop eating ... will work no matter what you are eating. Moderate fullness is indicated by the first sign of stomach distention ... You are moderately full when you first feel that your stomach pushes out or presses against your waistband. If you have trouble identifying this signal, you may find it helpful to put your hand on your stomach before you eat and check it several times as you eat ... When you listen more to your stomach and less to your mouth, you will find it easier to stop after moderate amounts of food. Your mouth is focused on taste, so you may end up feeling deprived if you don't eat as much as you want. Your stomach signal is based on fullness, not taste. Your stomach signal is the secret to eating less without feeling too deprived. You don't debate the issue or try to justify eating more. By using stomach signals, you take the decision to stop eating out of the psychological realm. If you focus on getting psychologically satisfied, anything less feels negative. When you goal is just to get full, you can feel good about stopping at moderate fullness ... To detect moderate fullness, you have to pay attention while you are eating in order to notice as soon as you start to feel full. At first you may not be able to stop as soon as you feel moderate fullness. With practice you get better."

Taking eating out of the psychological realm by focussing only on stomach fullness, rather than psychological satisfaction, is mind blowing for me. For years I have tried to satisfy specific food cravings, fully experience every bite of food, and stop when I felt full. However, I didn't WANT to stop when I enjoyed the eating process. I also feared that I would binge if I didn't experience 'satisfaction' as well as 'fullness'. (Several 'normal eating' gurus emphasize the importance of stopping when 'satisfied' as well as full.) More recently I have easily stopped when I felt moderately full, because I consider 'moderate stomach fullness' my 'stop sign'. If I don't feel satisfied or crave another kind of food, I make a mental note to eat that food at a future meal. Also I began to value how my stomach felt after a meal more than my tasting/chewing experience during the meal.

MINDFUL EATING: " ... means eating slowly and paying close attention to the taste of food in your mouth plus the feel of food in your stomach. Regardless of why you start eating, pay attention while you eat. By eating mindfully and monitoring fullness, you can prevent many eating episodes from turning into overeating episodes through ignoring fullness. Sometimes you may still ignore fulllness deliberately because you are enjoying the taste, but you are less likely to eat as much food that you don't enjoy."

I'm still learning what 'moderate fullness' feels like for me. The 'stomach pressing against my waistband' guideline doesn't work as well for me, because I take magnesium supplements which can cause bloating. So I can feel bloated, rather than full. Also I often wear mid rise jeans which don't press against my stomach. Nevertheless I feel some inner pressure or full sensations, which help me stop before I feel uncomfortably full.

RECALIBRATING YOUR APPETITE: "Your ratings of hunger and fullness are subjective. Only you can assess your internal state. Due to normalized overeating in our environment, you may not feel full as soon as your are biologically full because you think full means psychologically satisfied. By paying close attention, you can recalibrate your 'appetite meter' so that it will more accurately reflect the true state of hunger in your body."

I've already noticed that I'm reassessing my notion of 'moderately full', since beginning to review this book. Even after years of bingeing and purging, I know I can eat according to natural hunger/fullness sensations.