When I committed to stop bingeing, anytime I stopped short of saying 'Oh what the heck, I might as well binge' was a 'success'. However, I also clearly knew what constituted a binge for me. I 'binged' when I felt overly full (after a meal or during between meal snacks), realized I could easily reflux and throw up if I continued to eat, and decided to eat all the foods I didn't regularly eat, but loved and had deprived myself from eating. I knew EXACTLY what constituted a binge.
However, in order to eliminate binges, I had to learn to endure 'overly full' sensations without guilt or fear, because those overly full cues led me to think 'oh what the heck' and proceed to binge. Now that I'm learning to stop at 'comfortably full', rather than overly full, I want to clarify and reinforce every instance when I stop before overly full. Last night I gave to my husband food left on my plate. So I easily stopped when I felt comfortable. If I can 'give it away', I can put it away in the refrigerator or freezer.
Today at lunch I felt slight fullness cues while I was finishing my peanut butter and mango wrap. I still had some pineapple slices sitting on the table. However, I knew that eating pineapple, after finishing my wrap, would take me from comfortably full to uncomfortably full. I knew just one bite could make that difference. So I wrapped up the pineapple and put it away.
Dinner tonight was as bowl of butternut squash (with vegies and turkey) soup and one medjool date. After eating that, I did not feel full, but I no longer felt 'hungry'. Previously I would have wanted to eat more until I felt obviously full. However, I now understand that 'nothing' (not hungry, not full) is that comfortable midpoint when I can stop eating and let my body digest the food, which will bring me to 'comfortably full' in a short while.
In order to keep my commitment to stop at comfortable I decided to mentally note (or blog about) each instance I succeed with stopping, while ignoring the instances where I feel more than comfortably full. I want to do more of what works and remembmer why that worked and do less of what didn't work and not dwell on that.
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This is a great post, Sue. It gave me some ideas, too. I have been paying more attention to my hunger/fullness cues as well. Now that my diet is much better, I need to keep working on portions. I have not binged in a long time, so that is good, but as you discussed, I do eat to full more often than I should. For me, I like to eat three meals a day, though, too... and maybe one snack. So, that will take some experimenting. Tonight at dinner, I ate more rice than I needed, and I knew it. So, this post is timely as a reminder. I could put stars in my journal or something to reinforce my decisions to stop at the nothing or even comfortable (before full) stage. For me, the feel a little food in there might be good since I don't generally snack much. My meals are substantial partially due to that.
Hi Lisa: I'm sooo glad my post inspired you. I've used hunger/fullness cues to tell me when and how much to eat for the past 7 years. Those are so much more reliable than 'diets' or even 'healthy food' recommendations, which change according to which food company has the newest advertising campaign.
As I mentioned in previous posts, stopping at full was more difficult than recognizing hunger and eating when hungry. If I really enjoyed a meal, I felt 'deprived' when I realized I was full and needed to stop.
In her book "On Eating", Susie Orbach said that if we really focus on the tastes and textures of the food as well as our stomach sensations while we eat, 'full' won't come before we're tired of eating. I've noticed when I focus and eat very slowly, I'm tired of eating by the time I feel comfortably full.
After years of giving myself 'stars' for days I didn't binge, I didn't want to track the meals I stopped at 'comfortably full'. That would remind me of all the meals I didn't stop soon enough. Instead I focussed on how good I felt when I stopped at 'comfortable' or how uncomfortable I felt (often for hours afterwards) when I didn't stop at moderately full.
I also rationalized that I could overeat in order to 'last' until the next meal, because I don't like to snack. However I soon realized that what I ate, more than how much I ate, determined the 'staying power' of the meal. You probably already know what foods stay with you awhile.
However, I also didn't want to rigidly restrict what I ate. (I have enough allergy restrictions!) So sometimes I ate a large entree salad with lots of vegies plus a little fish (over 2 cups of food). Sometimes I ate a small muffin with peanut butter and fruit (about a fistfull of food). So I listened to my 'satisfaction' cues as well as my 'fullness' cues.
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