10 Principles of Intuitive Eating Series, Principle 6: Feel Your Fullness

Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S; and Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDS-S, Fiaedp, FADA, FAND created the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating. These principles were developed to act as guidelines and steps for anyone and everyone to learn about intuitive eating and incorporate them into their lives. We will go into the ten principles individually, what they mean to me and what they can mean for you, and how they will help to guide you on your journey through intuitive eating. Throughout this series of blog posts, we will go in-depth on the individual principles. Today, we start with Principle 6: Feel Your Fullness.

Feel Your Fullness:

Honoring our hunger will help to lead us to Feel our Fullness. When recovering from diet mentality, we tend to realize that we have lost the ability to feel our fullness. Whether from food deprivation or not allowing ourselves to eat the foods we want to, we may have severed our fullness cues from our very being. We must learn to trust that we will give ourselves the foods we desire and the quantity we need. This comes with the caveat of being aware of the “entitlement factor” that comes from dieting. This means you think you can eat as much of a food with the title “diet” attached. “If it says it’s a diet food, it doesn’t matter how many I eat because it’s better for me than eating a piece of chocolate cake!” This is the dieting mentality. The dieting mentality can lead to eating past fullness and discomfort.

Unconditional Permission To Eat:

The central part of learning to feel your fullness is giving yourself unconditional permission to eat. Know and trust that food will be available to you after the current meal is over. If you struggle with leaving food on your plate, this knowing will ease the guilt. Cleaning your plate could lead to an overwhelming feeling of fullness, usually found in those who are learning to tell what their version or sensations of fullness are. Some of my fullness sensations are that I begin to feel more relaxed and borderline sleepy. I can feel my mood improve from before I ate; I am more at peace and can think more clearly. 

Self Check-In:

Next time you eat a meal, try this little experiment to check in with your body to see your fullness level! Pause

eating (But this does not mean you must stop eating). Check-in with yourself: How does your food taste? Is it still satisfying? Are you still enjoying eating it, or are you eating it because you feel you must finish it or because it is there? Step Two: What is your hunger level at this moment? Is your hunger starting to go away, and are you beginning to feel fullness? Don’t worry if you feel like you can’t answer every question on the first try. Like every part of the Intuitive Eating journey, it is a process. Remember, this is not a diet; it’s about relearning and rediscovery. Compassion will go a long way in the learning process.

Increasing Awareness:

Eating without distraction in our society sounds like a privilege most of us do not have. I am guilty of saying that even as I write this blog post, I eat dinner. As a student, I rarely have the opportunity to eat and only eat. I either have a chapter of a textbook being read to me; I’ll be making a study guide for an upcoming exam, writing my senior capstone, or even recording a podcast episode with some friends. The few times I can eat without distractions is when I’m home on the weekends with my partner, as we can sit at our dinner table and enjoy our meals. This is going to look different for everyone. Try finding time in your day or week to be present for one meal. Turn off your devices, eliminate distractions, and savor the meal you are about to eat. This setup will make you conscious of how full you feel and when you are satiated. 

Fullness Factors:

There are other factors, both biological and learned, that can also go into fullness. 

• Initial hunger level

• Unconditional permission to eat with attunement.

• Timing; we generally need to eat every 2-4 hours

• Amount of food that was eaten

• Social Influence

• Type of Food eaten. (obsessing over food type can lead back to a dieting mentality)

Feeling your fullness is relearned when we are trying to deconstruct diet mentality and culture. Be kind to yourself through this process of your intuitive eating journey, it can be scary the first few times to say, “No, I’ve had enough; I’m full.” Try the check-in steps discussed earlier and see how they work for you! If you have questions about Intuitive Eating, please message Robin Harris through email: robin@bodypositiveacupuncture.com to schedule a workshop.

Look forward to more posts like these, which will cover the ten principles of Intuitive Eating.