Comfortably full: an urban myth?

Losing weight? Easy-fucking-peasy, or so I’m told. Generally by people who’ve never had a weight problem. “It’s simple. Eat fewer calories than you expend.” “It’s simple. Burn more calories than you consume.” “It’s simple. Eat less and move around more.” “It’s simple. Eat what you want and stop when you’re full.” I don’t necessarily have a problem with these principles in theory. It’s the “It’s simple” bit that gets my goat. Oh, of course! That’s why I’m fat! Because losing weight is simple! It’s just that being fat is SO MUCH FUN!

(This post is being written by an angry premenstrual woman. Day 26, y’all. TMI? I DON’T CARE. Don’t be in my face today.)

The canard I want to look at today is “Eat what you want and stop when you’re full”, because I actually think that’s some pretty good advice and not really a canard at all. But first I’m going to put a “Read More” tag here, to stop the page getting cluttered up.

That’s better. Now - this fullness thing. The science, as I understand it, is that if you bolt your food, which I do, you miss your stomach’s fullness signals, because it takes your stomach a good 10-20 minutes to work out what your mouth has been doing. Hence the received wisdom is that you should eat slowly, putting your fork down between meals, and stop when you’re full.

My problem with this is simple: for me, full isn’t the same as satisfied.

We tend to assume that we’re hungry because we need calories, and that if we eat X calories per day or per meal then that should satisfy us. But food is much more than just energy, which is why the calories in/calories out theory is also only half the story. We need so much more from our food than just calories. We need vitamins and minerals and particular proteins and this fat and that fat and X amount of fibre and Y amount of starch and Z amount of sugar. My theory is that calories may fill me up, but if they don’t also include all the fibre and nutrients an’ that then they aren’t going to satisfy me and I’m still going to want more.

If I eat a plate of risotto, for example, on one level I’ll be absolutely stuffed, because it’s very filling and heavy. So I’m full. But I’m generally not satisfied. Chances are I’ll still fancy something else - even if I’ve eaten over 500 calories’ worth of food. That’s how I have often ended up eating even though I’m not really hungry. It’s because in a way I am still hungry, even if I don’t need the energy. My (not remotely scientific) theory is that my body may have the calories it needs but it doesn’t have the vitamin D or the iron or whatever.

My solution to this recently has been to make each meal as varied as possible. Different tastes, different textures and a little bit of everything: protein, starch, grain, vegetable, dairy. If I take a bento box to lunch with me, with a little couscous, some grilled cold meat, a bit of pitta bread, some three-bean salad and some fruit, I end up feeling both full and satisfied at the end of the meal. If there’s a little bit of assembly in there, even better. This morning for breakfast I had two slices of home-made seeded oat bread, with a little Clover spread on them. I cut each slice in half and put them on a plate with a slice of German ham, a slice of roast chicken, a half-inch cube of smoked cheese, a teaspoon of Boursin (the black pepper one) and a couple of cornichons and Tabasco olives. Then I sat down with the plate and ate the cheese and meat on the bread, sort of assembling it as I went. It was delicious, and I ate it slowly, and by the time I finished I was both full and satisfied. If I’d put two slices of ham in a sandwich with a bit of cream cheese, I’d have been hungry ten minutes after I’d eaten it. Why? WHO KNOWS?

So that’s how I’m playing it at the moment, and it seems to be working. What do you do? Share your culinary tricks with me.