Many of our weight loss surgery clients talk to us about ‘feeling full’. It is common for many clients who we meet prior to having surgery to speak about ‘feeling full on a smaller amount of food’ being one motivation to have surgery. Following surgery, those with a gastric band may often seek further adjustments of their band hoping it will help them feel ‘full’.

Feeling satisfied and feeling full after eating are not the same and it is important to understand the difference.

To eat until satisfied means to eat until you are no longer hungry. You feel you have definitely eaten something, but may not need to eat for a few hours. You could eat more.

Eating until full is like when prior to surgery, you dined out on a delicious three course meal, so tasty you could not bare to leave any on the plate. It may be the feeling after trying to make sure you got your value for money at a buffet, or the feeling after lunch on Christmas Day.

Eating until full after weight loss surgery can cause some discomfort, indicating you have eaten too much. Continuing to eat too much over a long period of time will compromise your weight loss and it can cause surgical complications.

Eating until satisfied will guide the amount of food you should be eating. Whilst serving sizes may have been recommended to you, everyone is different and you need to listen to your internal cues to judge how much is right for you to eat.

People who have dieted for many years may have lost touch with the signals they get when eating. It is important to re-learn how to listen to your body’s signals to judge how much to eat.

The following scale can be useful to help you understand your internal signals and when is the right time to eat and to stop eating. Keep this scale near where you eat. Before you start eating a meal, stop and rate how hungry or full you are. Once you are part way through your meal, pause and consider where you would be on the scale. Do you need to continue, even if you haven’t finished the plate? If you are still hungry, continue eating. Pause again later in the meal and repeat. If you do finish the plate, rate yourself again.

Try this at different meals; breakfast, lunch and dinner. It may take some practice, but is an exercise well worth doing.

Your goal is to start to recognise the point where you reach a 6 – this is the goal.

1. Starving, ravenous. All you can think about is how hungry you are. This is a ‘danger time’ for overeating.

2. You may have a headache or feel weak or grumpy.

3. You feel like it’s time to eat.

4. Your hunger is just starting, but you could wait to eat. Your stomach is starting to feel empty.

5. Neutral. Not hungry, not full.

6. Satisfied or “just right”. You are no longer hungry, but probably will be in about three or four hours.

7. You had a few bites too many. You are a little uncomfortable.

8. Full. You definitely don’t need more food.

9. Your stomach feels stuffed, uncomfortably full.

10. Painful. So full you feel like you could vomit.

For some more reading on this topic we highly recommend the work of Dr Rick Kausman and his book, If Not Dieting, Then What? Find out more here.

Let us know how you go finding your number 6 by joining the conversation on our Facebook page.

Perhaps the best advice I've ever read on portion control. Great post!

Thanks DLCoggin for the feedback.

It is so important to let your internal cues guide you, rather than getting caught up on what you are supposed to eat.

Sally

I've finally learned what "not hungry" is.....the most wonderful result of my Band teaching something never learned preOp.

I was a 'eatEatEAT until fullFullFULL' victim of poor eating training.

Why be concerned about 'full' or not, if 'not hungry' is far more satisfying?

Love your goals.

Best article ever. Even after a month after surgery I feel like I need some help to start eating normally again even a small amount will do. The surgery has been very successful to me till now and I'm happy and proud I did it, I had the strength to change the course of my life and I'm happy.

I'm so glad I came across this, I am 8 weeks out from my revision to,sleeve and just started eating normal foods. I just printed this and will start to,use it because i feel,this will be very helpful as I move along with normal eating.

This is awesome and I am so happy I read this. I do not know when I will be having surgery but this is something I can start working on now! Thanks so much for this article.

Summer

Good post!