Should we eat to get full?
To find the answer, we must first ask: What is it we are trying to fill?
Answer: We are to fill our nutritional needs, not our stomachs.
- Quantity (serving size) manages the number of calories (energy) you will have on hand to burn on a given day.
- Quality (nutritional value) reduces the quantity needed for energy and meeting nutritional needs.
Why do we make the mistake of filling our stomachs instead? Cravings are borne from memories of the foods you most commonly ate and enjoyed which satisfied some nutritional need in the past. Cravings hit when hunger strikes and tug on us like a squeaky wheel. We tend to react quickly to quiet it, without thinking about the end result. However, we need to instead pay close attention, with a trained ear, to understand what our bodies are really telling us.
- Cravings tell you to eat a gallon of ice cream right now. A trained ear will hear that to drink a glass of milk because you need vitamin d and calcium right now.
- Cravings will try to convince you to eat a bunch of french fries. A trained ear will hear that you need a baked potato or bowl of quinoa because you need carbs.
The trained ear will keep you from eating more than you need to burn on a given day. It will remind you of the golden rule:
- The higher the quality of food, the smaller the serving size to meet nutritional needs.
When our bodies are fed the nutrients it needs, it doesn’t want more. So it makes sense to feed on the highest quality nutrients. This will help minimize cravings and excess calories while setting you up for optimum performance for years to come.
In the end, we have an answer to our question:
- Should we eat to simply to fill our stomachs? No