Full or Satisfied?

​John was an awkward kid in my college psychology class. I felt bad for him and decided to say “hi” every day as I entered the room. Little did I know that one simple act would convince John that I was “the one” for him. He began buying me presents, sending anonymous flowers with invitations to join “my secret admirer” at darkened restaurants, and I did not know how to get rid of him. He scared me. When he stared me down for 4 hours at a reunion, I actually changed my phone number and installed a security system. I’m afraid that Jim never learned what a healthy relationship really is.
 
I used to think I loved food too much, seeing how I couldn’t stop obsessing about it, wanting it, eating it, or at a bare minimum, thinking about it. In reality, my former relationship with food was anything but love. It was less An Affair to Remember and more like Fatal Attraction. Real love is nurturing, kind, selfless and healthy. What I felt for food was destructive, consuming, and wavered between obsession and hatred. For many years, I was seldom hungry and often full. That didn’t always stop my need to keep eating. You see, I was always full, but I never satisfied.

What does it mean to be satisfied? Merriam-Webster tells us it means to be “pleased or content with what has been experienced or received.” When I binged on food, I was never satisfied. As the old saying goes, “one was too many and a thousands was never enough.” The minute I started, I could not stop until it was physically impossible to eat any more. Mentally, the beating never stopped.
 
Needless to say, I was very surprised to learn that satisfaction was such an important part of the process of developing a healthy relationship with food. So what does it take to be “pleased or content” with what our body actually needs?
 
​First, we have to be eating for the right reasons. No amount of food (or alcohol, or drugs, or overworking, etc.) will ever calm a troubled heart or mind. It can distract, but it will never bring peace. No amount of food can solve a problem, unless that problem is hunger.
 
Second, in order to find satisfaction with our eating experiences, we must become committed to honoring the God-given signals of our bodies: hunger and fullness. Getting overly hungry or overly full are both equally miserable. But there is a healthy range of hunger and fullness, and finding that range more consistently brings more satisfaction.
 
Third, choosing food we love is critical to our satisfaction levels. If you don’t love it, don’t eat it. If you eat it, savor it!
 
Fourth, our bodies love a large variety of foods. When we take our cues purely from our minds, we convince ourselves that what we really want are endless supplies of ice cream, cakes or cookies. When we learn to really listen to and honor our bodies, we soon discover that our bodies are crying out for a large variety of foods. Study after study shows that when we eat the same things over and over, our satisfaction goes down.
 
Learning to find satisfaction is one of the great joys of learning to be an intuitive eater. In fact, it is one of the great joys of life. The first time I realized I didn’t want to finish my dessert was nothing short of miraculous. I had finally experienced for myself what it means to actually be satisfied with food.
 
Now, when I’m faced with the choice of being full or satisfied, I realize that it’s like the choice between an obsessive relationship, with its illusions of happiness and connection, verses the quiet, calm, steady, secure relationship of true love.  It took a long time to recognize it…to value it…and to realize that I deserved it, but now I know that being full can never hold a candle to the experience of being satisfied. 

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