Contributed By: Amber Sullivan UGA Dietetic Student

Recap:

- Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality

- Principle 2: Honor Your Hunger

- Principle 3: Make Peace with Food

-Principle 4: Challenge the Food Police

Principle 5: Discover the Satisfaction Factor

The fifth principle is discovering satisfaction in what you're eating. This means eating to satisfy your hunger, your cravings, and your taste buds. The joy you get from eating food you desire leads to less food consumption because you aren't trying to fulfill a craving by eating random foods that aren't what you really want. Instead of eating a bunch of popcorn when you actually wish for some cookies, eat a few cookies and see how much more satisfied you are.

Satisfaction from eating can be tricky to achieve due to several factors:

• Eating when full will result in diminished satisfaction, and eating when moderately hungry will result in higher levels of satisfaction (Principle I: Honor Your Hunger)
   
• Not dieting allows you to eat what you want, leading to higher satisfaction than you would achieve if you limited your food option and ignored your cravings. (Principle II: Reject Diet Culture) 
   
• Allowing yourself to eat the foods you enjoy without feeling guilty allows you to be satisfied. This can be difficult for chronic dieters since eating forbidden food usually means they've failed to follow a diet, and feelings of guilt, anger, and sadness can occur (Principle III: Make peace with food) 
   
• t's hard to enjoy and be satisfied with your food if you're listening to unsolicited internal and external comments about what you're eating. Challenging the food police and allowing yourself to eat in peace will lead to levels of higher satisfaction. (Principle IV: Challenge the food police) 
   
• Emotions can affect your satisfaction. When emotionally eating to cope with your painful feelings, the satisfaction you get decreases

 

Eating for satisfaction can be tricky, and unavoidable situations you find yourself in may not allow you to reach full satisfaction potential. Still, satisfaction is something you should strive for from any meal. The main takeaway: enjoy your food. Food is so much more than just nutrition for your body.

Tips to Eating for Satisfaction

• Ask yourself what you really want to eat
   
• Discover the pleasure of the palate: take the time to taste and enjoy the flavors, aromas, textures, appearance, and temperatures that the food you're eating is offering
   
• Make your eating experience enjoyable: make time to eat your meal; don't rush through it; this allows you to feel your fullness and enjoy all of the aspects that the food has to offer. Eat in a pleasant environment, set the table, eat outside in nice weather, have a picnic, etc. Avoid having arguments while eating and discussing potential upsetting topics. Romance yourself
   
• Don't settle: if you taste or see food you don't like, don't force yourself to finish it. Simple as that.
   
• Lastly, check in with yourself as your eating: Does it still taste good? Am I full? Do I want to eat more? Or do I want to eat something else?

 

Resources:

Tribole, Evelyn, and Elyse Resch. Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach. Fourth Edition ed., St. Martin's Publishing Group, 2020.