I wasn't sure where to put this, but as I am close to my goal and have been doing this for a while and am more maintaining than losing at this point, I thought some opinions would be nice, especially for the long term once I am maintaining at my goal.

For everyone who has lost the weight, especially greater amounts of weight, whether you are at maintainance or not, do you feel a connection between feeling full and feeling satisfied?

I can eat a fair amount at this weight, and I am very good at not gaining weight back, but even after all the weight loss (mostly in the last 1.5 years) I still can eat whatever, whenever. Maybe not as much as before, but I can still eat at lot, when I'm not hungry, and even when I know I'm full, I still often feel like I'm not "done" yet, that even though I feel full I am not satisfied with the amount I've eaten.

Does anyone else feel this way? Did you used to feel it? This is something I have been thinking about lately, and I feel that maybe this is why even though there has been so much research into weight loss, and why appetite suppressors don't work for so many people, is because they aren't eating because they are hungry, but because they just "aren't done yet".

I find it's the type of food that makes the difference. Sure, I can overdo healthy things like beans and sprout bread and veggies and fruits, but not to the same degree that I can with, say, crackers or brownies. Part of it is that they're more physically filling. But it's mental too. The first type of food, doesn't call me to keep eating it even after I'm feeling the pain of eating too much. The second type, calls me, loudly, even after it starts to hurt. Although, I think I use satiety synonymously with physical fullness, and I think you're using it more to refer to mental satisfaction?

I agree. I can eat good, healthy, whole foods, and fell full and satisfied. When I eat more processed, more carb-heavy foods (read cookies or pasta ) I can be full, but not satisfied. These foods set me up for cravings, and it takes a day or more of enduring the cravings before they pass..... I know it's a good part mental . . .

Yes, absolutely to the opinions already given. Very helpful. I am also bordering on my maintainence phase. I stopped losing weight from August 20th until this week because of vacation and sciatica pain. In the beginning of August, I bought a fancy scale that gives fat/muscle/bone/weight/water info. I was a muscle machine before I left; really getting down to a healthy weight with a fair amount of muscle percentage.

During this past 1 1/2 months, I've been waiting to blow up with my weight. I exercised as much as I could (until the pain took over) but had moments of binges that were ridiculous. I didn't measure foods consistently. For two weeks I could barely move and did no exercise.

As I've slowly physically recovered from a major bout with sciatica, I've considered fullness and satiety. I've been following volumetrics since January (when I started my weight loss). So, I have concentrated on "fullness", as that is a major factor in volumetrics.

The above opinions are just right. The other day at lunch, I ate a homemade salad of chopped onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, 1/2 cup mixed "salad" beans with vinegar (and truvia). The day was a bit busy but not crazy. Around 7pm, I decided to have dinner though I wasn't hungry. For me, that particular mixture was very satisfying but I wasn't ever full on it.

Now I think of "fullness" as that feeling I had as a kid around holiday dinners when we just stuffed ourselves silly. I think of "satiety" as functioning well and efficiently for three, four plus hours without feeling hungry or distracted by what I'm eating next. I think of "satisfied" as an emotion I feel after a a yummy meal that is delicious and low-energy dense.

I never have understood "leave the table 80% satisfied". If I could have understood that, I don't think I'd ever have had a weight problem.

Now, I eat a meal that I know intellectually is 350 calories or so, well-balanced with food groups, low-energy dense, meeting my goals for protein/fat/calcium, and something I like. I almost never will be able to walk away saying: I'm full. I don't often walk away thinking "whew, I ate about as much as I could and am satisfied". In fact, if it's delicious, I probably could eat more if I hadn't of portioned it out for specific calories.

I feel like the human goal is to become highly efficient with physical abilities and strength while only needing 1,500 calories. That seems to harken back to the eras with mixed villages of warriors and families. Warriors would be highly prized if they were very athletic while not needing tons of food.

So, I've gotten my body physically strong enough so that I can be healthy, active and helpful in my community while not needing to eat the equivalent calories of a family in my husband's Asian village.

I was freaking out in August because I was trying to understand why it could be possible (and certainly not FAIR) that I may have to live on my weight loss level of calories (1300 a day) to maintain if that's what my body needs. I thought that was totally unfair. Growing food in my husband's village requires so much effort and time. Now, it makes sense to me that the goal is to make the human as efficient as possible to function very well on the least amount of calories.

This is the first time I'm watching Biggest Loser while almost at my goal weight. I remember them showing (towards the of of last season) what contestants would usually have eaten in a typical day--thousands of calories.

I do feel much better knowing that I'm not eating someone else's calories. Keeping my calories down to a healthy amount, I hope will contribute to someone else's opportunity to feel satiety. It also helps that I work professionally at the local level for anti-poverty. Just 'not eating other people's calories' won't solve the world's problem. But at least I know now that I am the change I want to see. I'm not physically eating other people's food.

Here are some interesting ideas from Judith Beck:

"Thin people usually like to eat to the point where they're reasonably full. It doesn't feel right if they've eaten so much they feel a little uncomfortable taking a brisk walk after a meal. Even if there is delicious food left, they don't want to keep eating. They feel no compulsion to empty their plates.

"You, however, might feel uncomfortable if you stop eating at that same point. There are three possible reasons you feel this way:

* One, you may be concerned that you'll get hungry again before the next meal.

* Two, you may feel deprived if you don't eat as much as you want.

* Three, you may have grown accustomed to eating much greater quantities than is healthy. Indeed, you may label the degree of fullness you feel after an overly large meal as 'normal' when you've actually eaten to the point of overfullness."

She goes on to identify throughts that someone might think when they are eating well beyond the point of fullness:

"This tastes so good, I don't want to stop."
"It's a special occasion, so it's OK to splurge."
"I want to show my hostess that I appreciate her efforts."
"I can't resist such wonderful food."

Quotations from The Beck Diet Solution: Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person, by Judith S. Beck, Ph.D. (Oxmoor House, 2007).

Jay

Thank you, iaradajnos. That is a good way of thinking about it. Not "it's not fair that I can't eat like they do", but "isn't it great my body is so efficient that I don't NEED to consume thousands of calories a day to survive." Now if we can just get the restaurant industry to cooperate.

I don't think I agree with this. It seems like an oversimplification of human metabolism based on a philosophy, rather than on physical reality. For example, trained athletes often consume large amounts of calories, but that's not because their bodies aren't efficient...

Jay