Your food portions will change from meal to meal and from day to day.
Not only is it important for you to understand how to listen to your body’s hunger and fullness signals, but it’s also important to understand why your portion sizes change from meal to meal so you can use these little insights for yourself. you and feel more confident. how to best nourish your unique body.
There are so many different factors that can affect how much you eat, and if you’re not aware of these factors, it can cause you to eat portions that aren’t aligned with your body’s needs.
Being more aware Why whether you feel you need a larger or smaller portion will guide you in finding the right amount of food you need.
Read on to see what to look out for as you choose your food portion sizes so you can strengthen your ability to use your hunger and fullness as a guide.
Because your food portions can change
Keep these in mind when checking in with your hunger and determining what your food portions should be.
1. What you have already eaten (or not eaten)
A common factor that is likely to affect your food portions is what you have already eaten or haven’t eaten and how nutritious the food you ate was for you.
For example, if you intentionally or unintentionally undereat during the day, this can cause your body to feel intense hunger that can lead to larger portions. These larger portions can often cause you to overeat because you’re too much of a risk taker.
Additionally, when we binge for a long time and then consume a very large amount of food due to extreme hunger, this can lead to spikes in blood sugar. These can lead to us feeling less satisfied and full overall, perpetuating the cycle.
On the other hand, let’s say you’ve had a substantial dinner and now you’d like to enjoy a dessert. This dessert portion will often naturally be on the smaller side due to your ample intake at dinner. Eating a very small dinner before dessert can often lead to a larger serving of dessert because our hunger cues were never quite satisfied.
It is also important to consider how nutritious the foods you have chosen to eat are for you and how you have balanced them during your meals. If you’ve eaten a well-balanced Fundal Five meal, you’ll feel fuller between meals, but if your meal wasn’t balanced, you’ll probably be hungry a little later.
2. Activity levels
Our activity levels can also affect our food portions.
On days when you are more active, you will likely notice that you need a larger portion of food to support the level of activity you are participating in. sustainable energy needed, along with some protein to help rebuild your muscle tissue.
When you notice you’re more active than usual, take note so you can make sure you’re adjusting your portions to meet your needs.
On the other hand, if you’re normally very active and you’re resting or taking a break, your body won’t need as much food, so you’ll want to pay attention to how your hunger changes on your less active days. .
3. Environmental Enablers
A common factor that can inadvertently affect your portion size is environmental irritants. These are anything in your environment that causes you to eat something or eat a certain amount.
Certain environmental factors can be very supportive, such as having more nutritious food options at eye level in the refrigerator, rather than in the produce drawers below. This can remind you to choose larger servings of vegetables and greens because they are top of mind.
However, some environmental factors may not support the type of eating habits you want to experience for yourself. For example, one of the Mindful Nutrition Method™ program members noticed that she often snacked on chips or cookies in the afternoon. After some exploration, she realized that this was because she always stopped by the office kitchen to go to meetings or refill her tea and just grabbed a snack because it was out and available.
Observing your eating patterns to see when you might be being influenced by your environment can help you determine if and when it’s affecting your portion size.
4. Stress levels
Stress can affect your food portions in two different ways.
- Smaller portions
When stress first occurs, your appetite is likely to decrease because your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) puts your body into “fight or flight” mode to respond to the stressful situation. Your brain tells your adrenal glands to release adrenaline, which increases your heart rate, sending blood to your muscles and heart so you can take action, temporarily putting your hunger on hold (1). When the stressful situation passes, your SNS returns to baseline.
If you’re not aware that your hunger is being suppressed due to stress, you may find yourself giving up. While we use hunger signals to guide our food choices, it’s important to recognize when these signals may not be working (ie, due to stress) and eat well anyway.
- Larger portions
The second way stress can affect your portions is when you experience chronic stress. If stress is not addressed or alleviated, the SNS will remain activated and respond to that stress.
When this happens, your body releases cortisol, which is why it’s often referred to as the stress hormone. Unlike adrenaline that can stop your hunger, cortisol can increase your appetite (2). If your stress response continues to remain “on,” your cortisol levels may remain elevated.
If you experience this chronic stress, not only are you more likely to experience physical hunger, but you are also more likely to experience more comfort or cravings for carbohydrates or sugary foods.
Sugar can release dopamine—the feel-good chemical—by activating the brain’s pleasure centers (3).
This stress eating can lead you to reach for larger portions of these foods.
5. Broken or rushed food
Distracted or rushed eating is just that — eating while distracted or rushing through a meal. This usually looks like eating in front of the TV, at your desk, while scrolling through social media, or anything else that takes you away from sitting down and enjoying your food.
When you’re distracted or in a hurry, it’s much harder to use hunger and fullness signals as a guide to how much to eat. This can lead you to either eat more or less than your body needs because you are not paying attention and are not in tune with your body’s signals.
6. Lack of sleep can affect your food portions
Research has shown that poor sleep quality leads to increased cravings for processed or sugary foods, overeating during the day, and not eating as many fruits and vegetables.
Try eating meals full of protein and fat when you’re tired so you’ll have more sustained energy throughout the day!
7. Your circle
Nearly 30 percent of premenopausal women are iron deficient (4), and if you’re a vegetarian or vegan or have heavy periods, you’re at greater risk for iron deficiency. Additionally, menstruation itself lowers the amount of iron in your body (5).
Because of this, you may feel more tired during your period, which signals your body that it needs energy. Carbohydrates are the body’s fast-acting form of energy, so you may find yourself craving carbohydrate-rich foods or feeling like you need a larger portion to get this energy source.
Be sure to eat plenty of iron-rich foods, especially during your menstrual cycle to support your body’s needs and energy levels.
8. How hydrated you are
Water is responsible for every process in the body, including your metabolism. Drinking enough water each day helps keep your digestion moving, supports an efficient metabolism, and more (1)(2).
If you are dehydrated, you may feel hungry when you are actually thirsty. Staying hydrated will help keep your hunger cues more accurate.
When you feel hungry, drink 1 glass of water, wait 10-15 minutes and reassess your hunger cues. If you’re still hungry, you may be really hungry, and if your hunger subsides, you can try drinking a little more water to see if you’re just thirsty.
How you can boost your ability to find the right portions
Finding the right portions takes patience and practice. It requires the ability to tune into your body and discover what physical hunger and fullness feels like for you, and then have the knowledge to learn how to use that information in a supportive way. This is what we support our members in the Mindful Nutrition Method™ program.
You can sign up here for our free workshop where we share an exercise to help you better tune in to your unique hunger and fullness cues and guide you through the Mindful Nutrition Method™.
Sources
- Pharmacology of appetite suppression: implications for the treatment of obesity. Halford JC. Curr Drug Targets. 2001?2:353–370.
- Stress, cortisol, and other appetite-related hormones: Prospective prediction of 6-month changes in appetite and weight. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2017? 25 (4): 713-720. doi:10.1002/oby.21790
- Rada P, Avena NM, Hoebel BG. Daily overconsumption of sugar repeatedly releases dopamine in the shell of the cingulate cortex. Neuroscience. 2005, 134(3):737-744. doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2005.04.043
- Camaschella, C. (2015). Iron deficiency anemia. N Engl J Med, 2015(372), 1832–1843.
- Blanco-Rojo, R., Toxqui, L., López-Parra, AM, Baeza-Richer, C., Pérez-Granados, AM, Arroyo-Pardo, E., & Vaquero, MP (2014). Effect of diet, menstruation and genetic factors on iron status: A cross-sectional study in Spanish women of reproductive age. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 15(3), 4077–4087.
