Accurately evaluating how hungry you are

The most helpful healthy-eating tool: Accurately evaluating how hungry you are

By Ellie Krieger June 20

The most helpful healthy-eating tool I know is not about what or what not to eat — it’s about tapping into how hungry or full you feel.
Learning (or, I should say, relearning) how to listen and respond to your body’s hunger and satisfed or fullness (satiety) cues is an invaluable key to nourishing yourself well and avoiding overeating. It can help you find balance in any situation, from an ordinary Wednesday night to a weekend beach party.
Healthy babies are born with fine-tuned hunger-satiety mechanisms. Whether they accept food and how much they eat are internally motivated — they feed when they are hungry and stop when they are satisfied.   But as we grow up and begin to interface with the world, we are influenced more and more by external forces. We are praised for cleaning our plates; we are given candy as a reward for good behavior; we learn to expect a snack during a 45-minute mommy-and-me class; or perhaps we are teased for having a voracious appetite. Before long, these messages take over, and decisions about when and how much to eat become increasingly detached from our physical feelings.
By the time we are adults, we are well-practiced at ignoring our internal cues of hunger and fullness. We eat because we are compelled to finish what is heaped in front of us, because we “deserve” that doughnut after a long day’s work, because plowing through a bucket of popcorn is just what you do at the movies or because a TV ad sparks a chocolate craving.
On the flip side, we also learn to ignore our genuine physical hunger as we accrue years of practice

  with restrictive diets that tell us our appetite is a beast we have to fight.

[A healthy lifestyle doesn’t guarantee a long life, but it will add life to your years]

When I was in private practice as a dietitian, I developed a tool called the Hunger Continuum to help my clients reconnect with and honor their internal sense of hunger and satisfaction, and it proved to be immeasurably helpful. Many have told me it was the one thing that helped them the most — that no matter the circumstances, they were able to stay on a healthy track if they kept the Hunger Continuum in mind.
All it requires is that you stop, check in with yourself, and assign a number to how hungry or satisfied you are on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “famished,” 10 is “painfully stuffed” and 5 is a neutral point of balance. The goal is to stay toward the middle of the scale, between 3, where you have strong but not overwhelming feelings of hunger, and 7, where you are full, but not very full.
To do this, you need to listen to your body, eat when you feel genuine physical hunger — not bored hunger, lonely hunger or stressed-out hunger — and stop eating when you are satisfied but not stuffed.
What number would you say you’re at right now? If you can’t quite tell, don’t worry. It might take some practice, given the many years spent hushing that internal voice. But even if you are not exactly sure where you are on the scale at a given time, merely stopping to check in can help.
It’s best to eat when you reach a 3 — letting your appetite build a little past those first stirrings of hunger but satisfying it before you become ravenous. It’s not always possible to hit that mark — sometimes you don’t have control over when you are able to eat — but you can set up your routine to make it easier to achieve.
Although it sounds contrary to eating according to your appetite, establishing a regular eating pattern helps by getting you into a predictable daily rhythm so you become hungry around the same times each day and can plan your meals and snacks accordingly. That pattern can be three squares a day, mini-meals or something in between — whatever works best for you.
nce that is established, you’ll be better armed to listen to your body and more inclined to pass on the oversize muffins that show up in the break room at work, because you realize you are comfortably at a 5 on the continuum from breakfast earlier. And when you listen to your body’s cues, you will also have the wherewithal to eat something when you are genuinely hungry, even if it is not on the official schedule.
The other side of the spectrum, perhaps more critical for most of us, is knowing when to stop eating. How often do you push back from the dinner table overly stuffed or realize you are beyond full when your spoon scrapes the bottom of the pint of ice cream? You can avoid that kind of overeating, ultimately improving your digestion and keeping your weight in check, by using the continuum.
To use it effectively, make sure you eat slowly, savoring each bite, to give your stomach a chance to tell your brain it has had enough. As you eat, pause to check in periodically to recognize how your satiety is building, and stop eating when you reach a seven on the continuum — comfortably full but not very full. By stopping here, you harness the most personalized and self-nurturing method of portion control, one that responds to your physical needs. Unlike scales and measuring cups, it’s a tool that is with you wherever you go.

Healthy bones for a lifetime

    Throughout life, bone health is especially important for women, who face a higher risk of osteoporosis than men do. Get savvy about what makes your bone bank strong.

Your bones do more for you than you realize. Certainly, they give you the structure and support you need to breathe, walk, carry a heavy bag or ride a bike. And they also protect your organs, anchor your muscles, and store and supply calcium, a mineral that all body cells need. But in recent years, researchers have also discovered that the skeleton plays an important role in the endocrine system, helping to regulate your body's metabolism and sensitivity to insulin.
Throughout life, bone health is especially important for women. Osteoporosis — a disease that causes bones to become more fragile and prone to break — is twice as common in women as in men. About half of white women will develop an osteoporosis-related bone fracture at some point. To put this in perspective, that's more than the risks of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke combined. The risk of osteoporosis and fracture is somewhat lower for black, Asian and Hispanic women.
Think of your skeleton as a bone bank. Just as your financial health benefits from funds that you put aside and can draw on in times of need, your bone health can benefit from a fund of calcium and other minerals stored in your skeleton. Good bone health depends on keeping your bone bank account amply supplied with minerals that can meet your body's needs.

Your bone bank

 Lots of transactions take place in your bone bank account. That's because your bones are living, growing tissues that are constantly changing. Throughout life, bits of old or worn-out bone are broken down and removed, and new bone is formed. This process, called remodeling, is akin to deposits and withdrawals in your bone bank account. Through this process your skeleton refurbishes and maintains itself.

During childhood and adolescence your body makes new bone faster than it breaks down old bone, and the skeleton grows in size and density. Bone density refers to how much calcium and other minerals your bones contain. The amount of bone tissue in your skeleton (bone mass) increases rapidly. For girls, maximum bone growth takes place in the years between puberty and age 18, and peak bone density is achieved by the early to mid-30s.
But in your early 30s, things begin to change. That's when most people reach their peak bone mass — the maximum amount of bone mass achieved. After that, withdrawals begin to exceed deposits. You gradually start losing bone density in the spongy type of bone tissue (trabecular bone). Although this is normal, what's not normal is when withdrawals exceed deposits at such a rate that portions of your skeleton become weak and brittle.
How likely you are to develop osteoporosis will depend on how much bone mass you attain during your youth and how rapidly you lose it after that. The higher your peak bone mass, the more bone you have in the bank and the less likely you are to develop osteoporosis as you age.
Some aspects of bone mass aren't within your control. Genetic factors influence how strong and large your bones will be. And in general, women have a lower bone mass than men do. But you can take steps to ensure a healthy bone bank account. While it's important to build strong and healthy bones during childhood and adolescence, the same steps will also protect your bones during adulthood.

What does it mean to have strong bones?

Here are some terms related to bone strength and the bone bank concept.

• Bone mass is the total amount of bone tissue in your skeleton. Think of it as the total assets in your account at any time.
• Bone density refers to how tightly that tissue is packed — how mineral-rich your bones are. Envision dollar bills crammed into a safe deposit box. The higher your bone mineral content, the denser and stronger your bones are. When bones contain fewer minerals than normal, they eventually lose their internal supporting structure.
• Bone strength refers to the ability of bone to withstand stress and is dependent on bone quality, including mass and density. You might compare this to your bank account's ability to handle large daily transactions. In other words, the more bone you have and the denser it is, the stronger your skeleton is — the more plentiful your bone bank account.

Having strong bones make it less likely that you'll develop osteoporosis or experience fractures.

READ NEXT ARTICLE



 

Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes

• "The simple topping of delightfully tangy red cherry tomatoes makes this meal perfect."
•  
• 1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 2 tsp olive oil
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/8 cup water
• 1/2 tsp dried parsley
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar

Directions

1. Sprinkle chicken with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon of pepper.
2. In a large nonstick skillet heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook for 10-12 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink turning once. Transfer chicken to a serving platter; cover and keep warm.
3. Drain fat from skillet. Add tomato, water, parsley, vinegar, remaining salt and pepper to skillet.
4. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer uncovered for 3-4 minutes or until tomatoes begin to soften, stirring occasionally.
5. Serve tomato mixture over chicken.

 There are 110 calories in a 4 oz serving of Wal-Mart Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast. Calorie breakdown: 20% fat, 0% carbs, 80% protein.
There are 80 calories in a 2 tsp serving of Bertolli Olive Oil. Calorie breakdown: 100% fat, 0% carbs, 0% protein. here are 54 calories in 2 cups of Cherry Tomatoes. Calorie breakdown: 9% fat, 75% carbs, 17% protein.

 

Iced Avocado and Coffee Drink

Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post

Singapore native Pat Tanumihardja grew up on refreshing avocado drinks like this one, which combines chunks of avocado in a coffee-laced milk sweetened with a thick simple syrup. This version is blended into a creamy vegan shake, but it can also be made with regular or low-fat milk.
The syrup is steeped with pandan leaves, which have a lightly citrusy vanilla flavor. Use the same syrup to sweeten tea and cocktails; if you have trouble finding pandan leaves, you can substitute a split vanilla bean and add a squirt of lime juice.
Make Ahead: You'll have syrup left over, which can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 2 months.
Where to Buy: Pandan leaves are available at Asian markets (typically frozen).

Tested size: 4 servings

Ingredients

• For the syrup
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup water
• 2 pandan leaves, trimmed and tied into separate knots (see headnote)

• For the drink
• Flesh of 1 large ripe Hass avocado
• 1/3 cup espresso plus 2/3 cup water (may substitute 1 cup strong brewed coffee, cooled)
• 2 cups almond milk (may substitute other plant-based milk)
• 1/2 cup ice cubes, or more as needed
• Chocolate syrup, for serving
• Instant espresso grounds, for serving

  Directions

  For the syrup: Combine the sugar, water and pandan leaves in a large saucepan over medium-high heat; once the sugar has dissolved and the liquid is bubbling, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until thickened, adjusting the heat as needed.
  Discard the leaves, then pour the syrup into a heatproof container or bottle. The yield is about 1 3/4 to 2 cups; you'll need 1/4 cup for this recipe.
  For the drink: Combine the avocado, espresso and water (or coffee, if using), almond milk and pandan syrup in a blender. Add ice cubes, cover and blend on HIGH speed until smooth and frothy. Add ice cubes and blend again, as needed, for a thicker consistency.
  Divide the drink among individual glasses or cups. Drizzle the top with chocolate syrup, and then sprinkle lightly with ground espresso. Serve right away.