Satiety vs calories?

(Rob Grantham) #1

Using signals of fullness I would stop eating slightly short of protein and fat requirements…
So my question is so you stop following calories and stop eating when full? To get that full feeling I often have to wait for half an hour after eating… this can lead sometimes to going over with food…

I’m guessing to retrain the satiety signals I would have to eat and wait and eventually this feeling would start to return sooner after eating?

(Allie) #2

Correct. Trust your body over any calculation.

(Carl Keller) #3

I can totally relate to this. Recognizing satiety took some practice for me and what helped was trial and error and preparing what I believe is the right amount of food for a meal, without leftovers, so I am not tempted to overeat. Protein and fat is just so delicious that I usually want to keep eating even when I have had enough. I know it’s enough when my plate is clean and 15 minutes later, I am completely content and can easily make it to my next meal without real hunger. Understanding my hunger from want vs physical need became easier with time.

That’s pretty much how it went for me. One of keto’s great revelations to me was when I finally understood how my hunger was supposed to behave. It took me 49 years to figure this out and I know it’s because processed foods caused irrational eating behavior. Our bodies always catch on quicker to LCHF than our brains do.

(Robert C) #4

To help with satiety signaling:

  • You can reduce spices and hyper-palatabilaty. Spicey fatty foods are easy to overeat where just fatty foods get boring faster. Hyper-palatabilaty - if you are searing your Ribeye in butter to have a nice brown crust - try instead eating directly out of a Sous Vide with light salt and pepper (or a very light sear). I think the nutrition is better that way and cancer risk might decrease but - you are also likely to eat less.
  • You can gauge your satiety signaling if you - once in a while, when you are as hungry as you usually are before a meal - eat very slowly and mindfully (maybe even up to a half hour). Again, use non-hyper-palatable foods and go ahead and let is cool as you eat. By avoiding eating based on taste or mouth feel - you’ll get an idea where - through the meal - it is becoming “work” to keep chewing. Do this periodically and you will have a good idea how much cook per until you try the test again.
  • Finally, (if your meal timing is flexible) you can use the excess intake to make your next meal farther off. For example, you sit down to a very tasty meal and you finish the whole thing before you feel any sort of satiety of fullness. But, you still do feel that later - after 30 minutes or so. Now, gauge that feeling. “Do I feel full enough after breakfast to move lunch back 3 hours and go with a light dinner?” or “I feel stuffed after this lunch - I’ll skip dinner.” - that sort of thing.

I find the third option works best for me - predicting how much to cook and cutting 10 ounce steaks into 8 ounce and 2 ounce pieces is a bit or work.

(Rob Grantham) #5

Thanks Carl I totally get this protein and fatty foods are just so tasty plus the problem with me is that i feel hunger and i eat quickly so i am very easy to overeat.

(Rob Grantham) #6

Thank you Rob

I think im going to go with a combination of eating slowly and as you said if i eat a larger meal go longer between meals. I think naturally i have been doing this. Sometimes if i undershoot portion size ill be eating 3/4 hours later but i prefer to eat around every 5/6 hours to try to not overtax the digestive system too much. Currently doing 3 meals a day no snacks i find its what works best at the moment.

I never in my life had to think so much about what/when I eat but for the first time in my life im noticing how much of a difference food makes on my wellbeing.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #7

Not precisely. Stop eating when satisfied. There is a difference between fullness and satisfaction, I have discovered. When I ate primarily carbohydrate, it was normal for me to distend my stomach with food to the point of rupture and still desire more food. On a ketogenic diet, I lose interest in eating long before my stomach is anywhere near full. There is plenty of room for more, but I have had enough (“satiety” and “satisfaction” are both derived from the Latin satis ‘enough’).

I believe this may vary with how long one has been eating ketogenically, and it also seems to vary with the individual. My first experience with satiety, as opposed to fullness, came in the middle of a meal, about three weeks into this way of eating. I had loaded up my plate with my customary amount of food, and suddenly, in the middle of the meal, I was absolutely done. It was weird—I mean, there was still food on my plate! (Not to mention room in my stomach!) But there was nothing for it, I had to put the food away for later. Much later, as it turned out. And my satiety signaling has only strengthened since.

Another thing I learned is the difference between craving food and hunger. Sometimes I find myself wanting to eat for various reasons, but simply having no desire for food. That is a weird experience, let me tell you.

(Rob Grantham) #8

Yeah thanks paul its interesting what you say about the satiety and satisfaction. Makes sense. I also believe that there is a small voice which whisprs to me to stop eating. I have always stopped when the feeling of fullness arises but this may actually be too late in th game. I will eat slowly and pay closer attention to the whisper

(Windmill Tilter) #9

It sounds like your satiety signals are working well, which is wonderful. Not everybody’s satiety signals are trustworthy in the beginning after decades of SAD, so you’re off to great start! Trust them and KCKO! :+1::+1::+1:

It’s not a bad thing to track your calories, especially in the first couple months, but definitely don’t trust the numbers to guide decisions. Nobody really has an idea how many calories they’ve consumed, because food manufacturers are allowed to legally understate calories by up to 20%, and unprocessed foods vary in their nutritional content. Most people also have no idea how many calories they’ve burned, because they’ve never had their VO2 max tested, don’t have an indirect calorimeter to test their RMR daily, and don’t wear a 24hr heart rate monitor. If you had done all these things, you still wouldn’t have a very good idea regarding energy balance because hormones and the digestive system determine whether food is burned as energy, turned to fat, or excreted intact.

The way I look at it, since hormones are controlling basically everything, I might as well trust them and learn to speak their language: hunger/satiety!

For you, it sounds like you need to slow down the eating a bit so that you can understand what ghrelin and leptin are saying. That’s totally normal; it’s like when you’re travelling abroad and you need to ask native speakers to speak slowly at first so you can understand. Pretty soon it will be second nature to you.

Good luck and enjoy the bacon! :smiley:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #10

I agree.

Our ancestors managed to stay healthy for two million years without knowing anything about calories or how to calculate macros, so perhaps I can, too.

(Rob Grantham) #11

This. It actually does my head in sometimes trying to think about everything i eat. Trying to eyeball an avocado. trying to add grams of protein. I enjoy the benefits of eating this way but at times i miss the days when i never had to think about what went in my piehole.