Another example of how recognizing hunger and fullness pay off

So the other day I ran to the grocery store across the street to grab my new favorite lunch  -- chicken salad! (I know -- not low fat -- but and soooo delicious!)  When I picked up the little container, it felt different.  Heavier? Bigger?  Did the price increase???

But, having my mind on other things, I shrugged off the odd feel of the container, purchased lunch, and headed back to the office.

Since I've done this for lunch before, I know I usually eat 1/3 to 1/2 of the container -- which leaves me the rest for another lunch on another day.

This time, as I was eating, I noticed when my hunger was gone  I had a lot more chicken salad left than normal.  Weird.

Fast forward to later that afternoon when I brought the container home and put it into the fridge.  Right next that the newly installed chicken salad container was a repurposed chicken salad container from a few weeks ago.  And guess what??

The new container WAS bigger than the old one. 

What would have happened at lunch had I been unable to recognize when I was no longer hungry?  There's a very good chance I would have eaten my usual amount of chicken salad -- 1/3-1/2 of the container....even though this container was bigger than the ones I usually ate out of.

Extra calories I didn't need eaten merely because they were there.

Plates, glassware, silverware, serving sizes have all increased in the last 30 years.  If you're running on habits and visual cues, you're going to overeat.  Everything in our culture is supporting overeating right now.

But your body won't.  No matter what size bowl you put your lunch in -- your stomach won't be fooled. If your eating mindfully, when you've eaten enough calories to let your body move on for another few hours, you'll stop feeling actual hunger (that's different than your mouth still wanting to eat -- but you know that already).

Arranging your environment to create visual cues to help you eat less is a great thing!!  But you can't totally control your environment.  That's reason enough, in my book, to work on your understanding of the Hunger/Fullness scale.....today!