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Your meal sizes will vary from one meal to another, and from day to day.
It’s crucial for you to recognize how to heed your body’s signals of hunger and satisfaction, but it’s equally vital to comprehend why your meal sizes fluctuate between meals. This understanding empowers you to leverage those insights about yourself, enhancing your confidence in providing optimal nourishment for your distinctive body.
Numerous factors can impact the quantity of food you consume, and remaining oblivious to these elements might result in portions that do not align with your body’s requirements.
Gaining greater awareness of why you may feel the need for a larger or smaller portion will assist you in finding the appropriate level of nourishment you require.
Continue reading to discover what to consider while selecting your food portion sizes, enabling you to enhance your ability to let your hunger and satisfaction guide you.
Reasons Your Food Portions May Vary
Keep these factors in mind as you assess your hunger and decide on your food portions.
1. What You’ve Eaten (or Haven’t Eaten)
A frequent factor that probably affects your food portions is what you have already consumed, or not consumed, and the nutritional value of the food you’ve had.
For instance, if you’ve purposely or inadvertently consumed less throughout the day, this may lead your body to experience heightened hunger, resulting in larger portions. These increased portions frequently contribute to overeating due to how ravenous you may feel.
Moreover, when we have not eaten sufficiently for a prolonged period and then consume a significant amount of food due to extreme hunger, this can lead to spikes in blood sugar levels. These spikes can leave us feeling less satisfied overall, perpetuating the cycle.
Conversely, if you’ve enjoyed a hearty dinner and wish to indulge in dessert, you may naturally prefer a smaller portion of dessert, owing to your satisfying dinner intake. A minimal dinner tends to trigger a larger dessert portion as your hunger signals remain unfulfilled.
It’s also vital to reflect on how nutrient-dense the foods you choose are and how you balance them in your meals. Consuming a well-rounded Foundational Five meal will likely leave you feeling fuller between meals, while an unbalanced meal may have you feeling hungry sooner.
2. Your Activity Levels
Your physical activity levels can also play a role in your food portions.
On days when you’re more active, you might find yourself needing larger portions of food to sustain your activity level. To support this, focus on incorporating carbohydrates and healthy fats for lasting energy, along with some protein to help repair your muscles.
When you realize you’re more active than usual, pay attention to that so you can adjust your portions accordingly.
Conversely, if you usually have a high activity level but are taking it easy, your body won’t require as much fuel, so it’s important to notice how your hunger alters on these less active days.
3. Environmental Cues
A common, often subconscious factor influencing your portion sizes can be environmental cues. These include anything in your surroundings that prompts you to eat or to consume a specific quantity.
Certain environmental cues can be beneficial, such as having healthier food choices at eye level in the fridge rather than buried in the drawers. This can encourage you to opt for larger portions of vegetables and greens as they remain top of mind.
On the flip side, some environmental cues may not align with the eating habits you aspire to cultivate. For example, a participant in our Mindful Nutrition Method™ program recognized she often snacked on chips or cookies in the afternoon. After some reflection, she discovered this was due to frequently passing by the office kitchen during meetings or when refilling her tea, leading her to grab snacks solely because they were readily available.
Being mindful of your eating behaviors can help you discern if and when your environment impacts your portion sizes.
4. Stress Levels
Stress impacts your food portions in two primary ways.
- Smaller portions
When stress first arises, your appetite often diminishes as your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activates your body’s “fight or flight” mode to respond to the stressor. Your brain signals your adrenal glands to release adrenaline, which elevates your heart rate and directs blood to your muscles and heart so you can react, briefly putting hunger on hold (1). Once the stressor subsides, your SNS returns to its normal state.
If you’re unaware that stress is suppressing your hunger, you may find yourself undereating. While we typically rely on hunger signals for making food choices, it’s crucial to recognize when those signals may not function properly (for instance, during stress) and to nourish yourself adequately regardless.
- Larger portions
The second way that stress can shape your portion sizes is through chronic stress. If stress goes unmanaged, your SNS remains active in response to that stress.
In such cases, your body releases cortisol, often referred to as the stress hormone. Unlike adrenaline, which may suppress your appetite, cortisol can stimulate it (2). If your stress response stays heightened, cortisol levels may remain increased.
If you’re dealing with chronic stress, you’re more likely to experience physical hunger as well as heightened cravings for comfort foods that are often rich in carbohydrates or sugars. Sugar can elicit a dopamine release—often called the feel-good chemical—activating the pleasure centers in the brain (3).
This can lead to opting for larger servings of those foods.
5. Eating While Distracted or Rushed
Eating while distracted—such as while watching television, working, or scrolling on your phone—results in **mindless eating** and often larger portion sizes. When you’re not fully engaged with your meal, you’re less aware of your fullness cues, which can lead to overeating.
To counter this, practice **mindful eating** by minimizing distractions and concentrating on the flavors, textures, and aromas of your food. This can heighten your awareness of hunger and fullness, allowing you to better control your portion sizes.
6. Sleep Quality’s Effect on Food Portions
Research indicates that inadequate sleep quality increases cravings for processed or sugary foods, upwards of overeating throughout the day, and decreased consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Focus on meals loaded with protein and fats when you’re feeling tired to ensure sustained energy throughout the day!
7. Your Menstrual Cycle
<p Nearly 30 percent of premenopausal women are iron deficient (4), and if you identify as vegetarian or vegan, or if you experience heavy menstrual bleeding, your risk of iron deficiency escalates. Additionally, menstruation alone decreases the iron levels in your body (5).
As a result, you may feel more fatigued during menstruation, signaling your body’s energy requirements. Carbohydrates are a quick source of energy, which might explain cravings for carbohydrate-rich foods or the perception of needing larger portions.
Ensure you consume adequate iron-rich foods, especially during your menstrual cycle, to support your body’s needs and energy levels.
8. Hydration Levels
Water is essential for every bodily function, including metabolism. By staying adequately hydrated, you’re promoting digestive health, fueling an efficient metabolism, and much more (1)(2).
If you’re dehydrated, you might interpret thirst as hunger. Maintaining proper hydration can enhance the accuracy of your hunger signals.
When you’re feeling hungry, drink a glass of water, wait 10-15 minutes, and then reassess your hunger. If you still feel hungry, you may be genuinely hungry, but if your hunger dissipates, perhaps you were merely thirsty.
Strategies to Enhance Your Ability to Determine Appropriate Portions
Finding suitable portions requires patience and practice. It involves honing the skill to listen to your body and recognizing what authentic hunger and fullness feel like for you, coupled with the knowledge of how to apply that understanding constructively. This is the support we offer our members in the Mindful Nutrition Method™ program.
You can register here for our complimentary workshop, where we present an exercise designed to help you better attune to your individual hunger and fullness signals and guide you through our Mindful Nutrition Method™.
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