Just read some interesting research in Scientific American
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eat-less-by-altering-your-food-memories&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20130130
about how people feel about what they have eaten. Basically it showed that after a meal you felt sated, or otherwise, in a realistic way - however, when you began to feel hungry your hunger was proportional to how large the portion you thought you'd had (there was some interesting work with trick soup bowls to make people feel they were eating less/more than they actually were to achieve this). So, in short, if you feel you had a slightly inadequate meal earlier, you feel "hungrier" later. It was suggested that if you took a picture of what you'd eaten this might help you feel you actually had had enough and didn't eat more, since a memory of one's last meal seemed to discourage "hunger".
I'm putting hunger in quotation marks, because it's clearly something more complex than the simple physical hunger i.e. "I'm running low on inputs" - but is to do with all sorts of complex psychological things - including, I suspect, entitlement (this wasn't in the article) because I think a lot of those of us who diet have issues about when and whether we are allowed to eat, and seek justification for it "well it is supper time/I haven't had anything for 6 hours/I only had 3 canapes at lunch time/I've been out all day and missed lunch...." etc. etc.
I've noticed since doing the WW thing that if I haven't had many points in a day I tend to feel hungrier, I am ravenous as I write this, but I know I had a perfectly adquate supper (lots of cabbage AND spinach) and felt very full afterwards. I must try to think hard about that vast pile of vegetables... and fish (God, I don't believe there's anything you can do to make pollack really nice that doesn't involve a lot of fats and calories... However, as I lost 5.5lbs in the last fortnight (the Christmas weight), and look set to achieve my modest birthday goal, I think for the first time I might actually go beyond the usual system of losing 2 stone, then losing interest, then putting it on again. .
At the moment, I feel quite happy about my level of weight loss - and feel much more sorted about my eating habits than I have in the past - as long as I am not lured out of them with a gin at 6.30pm.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eat-less-by-altering-your-food-memories&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20130130
about how people feel about what they have eaten. Basically it showed that after a meal you felt sated, or otherwise, in a realistic way - however, when you began to feel hungry your hunger was proportional to how large the portion you thought you'd had (there was some interesting work with trick soup bowls to make people feel they were eating less/more than they actually were to achieve this). So, in short, if you feel you had a slightly inadequate meal earlier, you feel "hungrier" later. It was suggested that if you took a picture of what you'd eaten this might help you feel you actually had had enough and didn't eat more, since a memory of one's last meal seemed to discourage "hunger".
I'm putting hunger in quotation marks, because it's clearly something more complex than the simple physical hunger i.e. "I'm running low on inputs" - but is to do with all sorts of complex psychological things - including, I suspect, entitlement (this wasn't in the article) because I think a lot of those of us who diet have issues about when and whether we are allowed to eat, and seek justification for it "well it is supper time/I haven't had anything for 6 hours/I only had 3 canapes at lunch time/I've been out all day and missed lunch...." etc. etc.
I've noticed since doing the WW thing that if I haven't had many points in a day I tend to feel hungrier, I am ravenous as I write this, but I know I had a perfectly adquate supper (lots of cabbage AND spinach) and felt very full afterwards. I must try to think hard about that vast pile of vegetables... and fish (God, I don't believe there's anything you can do to make pollack really nice that doesn't involve a lot of fats and calories... However, as I lost 5.5lbs in the last fortnight (the Christmas weight), and look set to achieve my modest birthday goal, I think for the first time I might actually go beyond the usual system of losing 2 stone, then losing interest, then putting it on again. .
At the moment, I feel quite happy about my level of weight loss - and feel much more sorted about my eating habits than I have in the past - as long as I am not lured out of them with a gin at 6.30pm.
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