Do you suffer from a feeling of bloating after meals? This is how you recognize over time that you are full | To eat

While eating itself isn’t rocket science, ingesting and processing food remains a complex process. From the moment you take your first bite to the moment the food enters your gut, all kinds of hormones and satiety processes play a role. “It therefore takes some time for your brain to receive the signals that regulate satiety,” says Ellen Blaak, professor of human biology at Maastricht University.

The speed of eating therefore also plays a role in this. Foods such as cakes, sausage rolls or meatballs can be eaten much faster than, for example, a bag of raw carrots. Since the so-called mouth exposure is much shorter, the saturation point is perceived less well by the brain. This allows you to continue eating without realizing that your body has already had enough.

“You can drink chocolate whole milk at a rate of around 420 kilocalories per minute,” says Professor Kees De Graaf. “You can easily consume 1,000 calories in just over two minutes. Try it with the equivalent of ten apples or five cheese sandwiches. Hard food fills up faster than soft or liquid food, regardless of the amount of calories it contains,” concludes De Graaf. “You can almost never finish a kilo of grapes, but you can eat a liter of grape juice. Even your choice of cooked or raw carrots can make a difference in how full you feel.

External stimuli also influence our eating behavior. Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Loughborough shown that people who played a video game while eating took longer to feel full than people who weren’t distracted. The same goes for scrolling through your cell phone or having a quick lunch behind your desk. “Everyone is guilty of it, myself included, but it has a negative impact on food regulation,” continues Blaak. “When you’re distracted, but also when you’re stressed, you’re simply less in touch with your sense of satiety and there’s a chance you’re overeating.”

Of course, healthy eating goes beyond just satiety. It remains a combination of factors in which lifestyle, physical activity and heredity predominate. “But it’s always good to realize that little things, like checking email during lunch, can certainly affect the big picture,” says Blaak.

So be mindful of what you eat is the credo. Provide a quiet eating environment — no cell phones, television, or radio — take solid fruit instead of that “healthy” smoothie, and give yourself enough time to eat. This way you will recognize faster when you have really had enough.

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