eat till your full or just till your satisfied?

It depends on how many calories you're eating. It's important to make sure that you're logging accurately and consistently, and once you're confident about your intake, to get as close to that calorie goal as possible. It's not a suggestion or a guideline. It's a calorie goal specifically for you based on the information you plug into the system. As mentioned above, your body IS the most important thing - which is why you need to fuel it properly. Hunger cues are not always dependable. If they were, none of us would be here.

If you're only coming that far under your calorie goal every once in awhile, it's not a big deal. Sometimes that happens. But if you're frequently having trouble reaching your calorie goal, you need to plan your day better or add more calorie-dense foods into your diet. If you regularly undereat or have a huge calorie deficit, it becomes difficult to get the fuel and nutrition your body needs. Eating fresh, whole foods is great, but it doesn't automatically mean that you're getting adequate nutrition. Your body still requires certain levels of macro and micro nutrients to function optimally.

There's lots of good info in this link about fueling your body and meeting your goals:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

isnt being full the same thing as being satisfied!? For me it is...im not satisfied til im full.

i cant listen to my body. i'm a bottomless pit so i really shouldnt be trying to eat until im full, but eating until i'm satisfied.

there's a difference between the two, at least there is for me

I think two things. First: "listening to your body" doesn't work for a lot of people. Maybe it's something that can be learned, maybe not. People who can manage their weight over years by eating intuitively don't tend to end up with a large amount to lose. Or, if they do, it's because something changed - they got pregnant, or sick, or injured or their activity level decreased without them really noticing and they didn't realise they had to change their intake to match.

Then there are a whole lot of other people who can't accurately judge how much to eat by how full they feel. In fact, appetite and hunger aren't really the best indicators of exactly how much your body needs anyway. There are countless threads on here of people who are drastically restricting their calories yet don't feel hungry and can't bear the thought of eating 1,000, 12,00 calories etc. There are also countless people who overeat and yet still feel full. You can eat 500 calories of raw vegetables and feel stuffed, or 2,000 calories of something really calorie dense and while you might feel satisfied energy wise, your stomach would still want more.

Appetite is a really complicated thing and can be affected by so many things, including how much exercise you've done, hormonal cycles, illness, medication, the kinds of foods you've eaten... Also, people who have issues with emotional eating often have different levels of physically full and emotionally full. They can learn to distinguish the two, but chances are they're always going to have a slightly different experience of "satisfied" than someone else.

You have to remember that humans didn't evolve in a time when food was as plentiful as it is now. The point was to eat when food was available because it wasn't always available. I think a lot of people feel this pressure to eat "intuitively" and feel bad that they're doing it wrong if they can't. On the other hand, I think we can train ourselves to be satisfied on a certain amount of food, otherwise people wouldn't manage to maintain calorie deficits over such long periods of time.


The second thought I have is that there is really a lot of personal preference to it too. Some people don't like the feeling of their stomach being full and stretched, whereas some people genuinely do enjoy that feeling of being completely full. That's one reason why people have such different preferences over meal timing and size. I personally like feeling full, but only in the evening when I'm not as active. During the day (lunch), I eat to the point where I curb the hunger but could easily eat some more if I wanted.

I know from experience that I can't rely on my body to tell me exactly how much it needs, just as it doesn't really give me signals telling me how much protein or fat it needs. So, I rely on my brain to tell me how much to eat, and I'm ok with that.


Oh, and OP: if you want to understand more about it all, read up about insulin, leptin and ghrelin and the part they have to play. I'm no expert, so I won't attempt to explain it myself as I'd probably confuse you more, but there really is a lot more to hunger than a lot of people realise.