Eating Half Stomach: The Why and How?
We went to our favourite restaurant here this weekend. We ordered the starters, paneer tikka, baby corn fry and one soup. That’s all, eating that itself made my stomach almost full. Then came the garlic nan. One piece of that with mutter paneer made my stomach full. One of my friends ordered veg fried rice, so, took a few spoons for taste(!). The finishing part, desserts, are my favourite caramel custard and Elaneer payasam which I could not forgo for any reason.
Now tell me the condition of my stomach! Will I be comfortable with a full(more than full) stomach?
Will it not make my stomach feel tired of doing its work if I eat a full stomach daily? Then one fine day it will not cooperate, right?
That’s what I have referred to in my earlier blogs as mindful eating! While eating each bite, be mindful that the food is for nurturing my body and I am eating only for that purpose!
My friend Keerthi went for a weight reduction program some time ago. There, she was advised to take tomato juice in the morning and drink very slowly, sip by sip and she needed to take 20 minutes to drink that one glass of juice. The reason stated was it takes around 20 minutes for the brain to receive signals from the stomach indicating fullness. Surprising, right? I was also wondering we say our brain is superfast and most experts say that it takes that long to realize we are full. This may be due to this reason: when you eat, your stomach releases hormones like cholecystokinin (CCK) which travel to the brain to signal satiety.
Many days I have experienced this: while eating I will not eat full stomach, I feel hungry and eat to fulfill my hunger only. But, after a few minutes, maybe after washing my hands, I will feel my stomach is overfull! Have you also experienced this? Maybe the brain had not received the signal of the stomach being full, so it gave the hunger signal, and after that 20 minutes when it got the ‘full’ signal from the stomach, I ate more!!
The Japanese term hara hachi bu means “eat until you’re 80% full”. This ancient wisdom originated in Okinawa, where people use it to control their eating habits. Some say that eating less may help prolong life and that overeating can slow down digestion. When your stomach is full, it sends signals to your brain that you’re full, but eating too much can cause your stomach to stretch past its normal capacity. This can lead to discomfort and pressure as the food passes into your small intestine.
Please check this for yourself: Take a mixie jar and fill it with coconut cut into small pieces or some grated coconut to its full capacity and run the mixie. What happens? Is the mixie able to grind the coconut? Nooo, right. You might not even try this! You may ask me how it will grind without adding some water and giving enough space for the coconut to mix well before being ground.
The same is true with our stomachs also. If we are eating a full stomach, leaving no water and empty space, how will the stomach digest it?
I read this somewhere “Eat Less to Eat More!”. First I couldn’t get the point. Then I understood, if we eat less then we might live longer and enjoy eating food for long!
When it comes to eating, I wish to share another important fact as well. When we eat with a disturbed mind, after a good fight with our spouse, or thinking about some unpleasant thing that happened before, the nutritious food we eat becomes toxic! Can you see this? For that matter even if we are watching some tragic scenes in the movie or unhealthy arguments in the serials also have the same impact on our food!
If we are watching TV or some reels on the mobile we might not have the awareness of how much we are eating and we will eat more than what is required. You might have noticed this when you are feeding your child, the many stories you told and the moon you showed are all to distract your child and eat what you are giving and you will be satisfied only if the child eats all that you want it to eat, right?
The same distraction now we have with the serial or the social media, even more than that!
A few days before Keerthi and I were having our dinner at home and the peanut chutney was very tasty. When I said I was going to eat one more dosa as the chutney was so tasty she said ‘You like the chutney only right, take a few spoons of chutney and eat, why do you want to take one more dosa?’ – that is a good piece of thought for mindful eating, isn’t it!
Mindful eating is the answer to that “How can I follow the rule of eating half stomach?”
Paying attention to your body’s hunger cues and stopping when you feel comfortably full can help prevent overeating. Eating slowly allows enough time for the hormones released by the stomach to reach the brain and register fullness.
So, eating mindfully will facilitate good health by preventing overeating, thus reducing the risk of life-threatening diseases like Coronary heart disease, High blood pressure, and Stroke. Also, it helps from being obese which is the root cause for many many diseases!
