To put it simply, I started listening more closely to my hunger and fullness cues.
If I am hungry, I eat. When I start to feel full, I stop eating. This is something that I had never put into practice. For years I was eating past the point of being full, really stuffing myself and sometimes I would really make myself sick. I learned to leave some bites behind, and not to feel guilty about “wasting” food.
I learned how to do this through the coaching program Best Body, created by Dr. Rachel Paul. I signed up for the program when I weighed between 230-250lbs in Fall of 2022, and by 2023 I had lost around 30 lbs. In the last couple years I’ve been able to lose another 20lbs.
In Best Body, you can create your own personalized weight loss plan, choosing from a number of strategies that work for you. I chose to tune in to hunger and fullness cues, track calories (which I had been extremely resistant to prior to joining this program) and be a food snob. I started out using MyFitnessPal to track calories, but recently I have switched to LoseIt (which is what Best Body encourages their members to use).
Being a food snob means that I ONLY eat food that I love. I DON’T love kale, avocados, sweet potatoes, or dark chocolate. So I don’t force myself to eat any of the foods that I don’t like. What I DO like is fruit, chicken, popcorn, pretzels, hot dogs, rice, whole milk, greek yogurt, french fries, and spaghetti. I am happy to share that I was able to lose weight while keeping these delicious foods within my life!
Something else I learned in Best Body is to pair carbs with friends. As you can see, I love to eat foods that are high in carbohydrates. These types of foods (pasta, bread, etc.) can spike your blood sugar and cause you to feel hungry again. But when you eat these types of foods with a fat or a protein, it decreases the blood sugar spike. I have not paid too much attention to macros (how much protein, fat, and carbs I am eating), but I learned to prioritize protein to keep myself full.
Food is for nourishment and not something to use to solve for boredom. I’ve learned that it is okay and normal to have cravings and urges, but sometimes what I really need is comfort and emotional nourishment, or intellectual stimulation, and not food because I’m not actually hungry.
I do still order take out and go out to eat at restaurants, but I try to be mindful of how food is making me feel as I eat it, and how I feel after I eat it. I learned to be aware of the sensations in my own body and to not eat too much if I know that last time I did that I didn’t feel well afterwards.
Best Body also offers live coaching during weekly calls for members. I have gotten coaching a few times now and I always leave feeling relieved, hopeful and empowered. The coaches are so loving, friendly and knowledgeable. Sometimes these calls can get emotional, because food is often associated with emotion. The social aspect of dining together and the habits we learned from family members growing up strongly impacts our relationship to food as we get older.
The weight loss comes more slowly now, but I love my body the way it is. I still want to lose around 10 more pounds to reach a weight loss goal of 170lbs (as encouraged by my doctor) but I am not in any rush at this point. To lose the last 10lbs, I’ve decided to dial in more closely to my hunger and fullness cues, to continue weighing out my foods before I track the calories (and tracking the “sips of milk” I have through out the day), and to add at least 1 day per week at the gym.
If you are unhappy with the way you feel in your body and are interested in experimenting with a weight loss journey, I highly recommend the Best Body program. Otherwise, try dialing in to your hunger and fullness cues! For reference, here is “The Hunger Scale” that Best Body uses to measure our feelings of hunger (it is recommended to stay between 4-6):
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