Satiety

As I mentioned in the opening video, how satiating a food is, is how filling it is.

Avoiding being hungry is essential when maintaining a calorie deficit. The hungrier you are, the more likely you are to overeat, and exceed your calorie target.

So consuming as many satiating foods as possible is a good idea.

The foods that are most satiating are often high in fibre, high in protein, and also have high water content.

So – things like vegetables, whole grains, and meat.

This is one of the reasons why on Slimmingworld and Weightwatchers these foods are often free. Because they are highly satiating, the more you eat them, the fuller you will be and less likely you are to go over your calorie target.

The foods that are the least satiating are things like baked products, biscuits, cakes, chocolates, pastries.

Which is one of the reasons why they are given “syns” or “points”. Not only are they very tasty, but they also aren’t very filling, so they are easy to overeat.

Now it is important to recognise that that doesn’t make them bad or fattening.

If you ate in a calorie deficit and only consumed, cake, biscuits, and chocolate, you would still lose weight – because you are in a calorie deficit.

Doing so just wouldn’t be very easy as you would find yourself hungry all the time, so it is important to not consume too many of your calories from these foods for that reason.

However, it is not only important to be satisfied hunger wise, but also content mentally when dieting, which I touch more upon in the later video about enjoying your food.

Even if you are fully satiated from eating your meals, your taste buds need to be adequately satisfied as well.

Otherwise you may still find yourself reaching for a something else after your meals anyway, which then might put you over your calorie target and prevent you making progress.

So it’s important to find a balance to be found between the two.