Intuitive Eating Principle Six: Discover The Satisfaction Factor

This blog post will discuss everything you need to know about the sixth principle of Intuitive Eating: Discovering The Satisfaction Factor. 

If you’re brand new to Intuitive Eating, you’ll want to start with this blog post, which breaks down what Intuitive Eating is and how it might be beneficial for you. 

If you need a refresher, I’ve also gone over the previous five principles in separate blog posts, which are Rejecting the Diet Mentality, Honoring Your Hunger, Making Peace With Food, Challenging The Food Police and Feeling Your Fullness.  

A lot of people think very dichotomously. When it comes to food, people think you’re either completely obsessed with food or you view it just as fuel. 

Either you’re constantly thinking about food and have an unhealthy relationship with it, or you’re a CEO who has no time to eat and chugs Soylent all day long. 

The reality is that most of us actually fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Food is a means to sustain yourself, but it can also be used for pleasure and satisfaction. 

Diet Culture Robs Us From Our Ability To Discover The Satisfaction Factor

Be honest-when was the last time you had a truly satisfying meal? I’m not talking about a meal that left you full. I’m talking about a meal that left you saying “this is how I want to feel after all my meals”. 

See, diet culture doesn’t care about whether you leave the table satisfied. Diet culture completely strips your ability to actually enjoy your meal. IE, when you are on a diet, you can not discover the satisfaction factor.

Eating is (normally) a very pleasurable experience, but eating when you’re on a diet can be incredibly stressful. 

Every meal on a diet that you eat, you’re thinking about whether it brings you closer or further to your “ideal body”. 

Does it have too many calories? Are the ingredients “clean” enough? How many miles will I need to run to burn it off? 

Eating on a diet is complete torture. 

What Does Satisfaction Look Like To You?

Satisfaction is subjective, so what will be satisfying to you may look different from what is satisfying to me.

If you’ve been stuck in the thick of diet culture, you may need some time to figure out what sounds good to you, and what a satisfying meal would look like. 

When you’re able to eat what you really want to eat, you’ll be able to discover the satisfaction factor and joy that eating can bring. 

Food Neutrality Works With ‘Discover The Satisfaction Factor‘

All of the principles of Intuitive Eating go hand in hand. Discovering the satisfaction factor and Intuitive Eating Principle 3: Making Peace With Food work together. 

Once food becomes neutral to you, you’ll be able to move onto how you can make eating enjoyable and peaceful. 

If certain foods are still off limits or demonized in your mind, you may still have some hostility in your food choices, and you won’t be able to truly enjoy the experience. 

Here are some exercises to help you practice discovering the satisfaction factor.

Exercise One: Reflecting On A Past Meal

Think about the last meal you ate. It could be from this morning, or it could be from yesterday night. Just try to imagine it vividly, almost as if you went back in time and were still eating it. 

Try to describe what that meal was like. What did the dish look like? Were the colors vibrant and visually appealing? Perhaps it wasn’t picture-esque, but super yummy and comforting like a big hug. 

What did the dish smell like? Were there spices or aromatics that emulated out of the dish? 

What were some textures you experienced? Was the food crunchy, smooth, or a mixture of both?

Did the food get better or worse as you kept eating? How did the tenth bite taste compared to the first bite? 

It might help if you wrote down the answers to these questions on a piece of paper. Or, you could share your experience with a friend or family member. 

There are no wrong answers here. However, as you’re describing the food you ate, you’ll want to avoid using foods like “good” or “bad”. You don’t want to categorize foods in your head as it will negate the food neutrality we are trying to establish. 

Now, think about the environment that you were eating in and what was happening around you. 

Where did you eat that meal? Was it in your dining room? A busy restaurant? A school cafeteria? 

Were you comfortable? How did the chair you were sitting on feel? Did you sit on a chair or something else? 

Did you have company when you were eating? Maybe your last meal was dinner with your family. Maybe you ate by yourself, or maybe your company was the actors in the television show you were watching. 

Finally, what were you feeling as you were eating? Were you in a good mood, or were you upset about something? You could also have been feeling neutral. 

Takeaways From Exercise One:

The purpose of this exercise is to highlight that a variety of factors can make or break your eating experience. 

Sure, the food that you eat has a lot to do with your satisfaction. But, along with that, so can your external environment. 

Where you eat, when you eat, who you eat with, and your state of mind during the meal are just some of the things that can influence your eating experience. 

Exercise Two: Sharing Meals With Loved Ones

For this exercise, you are going to need a partner. It can be whoever you’d like it to be. You just want to make sure you are comfortable sharing with them. 

Once you have your partner, take a few minutes to recall a past meal that was deeply satisfying to you. 

This may have been a meal you had on vacation, or even breakfast that morning. It doesn’t have to be the most glamorous meal to have been satisfying to you. 

Once you have your meal in mind and your partner has their meal in mind, take turns sharing your amazing meals. 

Try your best to listen intently and not interject. Notice if the things you highlighted about your meal are the same or different from what your partner highlights about their meal. 

Takeaways From Exercise Two:

This is a great exercise to highlight how subjective satisfaction can be. 

Whenever I do this exercise, I am always surprised to remember how little I care about ambiance. 

Don’t get me wrong, a fancy restaurant is great. But if the food is overpriced and overhyped, I am leaving! I would much rather eat at a hole in the wall. 

You’ll also want to see if your friend highlighted something about their meal that you would have liked in your experience as well. 

Or, maybe they described a situation you’d want to take part in yourself! It’s always fun to switch things up in your eating environment every now and then. 

Exercise Three: Tweaking Weekly Recipes

This exercise is going to require a recipe. It can be as simple or as complicated of a recipe as you’d like. 

Maybe it is a recipe for a go-to meal that you gravitate towards week after week, like a sandwich or breakfast item. Or, maybe you have a family recipe that has been passed down from generation to generation. 

Either way, write that recipe down on a piece of paper. Then, go through it and see if you can make it better.

This might look like adding a different spice to the dish, or changing a component of the dish. Can you play with the textures or colors in any way?

If what you picked out is already perfect to you, think about if you can pair it with something that could elevate the dish. 

For example, if the dish is your Italian grandma’s meatballs and you always serve it with spaghetti and broccoli, what would it look like to serve it with a different vegetable?

What If I Don’t Cook?

If you don’t cook but still want to elevate your eating experience, try to think about how you could tweak your takeout meals. 

Are you eating your food straight out of the container that the restaurant put it in? Would your experience be elevated if you put your food out on a nice plate? 

You’ll also want to think about what your eating environment looks like. Are you eating next to a pile full of bills and unopened mail? Would mood enhancers like candles or scents help you?

Takeaways From Exercise Three

Do not underestimate the power of small changes. Minor tweaks have the power to take a meal from “just okay” to “WOW”.  

And think about the impact that could have if the meal you tweaked was one that you make every week. Now, every week can be “WOW”!

Conclusion

Intuitive Eating Principle Six: Discover The Satisfaction Factor may sound a little extra at first. 

You may think “do I really need to set the mood for MYSELF?” 

“Does it really matter if I eat on the couch while simultaneously scrolling through TikTok?”

The answer is very simple: you DESERVE to have a pleasurable eating experience. 

You are WORTHY of leaving the table feeling both physically full and mentally content. 

You don’t necessarily have to be over the top for every meal you have. If you don’t want to light a candle, don’t! If you want to eat straight out of the takeout container, do it!

The point of all this is to learn more about who you are when all the diet rules are stripped. What do you like? What sounds good to you?

And if eating in bed sounds good to you and will make your meal satisfying, DO IT!

Further Research

Evelyn Tribole, one of the cofounders of Intuitive Eating (Elyse Resch is the other founder) wrote a great post detailing Intuitive Eating Principle #5: Discover The Satisfaction Factor. If you want to learn more about Intuitive Eating Principle #6, I definitely recommend reading that article, linked here.

NOW I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

What are some things you look for when you’re thinking about a satisfying meal?

Do you have any tips for other readers to make their eating experience more enjoyable?

Let me know by leaving me a comment down below!