Stop halfway.
Here's the pitch: take a break from eating halfway through your meal. Relax and let the brain chemicals catch up with the rest of you; It takes around 20 minutes for the brain to kick in and register the feeling of satiety.
This piece of advice ties in well with an approach to food wherein one chews each mouthful around 40 times. Savour your meal. Enjoy it. And take a break halfway through--don't race to finish. The idea is that if we allow our mind and body to register how satisfied we are by what we've already consumed, we will find that we don't actually need to eat our entire portion, a quantity of food that would leave us overstuffed. The remaining half of the serving can be saved for another meal. I've found this has worked very well for me. I've pasted an article on the subject below that offers a more technical perspective on satiety. Hope you find it helpful!
How Does Your Stomach Tell Your Brain That You're Full?
Overview
Satiety, the sensation that you've had enough to eat, results from a balance of hormonal and neurological signals reaching your brain from your stomach. Other factors, such as the sensory quality of food, also contribute to satiety. Scientific research has revealed much about this mysterious function and how it contributes to weight control, but much remains to be learned.
Feedback Mechanisms
Hunger and satiety -- the feeling of fullness that tells you to stop eating -- are complex functions regulated by numerous feedback mechanisms in your body. One of those signals comes from your stomach wall stretching to accommodate the meal you are eating. Nerve stretch receptors send signals to the brain that the stomach is expanding and you can begin to taper off and stop eating. At the same time, a hormone called ghrelin, produced when your stomach empties to trigger a hunger message, starts to decrease. The result is more impulses reaching your brain saying to stop eating than to start or continue eating.
Timing
It takes about 20 minutes after you start eating for the message to stop eating to form and reach your brain, says registered dietitian Joanne V. Lichten, Ph.D., author of the book "Dining Lean - How to Eat Healthy When You're Not at Home." If you are a speedy eater, it may serve you well to cultivate a slower pace for dining. Other benefits of eating slowly include savoring the taste of your food, which by itself promotes mental and emotional satiety from eating, and improved digestion. Lichten also suggests you can test to see if you are full by standing up at some point during your meal and sensing how your stomach feels. If you feel comfortable but not over-full when you stand, then you've eaten enough. By doing this you will avoid the sensation that often occurs at the end of a meal, when you stand up and realize from the bloated feeling in your stomach, that you've overindulged.
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/489875-how-does-your-stomach-tell-your-brain-that-youre-full/#ixzz1XoGDAk6I
And, http://www.livestrong.com/article/489875-how-does-your-stomach-tell-your-brain-that-youre-full/#ixzz1XoEPyvKp
Tracey Roizman