Feeling Full vs. Feeling Full

This is the time for resolutions, the most common of which are to lose weight and get in shape.  It's amazing how prevalent these particular resolutions are. Countless new diets and programs appear on the market, touting their respective benefits: There is the ready-made food delivered to your home, promising chef-prepared delectables; there is the weekly meeting variety; there are the clinics; as well as the do-it-yourself diets.  Almost all of them promise that their method/food will let you eat whatever you like, make you skinny, and keep you full.

The problem with all these claims is that "full" does not really address the problem, that problem being that the vast majority of overweight people are self-medicating with food.  Their drug of choice is food, mainly refined carbs.  In fact, many overeaters will attest to the fact that they eat to the point of feeling sick and unable to move, so being "full" is not the issue.  It's not "full" that people seek - it's relief from whatever ails them, whatever emotion is currently at play.  Of course, feeling full is nice, but it skirts the issue of overweight almost to the point of being irrelevant.

Consider a colonoscopy.  To be a bit inelegant, the prep given prior to a colonoscopy, GoLytely, makes one feel "full."  You must drink a gallon of this horrible-tasting concoction, that tastes both salty (sea-water salty) and viscous, and you must drink it in a fairly short period of time, you should do so on an empty stomach, with the desired result of emptying your bowels.  Believe me, GoLytely makes you full.  And I mean, FULL.  You can't move.  You can't breathe.  And of course, you can't eat because you're so full.  But are you satisfied?

Of course not.  That vile preparation (which should be declared illegal) does serve its purpose of filling you up to the point of discomfort.  But since it is not a source of nutrition, it can't possibly satisfy our senses.

Admittedly, most (overweight) people eat to satisfy some emotion.  My own weakness is fresh bread and butter (real butter).  I love the smell and feel of the soft bread with the lovely butter going down my throat, and once it hits my stomach, it lies there like a purring kitten.  When I am full from a piece of bread with butter, it is a completely different experience than the GoLytely prep.

So much for "full."

I wrote this entry in response to a colleague mentioning that a "trick" to weight loss (or more precisely, eating less) was to drink a tall glass of water before meals to make one "full" so as to want to eat less. Anything one does to encourage smaller meals is wonderful, but sadly, drinking a glass of water probably would not do the trick. Nor do the chef-prepared ready-to-eat foods delivered to your door. That is because overweight people typically do not conform to regular mealtimes; they rather tend to eat haphazardly, and eat to quell emotions, not physical hunger.