Eat up to when the stomach is 80% full

Scientific study shows that we should eat just half of what we normally eat and then check how we feel. Then eat until you are 80% full. The moment you feel that stomach has taken enough, stop eating any more. Leave enough space in the Stomach to allow it to work. Never eat more in one go. Eat 5 times a day, a small amount each time. It will reduce your fat sedimentation, maintain hunger, keep your internal organs active and young and your overall well-being maximum.

Hara Hachi Bu is a cultural practice in Okinawa, Japan and means eating until you are 80% full. Okinawa is Japanese prefecture, 640 kilometers south of Japan's Kyushu island. It is one of the cities studied in the book The Blue zones by Dan Buettner. He has found that residents in the Japanese city have a higher than the average number of people living healthy lives who are over the age of one hundred years old.

It is known that the Japanese have been said to have some of the longest lifespans in the world. It is believed that this happens due to the high volume of vegetables in their diet and the fact that their foods are not processed as those consumed in the Western world. It helps to eat healthy food as well but simply learning to eat until we are 80% full would do wonders for everyone.

The practice is very strongly ingrained in the lives of the Okinawan people of Japan. They regularly follow the teachings of the heart book. They are said to be the only human population to adhere to the self-imposed habit of calorie restriction. Along with the balanced diet is high in veggies and fresh fish, Okinawa now has the highest population of centenarians in the world. Of course, there are some other such places on Earth such as Loma Linda California, Ikaria Greece, Nicoya Costa Rica, and Sardinia Italy. You may discover many such places. Still, we do not know for sure the genetic origin of these people.

How to understand when you are 80 percent full?

Most of the people do not have the idea of how 80% full feels like. It is known that if we eat until we are full then in 20 minutes we are likely to feel too full, as it takes about that long for the stomach to communicate with the brain to know how full it is. But it is important to know how we understand we are 80% full. Here is what registered dietician Susan Dopart has to say on the subject.

It takes just less than 30 minutes to reset the muscle memory of the stomach. Most people go on eating until they are full, particularly in developing countries and in lower economic strata. This has many negative effects such as weight is gained, the digestive ability fails, people become lazy, etc.

It is suggested that we should eat just half of what we normally eat and then check how we feel. Once we begin to feel in stomach pressure we are at the 80% full stage. Therefore, people are advised to eat less in one go and leave space in the stomach, and just to be free from being hungry. If you want to eat, eat after a few hours again but every time you eat less amount. This eating habit has numerous benefits for your overall well-being.
The first thing is we should pay attention to how long we are taking to eat. It is said that the brain takes about 15 to 20 minutes to register with the stomach when it's beginning to get full. So it recommended eating slowly to allow ourselves to feel full with less food.

What are the benefits?

One benefit of the practice is that it is not just the fact of living longer, but slowing the aging appearance as well. It has become more recently concerned with the advancement of how conveniently we get food when we don't feel hungry. Overeating not only affects us physically but also appearance-wise. If we practice Hachi consistently, we can stop overeating and eating when we are not hungry.

How to practice Hara Hachi Bu?

Simple changes in everyday eating habits can help to put in to practice to improve health or weight loss. Eating faster results in eating more. So we must slow down to allow our body to respond to use that will tell us that we are no longer hungry. It's good if we turn off the TV and the computer while eating. In this way, we will eat more slowly, consume less and save the food more.

Another important thing to control eating is to keep the phone away while eating. This is one of the biggest reasons why we overweight and over it, as our minds are distracted so we don't notice when we are full.

Why eating until 80 percent full works?

The practice of Hachi bu is said to help maintain an average BMI or body mass index by training us to reach satiates with less food. It prevents our stomach from getting used to expanding by eating till a hundred percent full which results in weight gain and obesity.

Experiments have been done around the world to measure how much food one needs and how restriction in calories affects health and longevity. It is seen that people having calorie restriction lived on average 1.6 times longer, also as we restrict our calorie intake. So we don't have to stress much about what we can eat or cannot eat, as the key here is balance.

Dr. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating conducts innovative research into food habits. In repeated experiments, he has found that there are other variables that affect the eaters and related to whether or not their stomachs are full.

Food packages, glass plates, friends and other circumstances affect how much we consume. The experiments show that people tend to eat 31% more if they eat from a 34-ounce bowl compared to a 17 ounce one. It does not matter which food the dieter is using; external factors may still cause overeating. Above all, your consciousness of mind and will to remain scientific in food habits matter the most.