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Healthy Satiety: A Q&A with Dr. Jonny Bowden

Bestselling author and renowned nutrition expert Dr. Jonny Bowden has been talking a lot lately about the concept of “healthy satiety”. He recently took a few minutes out of his busy schedule to explain why he’s so excited about this new concept.

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Satiatrim.com: Before we get to healthy satiety, could you first explain what the word “satiety” means?

Jonny Bowden: Satiety is simply that satisfied feeling you have when you’re just not hungry. It’s a little different from fullness, which is the stuffed feeling you have right after a meal. Satiety is the sensation of being neither stuffed nor hungry that you have between meals.

SC: What causes this feeling in the body?

Satiety involves a number of natural physiological actions that start in the stomach and ultimately affect the appetite centers in the brain. The presence of food in the stomach stimulates the release of special proteins in the digestive tract that send a message to the brain saying “this dude is full!” That’s why your mom used to tell you to eat slowly- it takes a while for your brain to get the message that you’ve had enough food. Scientists call these proteins appetite regulatory peptides, but you can think of them as “feel-full proteins.”

The release of these proteins initiates a number of actions all of which work together to get the “full” message to your brain. First these proteins work to close the valve leading from the stomach into the intestine. This slows the digestion of food, giving us a feeling of fullness and extinguishing the drive to eat. The second action initiated by the feel-full proteins is to send a signal to the appetite center in the brain. This also tells us to stop eating, but, more importantly, it is responsible for the extended feeling of fullness that occurs between meals.

SC: What’s the difference between healthy satiety and unhealthy satiety?

JB: Satiety is important because when you’re not hungry, you are a lot less likely to eat, whereas when you are hungry, it’s almost impossible to resist food. Think about how easy it is to go through six bowls of cereal while you’re watching reruns of “Friends”. To manage your weight, you have to control your eating, sure, but it’s way easier to limit the number of calories you eat if you’re not feeling hungry all the time.

It’s no big trick to achieve satiety by stuffing yourself with large meals and high-calorie foods. You can stay satisfied for several hours after eating a supersized fast food meal. But this is very far from a healthy way to do it. To avoid gaining weight, you need to eat in ways that keep you satisfied between meals with far fewer calories. That’s healthy satiety.

SC: Is it really possible to eat less without hunger? How?

JB: Absolutely. It’s all in the choices you make. Some foods have a natural ability to stimulate more cravings and some foods and products have a natural ability to stimulate fullness. There’s a lot of scientific research showing that it’s possible to feel full without feeling hungry if you make the right choices. The best way to do this is to consume appetizers made of foods that contain nutrients which are extremely effective in activating the feel-full proteins. The nutrients that are most effective are called long-chain fatty acids. These are monounsaturated fats and are found in high concentrations in olive oil, flaxseed oil, peanut oil, macademia nut oil, hempseed oil and other healthy cold pressed oils.. Consuming a small amount of foods rich in these oils will release the feel full proteins before you start eating. Thus, you will feel fuller even if you eat fewer calories.

Because these oils are so effective in turning off your appetite, you only need a small amount. Examples are half a teaspoon of peanut butter on a piece of celery, two ounces of sliced turkey breast on a cracker, two ounces of mozzarella cheese on a cracker, and two ounces of tuna in one ounce of olive oil.

SC: How does Satiatrim fit in with healthy satiety?

JB: Satiatrim is the first diet product formulated specifically to produce healthy satiety. It combines the most potent satiety activators in a 50-calorie pre-meal drink that begins to turn off your appetite before you eat. A study by leading researchers at the University of Manchester showed that Satiatrim slowed the movement of food through the stomach by 66%. I recommend Satiatrim and food appetizers like the ones I mentioned earlier to everyone concerned with managing their weight.

SC: Can people actually lose a lot of weight with healthy satiety?

JB: You can’t lose weight or maintain a healthy weight without achieving healthy satiety in one way or another. Whether it’s by using Satiatrim or eating healthy food appetizers or adding more high-fiber foods to your diet, you must limit your calorie consumption without making yourself hungry all the time to reach your goal weight. But while it is necessary, healthy satiety alone is not sufficient. You also must maintain a healthy overall diet and exercise daily. Think of healthy satiety as the third essential component of the formula for successful weight management.