Why “80% full”?

First: The exact number isn’t important. “80% full” is an idea of eating until you're satisfied, not completely stuffed

If eating until you're completely stuffed is a current habit for you, this strategy could be beneficial for you.
This is also more a strategy if you're learning how to build your meals OR in particular to be used when our at social meals when you don't have control of portion sizes.

80% full is about two things:

1. How much you eat.

2. How it feels to eat that much.

So by doing this habit, you’ll learn:

1. What portion sizes work for you.

2. What it feels like to be physically hungry, satisfied, and/or full.
    

In the beginning, you may not know what 80% full is for you.

That’s OK.
 

Experiment. 

Here are techniques to get you started.
 

Eat slowly to help find 80% full

They work together.

The better you are at slow eating, the easier 80% full will be due to the time it takes for the brain to receive signals of satiety. 

You may even try to stop eating sooner than you normally would

You probably have a sense of how much you normally eat — what size of plate you use.
So you can start with what you’d normally eat and then just shrink that a little bit. Or stop eating just a little sooner than you normally would.

For instance, try:

• Purposely leaving a couple extra bites of your meal on your plate.

• Ordering one size smaller than normal.

• Using a smaller dish than normal.