Higher-satiety eating: What satiety means &
how to get started

2. Benefits of higher-satiety eating

Higher-satiety eating works because you can get all your nutrition with fewer calories, without deprivation. This makes it more likely that you will naturally feel the urge to stop eating after consuming fewer calories — without the cravings and hunger that come with simple calorie reduction.

Nutrition science supports that, in general, eating more protein improves hunger, weight loss, and body composition. In addition, micronutrient density tends to correlate well with higher protein foods. Therefore, focusing primarily on protein allows you to achieve adequate nutrition, reduce your hunger, and maintain your muscle mass — all important pillars of healthy weight loss.

Nutrition science also supports that short-term satiety tracks well with meals that contain more fiber, built around foods with lower energy density. Eating higher-volume-per-calorie foods can help you feel fuller with fewer calories. This works well in the short term. 

Combining higher fiber/lower energy density foods with higher protein foods likely results in combined short- and long-term satiety.

But feeling full isn’t just about what you eat. It is also about what you don’t eat. 

It’s important to avoid foods that trigger cravings or stimulate you to eat more. That’s why we include a hedonic factor in our satiety score. This factor lowers the score of highly processed foods that combine carbs and fat or are high in sugar — characteristics that can trigger some people to eat more.

Who should try higher-satiety eating?

Anyone who wants to upgrade their nutrition to help with healthy weight loss, add lean muscle mass, or improve metabolic health could consider following the principles of higher-satiety eating. 

Who should not consider higher-satiety eating?

A higher-satiety approach may not be best for everyone. Those who may not want to consider it are people who:

• are following a diet they find enjoyable, sustainable, and successful (for attaining health and weight loss goals).
• are using a prescribed diet to treat a specific medical condition, such as a ketogenic diet for epilepsy.

Does higher-satiety eating work with other diets?

Yes! 

Increasing the satiety per calorie of your food fits with almost any dietary pattern.

Eating keto? Then you can decrease your fat somewhat and increase your protein for a higher-satiety keto diet. Note that this “somewhat” would not be to the extent of a low fat diet.

Eating vegan? Then you can increase your protein and ensure your carbs are higher fiber carbs for a higher-satiety vegan diet.

Eating Mediterranean? Then you can ditch the grains in favor of higher protein and lower-energy-density options for a higher-satiety Mediterranean diet.

You get the idea. You can fine-tune just about any way of eating to increase the satiety per calorie. In addition, reducing your hunger with higher satiety might also help you add time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting to your nutrition routine.

A new scoring system may seem a little daunting at first. Where should you start? Is a score of 100 the best goal? Do all your foods need to have high scores?

Relax. The score is designed to simplify things.

First, we do not recommend aiming for an extremely high blended score. 

Our satiety scoring system is not a case of “higher is always better.” Instead, there is a point where seeking a super-high average score will mean your food choices are very limited and you’ll get only minimal additional benefits. 

That number may be different for each person, but we recommend you start by aiming for an average blended satiety score of 50. This is a target score that you can adjust as you progress — see below for tips on how to adjust your target.

You can pick a higher or lower starting score depending on your primary goal.

Are you more concerned with rapid and maximal health and weight loss benefits? Try starting with a goal score between 60 and 70.

Are you troubled by the idea of dramatic changes in your diet and want to try a more gradual and sustainable approach? Consider starting with a target score between 35 and 45.

Just remember, your target score is fluid, not fixed in stone. You can make adjustments as you go, based on your progress.

And keep in mind that if your target score is 50, that doesn’t mean all your food needs to be a 50 or higher on our scale. Instead, you can (and should) mix and match foods, for an average of 50. Here’s an example:

• Three eggs fried in 2 teaspoons of butter: score of 56
• Add 1 cup of spinach cooked in 1 teaspoon of butter: score of 74 
• Add 1 ounce of cheddar cheese: score of 51 
• Add 1 ounce of smoked sausage: score of 37 
• Total blended score = 54

You can see a variation in the individual food scores (from 37 to 74), but the blended score is 54.

Does this mean you can eat 3.5 ounces of plain chicken breast (score of 87) and 1 cup of asparagus (score of 96) along with a donut (score of 4) and a cookie (score of 4) and get a blended score of about 50? 

Technically you can, but you may find that keeping individual foods closer to your target blended score with less variation may be a more successful approach. (The exception to this rule would be that we encourage adding modest amounts of lower-scoring fats to cook or dress high-scoring vegetables.)

Plus, we need to acknowledge that different foods may trigger different responses or cravings in each person. Can you stop at just one chocolate chip cookie without craving more? If so, congrats! You can likely do fine adding a cookie to your high-satiety meal. But if you have blood sugar concerns or you have a hard time stopping at one cookie, then you are — like most of us — probably better off avoiding the cookie and keeping your food choices closer to (or above) your target score.

Adjusting your target score

Before you decide if you should adjust your target satiety score, you need to define your goals. Are you most interested in losing excess weight? Do you want to reduce hunger and snacking? 

Or maybe you want to enjoy your meals more, so you don’t feel like you are “on a diet”?

You may find that when you adjust your satiety score upward, there comes a point of diminishing returns, where your decline in food variety or enjoyment outweighs your gains in satiety. Find the level at which you enjoy your food but continue to move toward your health goals. 

Once you achieve your goals, you may be able to target a lower score and still maintain your hard-won gains, be it weight loss, health improvements, or both.

Here are some things to consider when deciding if you should increase or decrease your target satiety score:

• Are you not losing weight or improving your health markers as you had hoped? Then you should consider increasing your target score. An increase from 50 to 60 may help your progress, with a jump to 70 being even more likely to help you succeed.

• Are you losing weight and improving your health markers but finding that your food choices are too limited or not very enjoyable? Then you can try lowering your target score to 40. A lower target score allows you to increase the variety of foods on your plate, although it may also slow health and weight loss progress. Remember, if a lower target is what you need to sustain your choices long term, it is likely a net benefit for you.

Now that you know the general principles of how to use higher-satiety eating to improve your health, let’s get started!

Take a look in the nutrition information section of our recipes and you will see the calculated satiety score. You can mix and match recipes for a blended daily satiety score. Or, you can use our food guide to combine your favorite foods and see how they stack up to some of our recipes.

And remember, all insights into satiety, personalized recommendations, satiety tracker, and more will be available shortly in Hava, our innovative satiety tool. Sign up for early access now!

For more information about our higher-satiety approach, see our other educational guides: