Am I hungry? Am I full? Should I stop? Was that enough? Was it too much?
Those maybe aren't the best questions to be asking.
It helps if my check-in questions are open ended instead of yes/no. That’s just because it provides more and sometimes surprising info. If after eating, I ask, “How do I feel?” I’ll notice my level of fullness, but I may also notice that I’m tired or cold. That can definitely influence what foods will satisfy, or whether I want to keep eating for reasons other than hunger. Sometimes I do and that’s ok, but I’d rather do it with the awareness that I want more hot comfort food because I’m tired and cold.
I also try to focus on physical sensations. “Have I eaten too much?” is a subjective question that thinky brain can twist any which way. “Do I feel uncomfortably full?” is more grounded in reality. “How do I feel?” leaves room for interesting observations. Emotions do matter. I might ask if a meal was emotionally satisfying, because that’s as important as making my belly physically full.
I love the idea of redirecting calorie math to more productive questions. If I’d thought of that way back when, it might not have taken years to completely turn it off. I was all into “dismissing” and “releasing” troublesome thoughts at the time, which is better than focusing on them, but maybe not as effective as deliberately creating new thought patterns to replace them.