Losing weight-what is "natural"? I've lost about 20-25 pounds since the beginning of April [1]. I lost 15 pounds while staying at my parents' place for about a month, and the rest since then more slowly. I've cut down on how much I eat, especially carbohydrates, and increased my protein intake. But what I was wondering the other day-how "natural" is it to feel "stuffed." I am basically practicing portion control, and though I'm not starving myself, I am hungry during the day. Before, when I was hungry, I'd eat to sate it. In fact, I had a tendency to gorge to point of getting that pleasant full feeling. I still eat large portions sometimes-just to feel full, but it is the exception now. When our ancestors were hunter-gatherers (or even more recently), how often did they feel "stuffed." Is this just part of the peacock effect [2]? I don't know enough about nutritional paleoanthropology to comment. What is "undernourished" and "overnourished" exactly? Is feeling somewhat hungry our natural state? Is the "stuffed" pleasantness around simply so that we maximize our intake when there is enough food around? What I'm getting at is this: we all know overeating when we see it, but do we really know what normal levels of consumption are? What was normal in the evolutionary context? [1] My BMI has gone from 25.5 to 22.4. Though I've been hovering in the 23-24 range since I was about 21, I started gaining more weight the past year, likely due to a more sedentary lifestyle. [2] Female peacocks go for big tails, and in fact, when artificially long tails are put on male peacocks, they are even more attracted to them. Of course, there is a point in nature when a long tale is deleterious to survival, and so there is a natural limit. The female peacock has no mental upper bound because reality sets it for her. Similarly, I am suggesting that we like to eat because we know more food is better chance at survival, in our natural state we were always "undernourished." This is an easy explanation for obese people, but I am starting to wonder if even the 2,000-3,000 calorie a day diet is "normal." If it feels good, does that count against it???