HARA HACHI BU

Did you know that in Okinawa, Japan many people live past 100?  Yeah!  Really!  That is why researchers are studying their eating habits to find out how they manage to do so.
The Okinawans have a eating habit called  “hara hachi bu” which is eating until they only feel 80 percent full.

You might say, "Huh?"  But then it is true. 
Besides only eating when they are 80% full, the Okinawans follow their traditional diet which emphasizes on
vegetables, whole grains, fruits, legumes (soy foods) and fish with limited amounts of lean meats.  This type of diet serves as a model for healthy eating and healthy aging that not only reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease but also helps to minimize free radical production. Free radicals are cell-damaging molecules that are generated mainly by our bodies' metabolism when we create energy from food.

The Okinawan cultural habit of calorie control called hara hachi bu, which means eat only until you are 80% full, plays a role as well as their habit of eating an antioxidant rich plant-based diet. Stopping at 80% capacity is actually a very good strategy to avoid obesity without going hungry because the stomach's stretch receptors take about 20 minutes to tell the body that how full it really is and 20 minutes after stopping you will really feel full.
 
Source:
http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2007/06/one-secret-to-a.html
 
COMMENT
Okay, I declare that from now on I will try to eat until I am 80 percent full.  But then I am wondering how to know when I am 80% full.  Is there a meter to measure how full the contents of my stomach are?  My problem is I eat more than 100% full.