Identify Hunger
When your stomach is empty, you may feel it start to rumble and you have a hollow feeling. (You may also experience "rumbles" or "growls" as part of digestion when you are not actually hungry, so the sense of emptiness is a good way to know the difference.) If you don't eat anything once you begin feeling this way, you may develop a headache, start to feel nauseated or have problems concentrating. You may also feel a noticeable energy drop or get light-headed.It's important to learn to identify when your body tells you that you need to eat. When you are truly hungry, your body sends a signal to your brain that you need to eat, which is different from a craving. If you allow yourself to get overly-hungry, you set yourself up for making poor eating choices and eating too quickly, both of which can lead to weight gain.
Identify Satisfaction
When you eat an adequate amount of food, you will notice the sense of hunger begins to fade. While you are not "stuffed," you begin to feel satisfied or contented. Once you no longer feel hungry, you have a sense of satiety, and as long as you stop to think about it, you will realize you don't actually feel like eating more.As you eat and food goes to your stomach, it expands and your brain knows when you have eaten enough food. The signal may be subtle, but your brain will actually tell you when you have had enough and to stop eating. When you become more attuned to these signals you will know when you have reached that point of satisfaction and you will stop eating.
Identify Fullness
If you are not accustomed to listening to your body's hunger signals (and many of us are not), you may sometimes feel driven to keep eating despite being satisfied, and instead you eat until you are overly-full. You will begin to feel discomfort, like you are "stuffed" or "about to burst" because you have overeaten.
Use a Hunger Scale
To learn to identify the different phases of hunger, you may find it helpful to use a hunger scale similar to this:
- Very hungry
- Hungry
- Slightly hungry
- Satisfied
- Not hungry
- Over-full or "stuffed"
Before you begin to eat, take a moment to identify where your hunger falls on the scale of 1 to 6. The next time you sit down to a meal, make a point to eat slowly and eat only until you have taken the "edge" off of your hunger. Stop eating, take a few deep breaths and think about where you rate on the hunger scale. If you keep a food diary, it's also helpful to record where you fall on the scale after eating as well.
For most of us, falling somewhere between a 3 and a 4 is a comfortable place to be. When you identify your own comfort zone, you will find that staying there is the best way to set yourself up for making healthy eating choices on a regular basis. When you find you're at a 5 or begin to approach the 6, put down your fork, sit back, and re-assess whether or not you really should continue eating or not.
Identify Emotional Hunger
While the hunger scale above can help you understand physical hunger, emotional hunger can also influence your eating habits. Emotional hunger can be caused by stress, your feelings or even self-talk such as, "I never do anything right." and other self-defeating thoughts.If you feel like your sense of hunger may actually be attributed to an emotional desire to eat, you may want to wait five or 10 minutes after the desire to eat strikes before reaching for any food. Believe it or not, if you get used to using the "delay tactic" you will begin to see that your emotional desire for food decreases once you start getting out of the habit of responding to it.
If your hunger is real, it won't pass because you wait a few minutes; if you still feel hungry 15 or 20 minutes later, it's true hunger and it's time to eat! If you are not hungry, think about what your emotional hunger might be telling you, such as the need for some alone time, a chat with a close friend or something that will refresh you, such as a bath or a walk.
