Copyright ©2017 by Be Nourished, LLC www.benourished.org

  Working with a Hunger Scale Reconnecting with your internal cues of hunger and fullness is the first step to reclaiming body trust. What disconnects us from our internal cues of hunger and fullness?

• Parental influences/agendas • External messages (it’s time to eat, clean your plate, etc) • Numbing hunger with cigarettes, coffee, or tea • Disembodiment • Food policing from family members and others • Dieting • Chaotic lifestyles

Types of Hunger

• Biological hunger: when we eat because the body is telling us it needs fuel. • Taste Hunger: when we eat because it sounds good or the occasion calls for it. • Practical Hunger: when we look at our schedule and eat now despite not being hungry

because we know, if we wait for our next opportunity to eat, we’ll be ravenous. • Emotional Hunger: when we eat to sooth uncomfortable feelings.

In her book Mindful Eating, Jan Chozen-Bays writes about different types of hunger related to different parts of our anatomy: the eyes, nose, mouth, stomach, cells, mind and heart. When people observe their hunger levels, they begin to recognize patterns:

• When I get too hungry, I go for convenience foods, eat at a really fast pace, and tend to eat past full.

• I never let myself get hungry—I eat to prevent hunger. I think I’m afraid of hunger. • I never eat enough to feel satisfied/full—I eat just enough to shut the hunger up and then I’m

hungry again in an hour. • I do a lot of non-hunger or emotional eating in the evenings. • I “feel fat” when I’m full and thin when I’m hungry. • I like to eat to make a daunting task more fun. • I restrict food during the day and then make up for it at night. • I have a hard time pushing the food away even when my body tells me it has had enough to eat.

Many people experience feelings of sadness, grief and loss at the end of the meal. Here are some ways to deal with this:

• Remind yourself that you are saying goodbye to food for a few hours, and that you’ll be able to eat whatever you want when you are hungry again.

• The feeling of sadness/grief/loss will move through you in a matter of minutes. Think of it like a wave. You won’t be hanging out there for hours.

• When your body begins to signal that you’ve had enough to eat, think about what you want your last bite to be.

• After your last bite, reinforce your decision to stop eating by making a symbolic gesture—push the plate away, put utensils and napkin on the plate, push back from the table, etc.

Saying goodbye will get easier when your body has consistently received the message that food is available and it trusts you to eat what you want when you are hungry again.

Copyright ©2017 by Be Nourished, LLC www.benourished.org

Working with the Hunger Scale

1. Assess your hunger/fullness level: • When you have the urge to eat • Before you eat • When you are half way through your food • When you’re done eating • Hourly for one or two days (this helps connect to subtler body signals)

2. Notice how long your meals last—how much time passes before you are hungry again.

In addition to how much you eat, the combination of foods eaten at one time—the meal mix—influences how long the meal will sustain you. Meals with a combination of fat, protein, fiber and carbohydrate sustain us for much longer periods of time than meals consisting of mostly fruits and vegetables. People who complain about being hungry all the time may not be eating a meal mix that allow for longer satiety. For example, a bowl of cereal might sustain you for two hours, while scrambled eggs with buttered toast sustains you for three to four hours. This is not to say that one choice is better than the other. One question an intuitive eater might ask when deciding what to eat is “How long do I need this meal to last me?”

Overtime, you will become familiar with how your unique body tells you when, what and how much to eat. Here are some pre-cautions:

• Do not turn this into the next dieting rule of “though shall only eat when hungry and stop when satisfied/full.”

• The hunger scale is meant to be an awareness tool. • Remember to look with kindness and curiosity. Do your best to notice without

judgment. • See each day, each moment, each eating episode as a fresh opportunity to practice

awareness, connection, and choice.    Here are some questions for you to ponder after working with the hunger scale:

• What patterns and themes may have emerged? • Are you more comfortable with being hungry or full? • How do you feel about your body when you are hungry? Full? • How do you decide when to eat? • How do you decide when to stop eating? • What foods/meal combinations tend to sustain your body? • What foods/meal combinations seem to last only one or two hours? • When you aren’t physically hungry and notice you want to eat, what else might you be

hungry for? (companionship, rest, joy) What else might you need? (a break, sleep, company) What are you looking to food for? (comfort, pleasure, distraction, etc)

One of our favorites is…

“Am I looking for what I need in a place where it can be found?”