The Hunger Scale

One of the principles of intuitive eating is honoring your hunger. The hunger scale is a tool that is used in the practice of intuitive eating to bring awareness to and honor your hunger and fullness queues. Believe it or not, our bodies are incredibly good at regulating energy (caloric) needs. The problem is, starting from a young age, we are exposed to food rules (think “clean your plate club”) and diet mentality. Through years of ignoring our hunger and fullness queues, through chronic dieting, we have overridden this innate ability and forgotten how to listen to it. The good news is that this ability, though lost temporarily, doesn’t go away, and can be recovered with practice.