The Hunger Scale
The Hunger Scale – What is it and how to use it.
What is 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. Look at babies and children and their ability to eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full, even when there is food left on their plate (much to the frustration of their parents.) 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.
The hunger scale is a scale of 0-10, with 0 being painfully hungry and 10 being painfully full. It’s a tool to help us dial in and listen to our bodies again.
Because so many of us have ignored our hunger and fullness queues, first I think it can be helpful to review some of the signs of hunger and fullness.
Signs of hunger:
Nausea
Lightheaded/dizziness
Shakiness
Headache
Foggy brain
Difficulty focusing or concentrating
Irritability or crankiness (hangry)
Low energy levels
Increased food noise (thoughts about food and eating)
Stomach growling or feeling of emptiness
After years of chronic dieting we have ignored a lot of these signs and symptoms, instead giving ourselves time-bound eating rules. I even had a client recently tell me they felt their body was “tricking” them into feelings of lightheadedness and dizziness because it came maybe an hour or two after they had eaten. They felt they “shouldn’t be hungry” because that had so recently eaten. When they ate, the dizziness and lightheadedness went away. Sounds to me like true hunger, yet we don’t believe our body when it’s clearly telling us the truth. When your body is giving you signs you have to go to the bathroom 10 minutes after you just went, do you go to the bathroom or do you say to your body, “Stop playing tricks on me, I just went” and ignore your need to go to the bathroom? I would assume, though you may find it inconvenient, that you don’t question whether you need to go to the bathroom or not. You just go so you don’t pee your pants. Why do we question our need to eat?
Signs of fullness:
Relief from physical hunger (improved dizziness, shakiness, clear headedness, etc.)
Stomach starts to stretch and feel more full
Feeling like you could go a few hours comfortably without food
Tightness in your stomach
Beginning to feel sluggish, slowing down eating
No longer enjoying the food
Overstuffed, stomach discomfort
Nausea
Again, with chronic dieting and undereating, it understandable we are compensating by overeating. If you are not honoring your hunger signals (by eating), you’re going to find it much harder to stop when you feel full. This is not because you lack willpower, but because of the physiological and psychological drive to eat when you reach that level of hunger and deprivation.
Another analogy to consider…think about when you hold your breath. When you finally take a breath, your body gasps for air and takes a deep breath to compensate. The same thing happens when you ignore your hunger. Your body has a strong urge to eat. This is a survival mechanism, but we don’t judge a compensatory deep breath in the same way we do compensatory eating. The eating usually leads to feelings of guilt or shame, the desire to “make up” for the food eaten, and further restriction. Guess what? It becomes a vicious cycle. Can you relate?
Why Use the Hunger Scale?
Just listen to your body…sounds scary, huh? “I can’t trust my body, Elise. I would gorge myself on (insert “trigger” food here) if I just ate whatever I wanted.”
“How will I know how many calories I have eaten if I don’t track?”
Our individual energy (calorie) needs change daily depending on activity, hormones, menstrual cycles, stress levels, metabolism, sleep and more. A lot of us find comfort in having rules and boundaries when it comes to food, but this type of thinking hasn’t served us well. We like to think that if we can just find the right calorie count, the right breakdown of macros (carbs, protein, and fat), and if we can only find the willpower to follow it, our diet and weight loss dilemma will be solved. It will be a “lifestyle change.”
I am not totally against the use of food tracking apps. I think they can be helpful to learn about the make-up of the foods we choose (calories, carbs, protein, fat, fiber, etc..), but only if we use it as a tool to understand how to create balance in our meals and snacks, promote health, and understand how foods affect the way we feel. I think of it as using training wheels when you’re learning to ride a bike. The end goal is that you are no longer using it once you have found your balance. Using food tracking to create strict rules around when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat, can backfire into a cycle of over restriction, binging on what we deem as “bad” foods, guilt, and mistrust of our body.
For those of us with a history of chronic dieting to achieve weight loss or improved health (both good end goals, right?), the concept of intuitive eating and trusting your body’s natural queues can feel scary. How can I trust my body when it has done me so dirty in the past? The question is, have you failed at dieting or has dieting failed you?
The truth is, it can be scary. I’m not going to lie and say it’s super simple and it’s not going to take any practice. Just like learning any new skill, learning to play the piano, or learning to shoot a layup with your non-dominant hand (sports mom here), it takes time. It takes some failure (learning opportunities). It takes slowing down to learn the steps and fundamentals. It takes focus, practice, and repetition in order to achieve the ultimate goal - second nature. The hunger scale is a great tool to gain practice, work on fundamentals, and establish a better connection to your own body on your way to becoming an intuitive eater.
How Do You Use the Hunger Scale?
Again, the hunger scale is a scale of 0-10, with 0 being painfully hungry and 10 being painfully full. The goal is to begin to dial in on our own hunger and fullness queues, aiming to eat when we are at a 3 or 4 and stopping around a 6 or 7. Think of your hunger and fullness like a pendulum. The further you pull back the weight, the further it will swing through to the other side. For example, when we allow ourselves to get to the point of a 1 or 2, we are much more likely to eat quickly, make less healthy food choices, and eat to the point of being overstuffed. We tend to crave more simple carbohydrates because our bodies know that those break down the quickest and are our quickest form of energy (we have such smart and amazing bodies, right?).
So how do we do it? Again, and I know I sound like a broken record, but we have to practice with intention.
Sit down to a meal or snack and take a couple of deep breaths to center yourself and bring awareness to what you are doing. Pause to consider how you are feeling.
Check in. Identify the number you feel your body is at on the hunger scale, without judgement. There is no right or wrong answer. It can be helpful to identify this feeling as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.
Try to eat slowly, pausing between bites. Reflect on how the food feels in your mouth, the taste and texture. Do you like the texture? Does the food taste as good as you thought it would? What do you enjoy about it?
Periodically take breaks during your meal to check in with your hunger levels. Chat with others at the table or close your eyes and take a few deep breaths if you are eating alone. Try to notice how your hunger changes each time you pause. Are you moving closer to feelings of gentle fullness?
It is recommended to stop eating around a 6 or 7 on the scale, even if there is only one or two bites of food left on your plate. Remind yourself, it is a waste of food, whether it’s on your plate or in your body, if you are clearly not hungry. This may take a little practice. What does that feel like for you? Pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? What does it feel like when you move past that to a 8, 9, or 10?
When you stop eating, give thanks for your meal and remind yourself you have unconditional permission to eat that food again. Remember you can eat again later if you get hungry. Does knowing that change how you feel about stopping eating at this meal?
Ideally, as you are learning to work this hunger and fullness muscle, you would aim to do this every time you eat and between eating occurrences. Though this may seem hyperconscious, it is an important focused step of awareness to get you acquainted with your body and its biology. If you’re not quite ready to dive into that commitment, I recommend identifying one meal each day, maybe what is typically your largest meal of the day, and working through this, more intensive, mindfulness exercise as a starting point. Throughout the rest of the day, keep a journal and take quick notes of your hunger and fullness levels before and after each meal and snack and jot down what you had and any other notes you might find helpful. This can be helpful in identifying patterns and trends in the intensity of hunger between meals.
Questions to ask yourself:
If you are regularly wanting to eat when you are above a 3 on the hunger scale, what other triggers might be causing you to turn to food? Stress? Boredom? Coping with negative emotions?
Is there any relationship between how much you eat and the length of time between eating?
Do you notice you become hungry faster after a meal with certain foods vs others?
If you find one day you are getting hungry more frequently or craving certain foods, reflect on what else might be going on. Did you have a hard workout? Are there potentially hormonal changes occurring due to your menstrual cycle? Did you have a rough night of sleep? All of these things can change what our body needs day to day.
Assess the meals/snacks you are eating if you are feeling hungry all the time. Are they foods that are satisfying to you – not only just filling, but satisfying your wants and desires for taste and texture? Are your meals and snacks balanced? Are they too light or small?
If a meal is not keeping you full for at least 3 hours, there is a good chance it either wasn’t big enough or wasn’t balanced. For example, you had a small bowl of cereal for breakfast. This only contains maybe a little over 150 calories and primarily consists of carbohydrates. We need more energy (calories) than that to power our bodies. Protein, fat, and fiber are more satiating so choosing a whole grain like oatmeal, adding a dollop of peanut butter and a Greek yogurt on the side, would make this meal have much more staying power.
Here are some helpful tips to help keep you satisfied all day and increase your mindfulness when eating.
Eat regularly. It is generally best not to go longer than 4-5 hours without eating. This is how long you can generally maintain your blood sugar at a normal level during waking hours, though it can change depending on how much you ate and the composition of what you ate at the previous meal. Again, if you ate a meal that was unbalanced (maybe mostly just carbohydrates) you may feel true hunger signals after just a couple of hours. A general pattern of eating includes three meals and a morning and/or afternoon snack.
Aim for meals and snacks that contain adequate calories, a balance of macronutrients, and fiber. Pair carbohydrates with healthy fat and protein to aid in increasing their staying power and providing the energy (calories) you need.
Keep healthy snacks on hand to try to avoid getting overly hungry between meals. Pack snacks to take to work or keep some homemade trail mix in your desk drawer.
If you find you have dipped below a 3 on the hunger scale for whatever reason (basketball practice went longer than expected), have a little something before you sit down for your meal, maybe a piece of fruit or handful of nuts, to get yourself back up to a 3 until you are able to get to your meal. Don’t force yourself to continue to wait to eat because you are planning to eat a meal in a half hour. This will make it much harder to listen to your fullness queues while eating that meal.
Eliminate distractions to support mindful eating. Try to take a lunch break and not to eat at your desk, while scrolling on your phone, or watching TV. If possible, eat at a table, with family or friends, and without “devices.”
Slow down. It can take 15-20 minutes from the start of eating for our brains to get the hormonal and nerve signals that lead to feelings of fullness. If you have eaten quickly, you may not feel this until you have eaten, left the table, and realized it was too much. Start with adequate portions and eat slowly. Put your fork down between bites, take time to really enjoy and fully chew your food, and engage in conversation during meals. Regularly check in with your hunger along the way. If you know it is hard to leave food on your plate, start with smaller portions and pause to check in before getting seconds.
Final thoughts:
Remember, the goal of all of this is progress, not perfection. There will be times you have to eat when you’re not truely hungry, for practical reasons. Think, its 4:30 PM, earlier than your normal dinner time, but you know you’re not going to be able to have anything until past 8 PM. That would be a reason to eat, even though you may not be physically hungry. There will be times when you get overly hungry because…life. There will also be times when you eat past fullness because it just tasted so good, and that’s OK. What can you learn from the experience? Someone once described it as a fork in the road. If you have a set path you are on, but come to a fork in the road, one direction leads to a dead end and the other leads to where you want to be. If you happen to choose the path that results in a dead end, but along the way you encounter several beautiful things, was it a mistake? Or can you just turn around and head back to the original fork in the road with new, valuable experiences and choose the other direction. Life is full of forks in the road. If we don’t learn and improve from our experiences, we will continue to stay where we are.
If any of this resonated with you and you would like to work together to create a healthier relationship with food and more sustainable weight loss, click here to schedule a visit or email me at info@ndweightloss.com.
Best of health,
Elise Smith, RD, LRD, CPT