Do you get tired of calculating and measuring and weighing your food? Do you wish there was a better way to figure out how much to eat? I got you friend–there is. The best way to gauge your portion size without having to track and count and measure is to use the Hunger Scale.
The Hunger Scale goes from -10 to +10. It looks like this:
When you are paying attention to how your physical hunger feels on a regular basis, you will notice how often you overeat. Have you ever been on a diet that prescribed a certain amount of points or grams of a macronutrient that you ate, even though you weren’t hungry? This is not necessary. The key to weight loss is eating less than the amount of fuel your body needs to maintain life (including your activity level). I know that sounds simplistic and back to the old adage of calories in vs. calories out. However, if you are taking in more food than your body needs for the day, it stores it. If you take in less than what you need, your body will learn to access your fat stores for fuel. Period. End of story. That’s what happens.
So the question is, how do we take in less than we need in order to burn fat?
We get back in touch with our physical hunger.
Your body knows what to do. Have you ever noticed a day where you ate because the clock said it was time but you weren’t actually physically hungry? If your body has not signaled you that it’s time to eat, then there is no need to eat. Wait until you feel the physical cues of hunger. Give yourself a number on the Hunger Scale each time you sit down and each time you get up from a meal.
As a side note–using the Hunger Scale forces you to pay attention to your food. This can really only be done in an environment with no distractions. Cheeks in a chair, no phone or TV. Pay attention to how you are feeling, what you are eating, enjoy each bite and be ok with being bored. Food is not your entertainment. Eat the food and pay close attention to your body. Let your body do its job and give you the signals of when to stop eating. And then stop!
You will not want to stop sometimes. You will want to keep eating because it is delicious! Because you don’t get this food often! Because you don’t want to offend the host! Silly brain. None of that is true.
All of those reasons are just your brain wanting you to avoid an emotion. When something is pleasurable to your taste buds, you are getting a dopamine hit. If you stop, you will feel deprived–an emotion.
When you think you don’t get this food that often and you stop eating it, you will feel disappointed–an emotion.
When you don’t want to offend the host for not being in the “clean plate club” you are worried she will feel bad. You are feeling worry–an emotion.
When you focus on your own body and loving it enough to give it the amount of food it requires, you don’t have to concern yourself with feeling these emotions. They will come and it’s totally fine. You have confidence that you’ve eaten the amount of food your body requires. You can notice the emotion and process it.
The thing is that the brain continues to get a dopamine hit from the food long after the physical body is full. The lower brain specifically is not interested in you stopping. This is why you want to closely pay attention to your physical body.
On the negative side
Sometimes it’s not that we’ve eaten too much. Sometimes we don’t eat enough. Have you ever had a day where you got so busy that you didn’t take time to eat and you got way too hungry and you were miserable by the time you got a meal? When we let ourselves get down in the -7 or -8, we misidentify hunger as anger, anxiety or intolerance. We snap at our family and ourselves. Often at this point, we then overeat. We eat past the point of natural fullness because we feel sooo hungry it’s like a void that can’t be filled.
Remember that you don’t need to “make up” for the food that you missed while you weren’t eating. A regular meal will fill you up the same as it normally does. We don’t actually need to eat more because we are extra hungry. But when we get overly hungry, our brains think that is the solution to feeling better. Remember your stomach has not changed size. We don’t need more than the regular amount of food to fill it up.
I challenge you this week to feel some physical hunger. Give it a number, using the Hunger Scale. Notice what happens when you let yourself get too hungry. Notice what happens when you eat when you aren’t physically hungry. Notice how you feel when you let yourself get too full. Get curious about why you are eating past a +3. Let me know how it goes!
how to get started–YOUR 2 KEY QUESTIONS
The questions I want you to ask when starting to work with the Hunger Scale are:
- Am I hungry?
- Have I had enough?
The answers to these questions will tell you where you are on the Hunger Scale. For weight loss, aim to be between the 3’s (-3 and +3 on the scale). For maintenance you might expand to the 4’s, but you’ll want to test it out. But before you worry about assigning numbers, start here with these two questions. They will change your life.
By design, we have a stomach that talks to our brain. Learn to listen again.
