All You Need Is...Hunger Fullness Cues

Think of your physical cues as a gas gauge. This is much closer than you think to reality. As you use up what you have eaten before your meal, your body begins to send you signals. These are your physical hunger cues (not to be confused with just wanting to eat as in emotional eating , or stress eating ).

As your tank gets refueled, your fullness cues will let you know when to stop. If you get too full, no major harm done because it will just take longer to get hungry again (like the gas tank). It is just a bit more comfortable to not be stuffed, and you may find you have more energy. Also, I tend to like my clients to eat every two to three hours to keep metabolism steady.

Use the hunger fullness scale to determine the subtle phases of hunger and fullness. It takes a bit of getting used to, but soon you will be identifying your cues with ease (like you were born knowing how--haha).

An important factor is that there are circumstances which may disrupt your perception of the cues. For hunger, the number one issue I've seen is people being too busy or distracted to notice their more subtle cues. All of the sudden it has been many hours since eating last, and they are ravenous.

With fullness, the usual suspect in not noticing the cues is speed of eating. It is very important to try to slow your eating (no need to chew a million times, or anything weird). It does take 15-20 minutes for your cues to register. Most Americans eat in 7 minutes. So put your fork down, take a sip, engage in conversation--whatever you need to do to pace yourself.

Please continue reading about the cues in these Next Steps: Portion Control

Hunger Fullness Scale