Using Your Hunger and Fullness Signals to Manage Your Weight
Whether you want to lose weight or maintain the weight you’re at, you have the internal mechanism to tell you when to eat and when to stop. The truth is that this internal “regulator” is the most powerful tool to help you manage your weight.
All humans are born with a hunger and fullness mechanism, but some people are more sensitive to their body’s signals than others. I find that many people simply override their internal signals of both hunger and fullness.
“Dieting” is designed to undermine your hunger and fullness signals by regulating you from the outside. You are told what and when to eat, and to ignore your internal signals. Dieting assumes that your internal signals do not work; this is not true!
How Does Hunger and Fullness Rating Work?
I recommend using the Hunger and Fullness scale I’ve drawn below.
Notice that there are 10 gradations of hunger and fullness; it’s a continuum from “empty” to “sick”. For example, at “5” you are not hungry and not full, just in between. “Hunger” is anything less than 5, and “fullness” is anything more than 5.
You can experiment with this scale during your day by stopping and just noticing where you are on the scale and how that feels to you.
How would you rate your level of hunger/fullness right now?
Learning to eat when you are hungry and stop eating when you are full gives you the tools you need to manage your weight without dieting.
