Recognizing Your Hunger Signals

As innate as something like our hunger signals are, many people have lost touch with how to recognize and understand them. But I mean, when magazines touting fad diets that are advising to drink a litre of water before a meal, chew gum or sip on a diet coke to stave off hunger, it's to no surprise why people have lost touch with their hunger signals. By the way, as a health professional, I highly advise against all of these things unless you want diluted stomach acid that will interfere with digestion, cause bloating and even more cravings from aspartame-filled gum! Just saying ;)

This is one of the biggest reasons we've lost our ability to detect our hunger signals. We've been taught that the sensation of hunger is bad and that we should suppress it as a means of managing our weight. But the sensation of hunger is a signal from your body saying, "give me fuel!" Your body doesn't lie – yet we've been taught that we can't trust the signals it gives us or else we will end up overeating and gaining weight.

As a result, we're either ignoring our hunger signals or eating by the clock because that's when society says it's socially acceptable to eat; you know ... breakfast at 7am, lunch at 12pm, dinner at 6pm and potentially a snack in between.

Why is it important to detect our hunger signals?

The sensation of hunger involves a complex interaction between the digestive system, endocrine system and the brain. We experience hunger, a somewhat uncomfortable sensation, as our body's primitive instinct to fuel ourselves.

If we're constantly ignoring our hunger signals as a means of dieting, our body is going to kick into its primitive mode and start upregulating specific hormones, like ghrelin, to make us hungry. It's also going to slow down the metabolism to conserve energy (thus, burn less calories) and store fat. Remember, your body doesn't know when you're dieting. It sees a deficit of energy [read: calories] as starvation and so it will do anything it needs to do to survive.

When we honour our hunger signals, we're able to provide our body with what it needs and also recognize when to stop eating. That's a super important tool in itself because many people may be undereating or overeating as a result of not knowing when to stop eating.

A lot of my clients fear that if they allow themselves to eat until they are comfortably full, that they may never stop eating. They don't know because they've never trusted their bodies to bring them to that point and as a result, they always feel hungry throughout the day which makes them think about food 24/7 and graze on food all day, which can lead to feelings of guilt and shame.

On the other hand, some people may overeat if they have the mentality to finish what's on their plate, rather than honour their hunger signals.

Ultimately, knowing how to detect our hunger signals is really important for giving our body the fuel it needs to thrive while still respecting our body by not causing discomfort.

How can we detect our hunger signals?

When learning to detect our hunger signals, I recommend that people picture their hunger on a scale from 0-10; 0, meaning you're absolutely famished and "hangry" and 10 meaning that you're so full you feel like you might explode (like you just went to an all-you-can-eat buffet). We want to strive to eat when we're around a 3-4; when that warming sensation, a slight feeling of emptiness is present in our belly. We want to stop eating when we're around a 6, or what I refer to as 80% full (refer to the chart below).

Visual from The Break Free Method

It takes approximately 20 minutes for our stomach to tell our brain that we're full, which is why mindful eating is such an important practice to integrate. Practicing mindful eating slows down the eating process to not only allow us to feel more connected to our food but to support optimal digestion and prevent overeating, which often leads to a feeling of discomfort.

Another good measure for determining your hunger levels is to ask yourself, "would I eat an apple right now?" The truth is, true hunger doesn't discriminate. If you are genuinely hungry, you will eat that apple. But if you're just eating for the sake of eating (maybe emotional eating as a form of procrastinating or to cope with an uncomfortable emotion), you probably won't eat that apply which suggests that you likely aren't actually hungry.

When we find ourselves turning to food when we aren't hungry, it's often a result of emotional hunger. Another question I get my clients to ask themselves in that moment then is, "If I'm not biologically or physically hungry right now, what other need am I trying to fill?" Perhaps you are in fact feeling bored and you're procrastinating so you're turning to food for quick dopamine ("feel good hormones") rush that will mask the icky feeling of being bored.

Other forms of hunger

As you can probably already tell, there's more than one type of hunger that exists. These are some other ones you may want to keep on your radar that will help you to decipher true physical hunger from other forms of hunger.

Mouth Hunger – If you feel hungry after browsing Pinterest or when you can smell someone else making food, you may find you start to salivate which people often confuse as hunger. This is because 30-40% of our physical respone to hunger (i.e the release of digestive secretions, contracting of intestinal muscles etc) happens simply by seeing and smelling food, but it may not actually be true hunger.

Teeth Hunger – You may feel the urge to physically chew if you're in a state of stress or you're feeling irritated. In these moments, it can be helpful to take a few deep breaths to get clear on what you really need. Is it really food, or is it a form of stress relief?

Mind Hunger – This is the example of looking at the clock and eating because it's either 7am, 12pm or 6pm which suggests that it's meal time. But are you actually hungry, is the question?

Fatigue – When you're over-tired (perhaps you didn't get enough sleep), you may find you crave carbohydrates as this is the body's fastest, preferred form of energy. But in these moments, remember that food isn't going to solve the problem. Your body needs rest.

Summing it up

My intention in sharing this with you isn't to constantly challenge your hunger as a means of avoiding eating. But the reality is that many people are eating when they aren't actually hungry which is leading to the sensation of physical discomfort and feelings of guilt and shame (which often end up in deprivation and restriction).

What's most important when it comes to learning to detect our hunger signals is to not stress about it. There will be times where you may not be able to honour your hunger signals as truly as you may like to. For example, if you're going out for dinner with girlfriends at 6pm but you had a late lunch and you're not hungry yet, you're probably not going to make a big stink about it and not eat. It just might mean that you maybe you opt for something a bit lighter. There's also no pressure to finish everything that's on your plate – pack it up!

Stressing about food has only got us in the twisted, confusing place that many people currently find themselves in, so if I can encourage you to do anything, it's to remove that stressor as much as possible as it's only keeping you from having the freeing relationship with food that you're looking for.