Overhunger and the Hunger Scale

What would happen if you ate only when you were hungry and stopped when you were full?

In this day and age, we have forgotten how to eat. Seriously! We have lost touch with our body. We don’t know when we’re hungry and when we’re full. We just eat all the time. We have become users of food. Food is our drug of choice. We eat for entertainment. We eat because we’re bored. We eat because our kids (or our husband) are stressing us out. We eat to escape. We eat because we’re at a family get- together, or a church activity, or a neighborhood block party, etc. We are constantly eating, and all this eating has caused us to lose touch with our body’s natural hunger signals. We no longer know when we’re hungry and when we’re full, because we feel hungry all the time.

-Hunger-

Before we get into overhunger, let’s talk about hunger for a sec-

Our bodies came to earth equipped with the perfect hunger system to tell us when our body needs fuel and when it has had enough.

Think of a baby. It knows when it’s hungry and it stops when it’s full. It never keeps eating just because there’s still milk in the bottle. As we get older and start eating “normal” food, it uncalibrates our hunger scale.

When we eat too much food and the wrong kinds of foods, our hormones get unbalanced and our bodies get out of whack. Not only does this cause overhunger, it can also cause poor health, disease, hormone imbalance, and mood disorders.

Like I said before, our body was created with the perfect instrument to tell us when we need fuel/food and when we’ve had enough. We’ve been outfitted by God with a hunger scale. The hunger scale gauges how hungry we are. Think of it like the gas gauge in a car. It goes from -10 (empty) to +10 (full).

·          -10 is starving- like going days without food starving. You feel dizzy and weak, and you have an essential need to fuel your body. Most of us have not and probably never will experience a -10

·          -2 would be a whisper of hunger

·         Zero is neutral, where you have no hunger.

·         +2 is when you feel slightly satisfied and energized

·         A +10 is extremely stuffed to the point you feel physical discomfort. Think Thanksgiving Dinner, stuffed to the point where you wish you could throw up you’re so full. 

The hunger scale is a great place to begin getting in touch with your body. In order to do this, you have to be really be present while you eat. That means not eating distracted – Hello television, social media, reading the news, or playing on your phone.

Before and while you’re eating, check in with your body to see how it’s feeling. With each bite, determine which number on the scale you feel you are at. This will take some practice. Keep at it and before long, you will automatically do this.

When you first begin implementing the Hunger Scale tool, I recommend you aim to start eating at -2 and stop at +2. Again, this will take some practice. Be patient with yourself and keep trying. Know that it’s okay to be a little hungry. You are not going to starve.

If you pay attention to your hunger scale, you will never overeat, and you will feel empowered around food and confident in your body.