Hunger Cues and Mindful Eating
If you’re like me, you may be tired of basing whether or not you eat, what you eat and how you eat on a set of regimented rules. That is why I detest the word “diet” because it immediately invokes the thought of restriction and rule-based eating. What if we stripped things back down to the primary reason we eat (to nourish and fuel ourselves) and used actual hunger as our guidelines for eating instead?
Do we even remember what physical hunger feels like after years of exposure to our unique circumstances, interactions, and outside influences?
Newborn babies know how to cry when they are hungry and spit up when they are full. How come it’s easier for infants to pay attention to their natural hunger rhythms but too many adults can’t – me included…. I’ve been there!
Somewhere along the way, our caregivers, cultural norms, and the mere task of navigating the world have interfered with our innate ability to gauge our own hunger rhythms as effectively as a newborn.
What Does Hunger Feel Like?
The stress of adulthood and my professional life as an attorney wrecked my ability to remember.
Sure, there were times when I noticed total hunger pangs, but I can’t tell you how many times I have sat down to scarf down a meal just because some arbitrary rules told me it was time to eat – or worse yet, for an emotional reason such as anger, stress, or boredom. If you too notice this happening, you may need to start reorienting your mind to help you remember what actual hunger feels like.
One sure way to know that you’re actually hungry is to really pay attention to your body the next time you decide you’re going to eat. Our bodies wonderfully communicate when we need to nourish and fuel them by giving us physical symptoms as cues.
Signs like a feeling of emptiness, growling, and hunger pangs are all ways our stomachs tell us it’s time for food. Other physical signs include headaches or feeling weak – and if you’re lightheaded, it may REALLY be time to eat. The key is to tune into your body when you feel the urge to eat. The initial inquiry should always be “Am I physically hungry right now?”. That’s mindful eating.
What About All That Nutrition Advice & The Fad Diets Out There?
The reason I hate the word “diet” is because it implies a set of rules you need to follow in order to eat instead of asking us to focus our attention on our bodies’ hunger signals.
Using rules and restrictions to guide our eating patterns often leads to the feeling of failure once you break a rule. Instead of rules-based diet plans, wouldn’t a better approach to nutrition be to use hunger signals as our guide in combination with finding reliable and accurate resources on healthy nutrition habits that make sense for our lifestyle?
The next time you sit down to eat or mindlessly reach for food, try the hunger approach out. What would happen if you paused to do a quick scan for physical signs of hunger? You may actually decide it’s not the right time to eat. If you do this enough, you’ll be so in tune with your body’s needs just like that newborn infant that knows exactly when it’s time to eat and when it’s not.
