In mindful eating, we teach individuals to bring awareness back to their hunger and fullness cues. Recognizing our hunger and fullness cues can provide an opportunity to not only reconnect with how our body is feeling but can also allow us the opportunity to identify what it is exactly we may be hungry for and how much food we need to eat to address it.
Continue reading to learn about the different types of hunger and fullness and how to start reconnecting to these cues.
What does it mean to feel hungry?
How do YOU perceive you are hungry? For many, it can be a feeling of emptiness, weakness, desire for food, or even an audible grumble of your stomach. Other times, we can suddenly have strong cravings for certain foods. Certain triggers such as strong emotions or even boredom can also elicit a desire to eat.
There are many types of “hunger” that we experience throughout the day. In Dr. Jan Chozen Bays’ book, Mindful Eating, she describes 7 types of hunger, which I have grouped and summarized below:
Physiologic hunger: This is the hunger that your body signals when it requires nutrients to maintain its function. When your blood glucose levels decrease, or even certain vitamins and minerals are low, your body signals your brain to desire the foods it needs to refuel. This type of hunger can be resolved through eating a variety of food and beverages.
Sensorial hunger: This hunger has to do with a desire to eat due to our senses of sight, smell, and taste or surroundings, regardless of our physiologic hunger. This type of hunger can become apparent when you are in the presence of appetizing food. It can be the sight of a box of donuts, the smell of freshly baked cookies, or the thought of the taste of salty chips. This hunger does not have to do with your body’s need for nutrients, but rather a need for pleasure in the form of beauty, fragrance, and flavour.
Emotional hunger: This hunger is often a result of a feeling of emptiness caused by our mental state rather than our body. This can occur in situations where you are experiencing uncomfortable emotions such as sadness, loneliness, anxiety, stress, and even boredom. It can also be during celebratory situations such as a birthday party or "treating" yourself due to an accomplishment.
Food can be a tool to reduce emotional hunger, but it is sort of like a round peg in a square hole, it doesn’t completely fit and the root cause of these emotions is not met by simply eating.
It is normal to eat for each of these types of hunger. Bringing awareness to the type of hunger we are experiencing, can better guide us into what types of foods we need. It also allows us to reevaluate our thoughts and emotions, particularly if we discover that we are often eating for reasons other than physiologic.
What about fullness?
So often we eat quickly and only realize we are full when we perceive an uncomfortable pressure.
Physical fullness: This is the physical sensation that your stomach is full. Your stomach is like a balloon and as it gets stretched and filled with food and beverages, the expansion signals your brain to reduce your hunger sensation. If we eat slowly, we can perceive the gradual shift from the feeling of emptiness associated with physical hunger, to feeling comfortable and full. This is the cue to slow down and stop eating. Oftentimes we can continue eating and only recognize our fullness once we have gotten towards a feeling of being stretched or “stuffed”.
“Other” fullness: This fullness is more related to the sensorial and emotional satisfaction of the meal, rather than the physical. This satisfaction can be in terms of the pleasure in the taste of the food, the experience of eating, or a shift in emotions.
Both fullness types have an important role in our satisfaction with eating.
How to listen to our hunger and fullness cues
The mindful eating approach teaches us to perform a “check-in” before and while we are eating. This check-in is a momentary pause to bring awareness to what both our mind and our bodies are signalling to us in terms of hunger (physiologic, sensorial and emotional) and fullness.
By being more in tune with how your body feels upon eating, you will become more in tune with how much food to eat, and what foods make you feel better and more satisfied.
Hunger
Before taking the first bite, or maybe even before you prepare your meal, ask yourself a simple question: “Am I hungry?
You can then dig deeper in trying to identify what type of hunger you are experiencing.
Are you hungry because you haven’t eaten in a long time?
Are you hungry because there’s food on the table?
Are you hungry because it is noon?
Are you hungry because you are bored?
Are you hungry because your blood sugar is decreasing?
Naming the type of hunger can help you identify what it is exactly your body is hungry FOR. If the hunger is physiologic, then food is the appropriate response. If the hunger is more sensorial or emotional, dig a little deeper to discover if in fact, food is what you desire or if something else can address those sensations.
If food is what you desire, it is time to identify the degree of hunger. Are you a little / moderately / very hungry? The further we get toward “very” hungry or “famished” feelings, the harder it will be to listen to our body because these hunger sensations are overwhelming. This can often lead us to crave foods that will provide us with the most carbohydrates and fat source in a short time. We may also eat quickly and overeat, making it harder to listen to our fullness cues.
Our goal is to seek out our next meal or snack if we feel “a little or moderately” hungry. If we get to “very hungry”, you have probably gone too long without eating.
Fullness
In the beginning, it can be hard to detect the subtle shift from feeling hungry to full. Eating quickly or being distracted while we eat can make it harder to pick up these discreet signals from your body. This often leads us to eat more than our hunger and can make us feel uncomfortable once we have stopped eating. Slowing down, chewing our food carefully and bringing awareness to our food can make it easier to register our body cues. You can also purposefully make a pause in the middle of your meal to do another check-in, and ask yourself, “Am I full?”
You can elaborate on the degree of fullness. Are you feeling “full but comfortable / full and uncomfortable (what I refer to as “stuffed”) / full and very uncomfortable (almost to the point of being sick)? Once we have gone beyond the comfortable fullness toward the uncomfortable and sick, we have exceeded our physical hunger and fullness.
As mentioned above, we can often find ourselves in this situation if:
We are eating for reasons other than physiologic hunger
We were very hungry before eating
We eat quickly
We are distracted while eating
We were always taught to "finish all the food on the plate".
Using hunger and fullness cues can help bring more awareness to our thoughts and sensations to better guide us in nourishing our bodies. With time, this practice will become intuitive and you will have confidence in your body guiding you to the amounts of food your body needs.
References:
Bays, J. and Kabat-Zinn, J., 2009. Mindful eating. Boston: Shambhala.
Dubost Bélair, M. and Scheider, W., 2006. La nutrition. Montréal: Chenelière Éducation.
Guevremont, G. and Clerc, O., 2014. Manger ses émotions. Montréal: Éditions Transcontinental.
May, M. and Fletcher, M., 2012. Eat what you love, love what you eat, with diabetes. Oakland, Calif.: New Harbinger Publications.
Tribole, E., 2020. Intuitive eating. New York: St. Martin's Essentials.
Published: 2022-05-11
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