Intuitive Eating Principle 2: Honor Your Hunger
By Chantal Collette, MSW, & certified personal trainer
Honoring your hunger means that you can listen and act on body cues and signals telling you that it wants/needs to be fed. Some though, have difficulty honing in on their hunger cues, or try to avoid them for numerous reasons “I shouldn’t be hungry, I just ate X amount of time ago” or “I’m not supposed to eat past X time”, and “I’m going out to eat later tonight, so I don’t want to ruin my appetite” “I’ve eaten my allocated number of calories for the day” among other reasons. It can feel downright scary at times to start trusting and giving in to your hunger cues, especially if you’re a chronic dieter! Your body needs to be reconditioned to not only be able to identify its hunger cues, but also to “lean in” and honor it with food.
Here’s few ways hunger can present itself:
Irritation pops up
Difficulty concentrating
Brain fog
Stomach pains
Stomach growls
Headache
Feeling faint
Bodily shakes
And, as many have either personal experience with at least once, or have been a witness to “hangry” when you are so hungry that you are downright angry
When you notice your hunger, you can then dig deeper and ask yourself, what am I hungry for? Do I want something crunchy? Salty? Sweet? Savory? Cold? Hot? What am I in the mood for? You can also ask yourself to gauge your level of hunger-are you snack or meal hungry? The more you start to listen and honor your hunger cues the easier it will become to feed it.
But what if…..
You find yourself hungry AND are going out later for a meal/event. To eat or not to eat? Here’s my take: Having a small snack to honor your hunger will make it more easy for you to enjoy your meal later! If you are so hungry that you feel yourself crawling out of your skin when you get to the restaurant/event, you will most likely overeat and not care really what you eat, and you won’t be able to savor the food that you’re having. If you get to the restaurant with a comfortable level of hunger, you will be more able to not only savor your food but gauge when you are starting to feel comfortably full.
Some circumstances though may present themselves that you will need to be flexible with eating and food choices. Let’s go with a question that is asked often, should you never eat in a car as an Intuitive Eater? This question makes sense because Satisfaction is a principle of IE and when we are eating in a car it may be difficult to get satisfaction from the overall eating experience. Here’s a way to look at it-if you’re driving for a long distance and notice that you’re hungry you can ask yourself, do I want to stop for a snack or a meal? If you would rather not, maybe have something handy to snack on. Say you’re going on a 8 hour road trip, be strategic, and pack a few easy to eat snacks. Obviously, safety is key-if you are driving, you may want to pull over and take a few minutes to stretch your body and eat.
You sometimes may have to plan for “anticipatory hunger.” This usually looks like when you are busy doing an activity, or have an appointment, at a time where you’re usually hungry and eating. We all have days that won’t be ideal with our eating patterns. Here’s how I plan for those through the lens of IE. I will gauge how long it will be before I’m able to eat. If It’s too long and the “hangries” will most likely show up-then I may decide to eat a snack before I venture out, or I may pack a snack to eat while I’m running errands. Either way the goal is to be able to not have the “hangries” show up and that I’ll be at a comfortable level of hunger when I can feed myself. Feeling and honoring your hunger can take time! Please be patient and show yourself some grace while learning this skill! Thanks for reading! Feel free to reach out to me HERE with any questions that you may have!