Hi and welcome.
Today I'm going to be talking about recognising hunger and fullness and how we can use this to help us eat more mindfully.
So I want to begin by just considering some of the reasons that it's important for us to be able to recognise these signals.
It's actually fairly easy for us to misinterpret or mislabel cues as hunger when that's not really what they are.
So for example it could be that our body is in a mild state of dehydration and our brain can actually interpret this and incorrectly tell us that we're hungry under that circumstance.
It could also be that we're experiencing a desire to eat for other reasons like maybe there's a craving of a specific food,
Maybe we're feeling bored or there's some sort of emotional trigger that's happened and that's causing a knock-on effect for us wanting to eat.
And it could be that we're generalising these and mislabelling these as hunger when they're not actually hunger.
It's also really important for us to be in tune with our hunger signals so that we're not overlooking them and that we can action them when it's appropriate.
I know for me there's been plenty of times when I've skipped meals,
Maybe that's through a conscious choice to try and avoid that particular meal or reduce my calories down for the day,
Or maybe it's just that I've had a particularly busy day and I tend to find that if I'm doing that I'll become over hungry and that has a knock-on effect because I'll tend to then overeat for quite a few different reasons potentially but I'll overeat later on.
It's really important that we're in tune with these signals from our body and that we can respond appropriately to them.
With regards to the feelings of fullness,
It can make a massive impact once we realise that we don't have to eat until we're uncomfortably full,
So recognising the different stages of being satisfied and full and over full.
Once we recognise these signals it means that we're going to be able to eat more mindfully and that means that we can honour what our body needs more accurately.
Now if your motivation is to lose weight for example,
It means that you'll be able to recognise what the true drive for wanting to eat is.
For me personally,
One of my big drivers used to be emotional eating,
So being able to recognise whether or not I was being driven by emotion or being driven by hunger really allowed me to then make a choice on whether to action the thought and the desire to want to eat.
Now obviously if the drive is emotional and you still choose to eat then that's fair enough because that's your choice but by being able to differentiate between those it allows you to be mindful and that's what we're trying to achieve here.
So how do we begin to recognise these feelings of hunger and fullness better?
The first thing is to try and identify the desire to eat and once you've noticed that really try and examine it as best you can.
So think about what's happened prior to the desire to eat,
How does it feel in your body,
Where is it coming from in your body,
Is it accompanied by a physical sensation of emptiness,
Of true hunger,
And see what thoughts come up around that.
You may want to consider having a drink of water at this point.
Sometimes when I drink water it actually allows me to recognise how thirsty I really was.
It might also be that you are genuinely hungry but that having some water helps to alleviate some of the hunger symptoms.
Whatever action you decide to take,
Whether it's having a drink,
Whether it's not eating anything,
Whether it's to eat something,
See if you can continue to be conscious about your feelings.
Mindful eating is really just being conscious of how we feel and acting appropriately on it.
We're not always going to be able to make the decisions that in hindsight we feel were the right decisions to have made.
However,
By being conscious and staying in touch with how we feel about the decisions,
How our mind responds,
How our body reacts,
That's how we're going to learn.
And then through the learning is how we become better at honouring ourselves.
So on your mindful eating journey,
Worry less about the specific choices that you're making and try to be more conscious of becoming aware of your body and thinking about how your eating habits are having an impact on you.
Simply being more conscious and looking out for these hunger and fullness cues is going to allow you to recognise them better and in turn then honour your body more accurately.
So I hope this has been of help and good luck continuing your mindful eating journey.
