How to Honor Your Hunger

The second principle of intuitive eating is to honor your hunger – it sounds easy right? Eat when you are hungry. The problem is, diet culture has taught us to suppress our hunger and to ignore our hunger cues. Hunger is necessary for life and it is your body’s way of communicating that it needs more energy. Feeling hunger is the same natural signal that your body sends you when you are thirsty. Would you ever tell someone to suppress or ignore their thirst?   

Bring awareness to how hunger feels to you. This may be a challenge at first, especially if you have a history of ignoring your hunger cues. Your stomach does not have to be growling for you to be hungry. Other signs of hunger include, feeling low on energy, not being able to focus, experiencing headaches etc. If your stomach is growling and you feel hangry, you probably have already waited too long. Another sign of hunger is increased thoughts of food and a desire to eat. You do not have to feel anything physical to be hungry.

When you go too long without eating and you go into a meal experiencing excessive hunger, it is much harder to eat mindfully with intention and enjoyment. It will also be more challenging to feel satisfied. Consuming adequate energy, carbs, protein, and fat prevents a physiological drive to over eat. 

Initially it may be hard for you to hear the subtle hunger cues. If this is you, start by feeding yourself every 3-4 hours. Reflect on how you feel pre and post meal or snack. If you eat a snack and feel more energized and focused, you were probably hungry and needed that snack. If you have a snack and feel full really quickly, maybe you were not hungry yet. It is okay if you do not get it right every time as you are starting to trust your body again.  

It is important to acknowledge that you may be hungrier on some days than others and that is completely normal. Your body will require more energy when recovering from an illness or injury. You may also feel hungrier after a hard workout, during your menstrual cycle, when you are stressed, or low on sleep. Hunger is your body’s way of telling you that it needs more energy to do its job.  

What if rather than challenging hunger, we trusted it?

When we honor our hunger, we strengthen the trust we have with our body. And once we honor our hunger, it will be easier to honor fullness as well. 

For more information I highly recommend Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

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Written by Danielle Musto

Hey there, I’m Danielle! HSH’s Office Manager and RD-to-be! I love food, fitness and having fun with both. I’m super excited to be here with you sharing all the ways I love to make food FUN!

Learn more about me and the HSH offerings here.