Hunger is a normal body signal.  The body uses hunger to signal when it needs fuel.  It’s possible, however, to mess up this natural and adaptive function and many people do it by stringent, yo-yo dieting and subscribing to dieting myths.

If a person has never dieted they don’t give a second thought to hunger.  They simply eat when they feel hungry and stop when they feel satisfied.  When a person listens to their body’s hunger, they start eating before the hunger gets too uncomfortable for them.  The more intense the hunger, the more the body pushes a person to eat.  After all, it’s the body’s job to try to keep the body alive and food is essential to survival.

The problem comes in when people get in the way of this natural system by doing things like ignoring hunger to avoid eating and or confusing other things such as thirst or emotions for hunger.

Most people can remember a time when they had natural control of food and ate primarily when they were hungry instead of fighting hunger.  Psychologically, the more we try to ignore hunger, the more preoccupied we get with food and the harder it becomes to keep from overeating.

Simple Steps to Control Hunger

There are simple ways to control hunger and they involve paying attention to hunger rather than fighting it. Just follow the simple steps below:

1. Use a hunger rating scale from 0 to 5.  Zero represents no hunger at all, while 5 represents a level of hunger when we feel “famished.”  This is when we have trouble thinking of anything else but food, we might even feel lightheaded, shaky, and irritable.
2. Several times per day, stop and rate your level of hunger at that moment.
3. The goal is to eat whenever your hunger gets to  a 3.  You feel hunger but it’s not intense and you feel in control.
4. Try to prevent hunger from going beyond a rating of 3.
5. If you find your hunger level to be above a 3, eat as soon as possible but focus on eating nutritious combinations of carbohydrates (such as whole wheat crackers) and protein (such as peanut butter, cheese, of low fat meat).  The combination of protein and carbs helps to get your blood sugar back up to a normal level and keeping it there longer rather than spiking up and then crashing again.  Eating only carbs or sugary foods tends to  leads to intense levels of hunger and compulsive overeating.

Hunger is nothing to be afraid of nor should it be ignored.  Controlling hunger is simple.  Feed your body when it’s telling you it needs fuel rather than when it’s screaming at you.  Enjoy.