Mindful Eating: Listening to what your body is “telling” you

Mindful Eating: Listening to what your body is telling you

You may have tried diets and eating plans to try to change your weight or control your eating. Diets usually focus on numbers or on lists of “allowed” and “not allowed” foods. Mindful eating is a different approach. It focuses on paying attention to the cues your body naturally gives for hunger and satiety (satisfaction). Eating mindfully can help you truly enjoy meals, change your weight, develop healthy eating habits and improve your sense of well-being. Read this handout to learn more about mindful eating.

How do I recognize when I’m hungry or satisfied?

Recognize cues

Hunger

  • Rumbling stomach
  • Unpleasant stomach contractions (hunger pangs)
  • Mild lightheadedness
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Irritability
  • Faintness
  • Headaches

Satiety

  • Increasing tightness across your abdomen
  • Physical satisfaction
  • Decreasing pleasure in food
  • Disappearance of hunger cues

Stuffed

  • Clothing feels tighter
  • Sluggishness
  • Sleepiness or tiredness

Eat when you feel hunger cues. Stop eating when you feel cues of satiety. When you’re very hungry, you may find yourself eating rapidly and then gradually slowing down as you become satisfied.

Use the hunger scale
Another way to recognize when you’re hungry, satisfied or stuffed is to rate how you’re feeling. Use the scale at the bottom of the page to rate how hungry or satisfied you feel from 0 to 10, with 0 being starved and 10 being stuffed.

Eat when you’re hungry (about 1 to 2 on the scale). Stop eating when you’re satisfied (about 5 to 6 on the scale). It’s helpful to use the scale to rate how you’re feeling a few times throughout the meal or snack.

hunger scale

Why it’s important to recognize how hungry or satisfied you are
Frequently waiting to eat until you’re starved (0 on the scale) or eating until you’re full or stuffed (7 through 10 on the scale) may start a pattern of swinging wildly between these two extremes.

Learning to eat when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re satisfied helps decrease your chance of swinging between feeling starved and feeling stuffed. It can also prevent emotional eating (for example, eating when you’re stressed or bored).

Does eating regular meals and snacks help hunger signals become clearer?

Yes. Eating regularly reminds your body what natural eating patterns feel like. Your body sends out hunger cues at times when you’re used to eating or feeling hungry.

Once you’re hungry, it’s important to take time to eat and enjoy the experience. Mindful eating helps your body send cues that you’ve had a meal and have eaten enough.

Is it OK to eat at my desk, in the car or while watching TV?

No. Eating while watching TV, making a phone call, searching the internet, reading the newspaper or doing other activities takes the focus away from eating. And eating while driving isn’t a relaxing experience and is often unsafe.

Activity puts you out of touch with your body’s cues of hunger and satiety. It’s a distraction that prevents you from thoroughly smelling, seeing, tasting and experiencing what you’re eating. Overeating is often the result.

What steps should I take to start eating mindfully?

Mindful eating takes attention, time and practice. To develop stronger mindful eating skills, you may need to try different strategies to find what works best for you. Follow these tips to help make mindful eating a regular daily habit. Enjoy food and good health.

  • Set a consistent schedule for eating. Eating at irregular times may cause weight gain.
  • Eat a meal every four to five hours. This amount of time between meals allows your body to become hungry, send hunger cues and get the fuel it needs throughout the day. If you get too hungry between meals, schedule a snack.
  • Take time to eat. Make meals last 15 to 30 minutes. Savor and enjoy your food. Give your body a chance to become satisfied. Try these ideas to lengthen mealtimes:
    • Set down your utensil or food between bites.
    • Chew thoroughly to savor your food.
    • Use chopsticks if you don’t usually use them
  • Eat at a table with a place setting. This helps send your body the message that you're having a meal. Eating while driving isn't a relaxing eating experience and often unsafe. 
  • Eat with other people. Eating (and making) a meal with others is often an enjoyable experience and can help you plan ahead for healthy meals.
  • Plan ahead. Knowing what food you’ll be eating can result in a fulfilling meal. Randomly opening cupboards or the refrigerator, then eating while standing in the kitchen, often leads to feeling unsatisfied and to overeating.
  • Use the hunger scale. Listen for hunger and satiety cues. Pay attention to what your body is telling you. What does your body do when it is hungry? What does it feel like when you’ve eaten enough? Be aware of how your emotions affect your eating. Are there times and situations when you eat when you’re not hungry?
  • Be "in the moment." Thinking about the number of calories in food, for example, can distract you from your eating experience. Quiet your mind and simply enjoy food.

Resources

  • The Center for Mindful Eating
    www.tcme.org
  • Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD and Elyse Resch, MS, RD, FADA. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2012.
  • Eating Mindfully: How to End Mindless Eating and Enjoy a Balanced Relationship with Food, 2nd edition by Susan Albers, PsyD. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2012.
  • Eat, Drink, and Be Mindful by Susan Albers, PsyD. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2009.

 

18481 (2/2019) ©HealthPartners