The first step has been to focus on becoming more aware of when I choose to eat. Also, how I’m feeling when I eat and if I’m actually hungry.

What I’ve come to realise is that I’m not really hungry in the mornings. I’ve always sort of known this and left eating breakfast as the last thing that I do before heading out for the day. I’ve also noticed that I choose to eat a smaller breakfast because I’m not hungry.

This means around lunchtime I’m also not that hungry because I’ve just eaten breakfast. However, I still eat lunch around lunchtime just to break up the day more than because I’m hungry. Lunch also tends to be a smaller meal so then by dinnertime, I am actually hungry. I’ve really noticed this and I like to have an early dinner because I’m hungry.

So that’s what I’ve become aware of around when I eat my meals and how I feel. I’ve also noticed that when I feel those first signs of hunger, I like to have a snack, such as a protein based muesli bar.

I believe this comes from a habit of being afraid of feeling hungry. Before I started my Healthy Lifestyle Journey, I had a pretty unhealthy diet and was a sugar burner. If I didn’t eat, I would feel really weak and shaky and I think this has built up an ingrained fear of being hungry.

I remember going on a walk with my family once and I was hungry before we even started. I knew that I was going to get these weak and shaky feelings of having low blood sugar so I only walked a little way with them. Then I just sat down and waited for them to come back.

I really didn’t like the way this made me feel. This was during the time that I was transitioning from my standard diet to a real food diet. I was just starting to eat based on the Low Carb, Healthy Fat (LCHF) principles.

Fortunately this way of eating has dramatically changed the way I feel about food. I now eat more protein and healthy fats and these help to keep me satiated. I no longer get those horrible feelings of low blood sugar like the shakes or that I’m going to pass out.

My body has now become fat adapted rather than being a sugar burner. The body likes to use glucose as fuel and when it does this, it’s using the sugars from carbohydrates for energy. Being fat adapted means that when there isn’t any glucose left in the bloodstream, the body can transition over to using it’s excess fat stores as fuel for energy.

I love this as it means my body is eating it’s own fat stores for energy, therefore burning my excess fat!

It’s also been really interesting to notice that habit of being afraid of feeling hungry still comes up even though my body doesn’t have the same reaction that it used to.

My recent interest and focus on hunger has come from listening to Brooke Castillo’s podcast, The Life Coach School. Brooke often talks about the Hunger Scale and how to use this weight release tool to eat intuitively.

So what is the Hunger Scale?

The Hunger Scale goes from minus 10, to zero, to plus 10. Minus 10 is when you’re absolutely starving and you feel like you haven’t eaten for a week. You might even experience some of those low blood sugar symptoms l used to have like feeling really weak, shaky or that you’re going to faint.

Zero is neutral so you’re not feeling either hungry or full. Plus ten is like absolutely stuffed. Think after Christmas dinner when you’ve had all the snacks, dinner and two servings of dessert and you just can’t fit anything else in.

The idea is to eat within the range of minus 4 to positive 4 to 6. This is really individual and you’ll have to find what numbers work for you as everyone’s feelings and number ratings will be different.

The goal is to wait until you’re actually physically hungry before you eat and you feel like you’re getting down to minus 4 on the scale. If you go below minus 4, that’s when you start to feel over hungry and this can lead to overeating. It’s also easier to make choices that aren’t so healthy because you just want to eat whatever you can find at that time.

On the positive side of the scale, the goal is to eat until you feel like you’re at a plus 4 to 6. Eating a meal that has protein and healthy fats will also help you to feel satiated for longer after eating. A lot of people don’t even know what it feels like to be hungry. It’s so easy to be constantly eating throughout the day in our current environment.

My challenge to you is to wait until you get hungry before you eat.

If you don’t get hungry, just keep waiting. Wait all day if that’s as long as it takes. As long as you’re keeping hydrated and drink plenty of water, you’re going to be okay. You’re not going to fade away.

This will help to start balancing your hunger hormones. We have two main hormones that regulate our hunger. These are ghrelin, which is mainly produced in the stomach and known as the hunger hormone. It’s job is to let the body know that we’re getting low on energy and we need to eat. Ghrelin stimulates our appetite.

The other hormone is leptin and this is produced in the body’s fat cells. It’s job is to send signals up to the brain to let it know that we’ve eaten enough and we’re not hungry anymore.

So what you need to work out is what hunger actually feels like to you. Does it feel like a rumbly tummy or do you feel it somewhere else in your body? Once you know what physical hunger feels like you can start differentiating between the two types of hunger.

Yes, there are two different kinds of hunger. The first is physical hunger. This starts as a sensation in your body so that’s the hormone ghrelin doing it’s job. It sends a signal up to the brain to let it know that the body needs more fuel.

The second type of hunger is emotional hunger. We experience this when a thought is generated in the brain, which sends a signal down to your body. That thought is what drives you to eat emotionally.

Being able to determine the difference between these two types of hunger is what’s going to help you use the Hunger Scale effectively and to only eat when you’re actually physically hungry.

I’m going to focus on using the Hunger Scale going forward and be more curious if I’m eating because I’m physically hungry or emotionally hungry.

Check out my next blog Dine in and burn you own body fat where I explain how I like to ride out the hunger wave so I can tap into my excess fat stores and burn fat. Yes, you do this too!

Now I want to hear from you. Are you going to take up my challenge to wait until you get physically hungry before you eat? Are you going to join me in starting to use and experiment with the Hunger Scale? Have you experienced a similar situation to my low blood sugar feelings? Can you relate to what I’ve shared?

If so, please leave a comment below. Share with me how you felt about going through this and how you overcame it. The more we talk about our struggles and wins with each other, the more support we feel. This also helps us all to achieve our health goals.

Join me in the Healthy Lifestyle Journey today!

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