HUNGER-FULLNESS SCALE

At its most basic level, weight loss is about eating less food, of which the odds of that happening increase when you limit yourself to eating only when you’re hungry. So before you eat, you should ask yourself if you really need to.

What can help with determining whether you should eat or not is the hunger-fullness scale. Plus in addition to helping you make that decision and get better aligned with your body’s hunger signals, the scale also works to help you hone in on your biological fullness cues so you don’t overeat, which is something that can result in weight gain if done consistently enough.

INSTRUCTIONS:
When feeling hungry, ask yourself where you are on the scale. If you rate what you’re feeling at a 5 or 6, then what you’re more than likely experiencing is emotional hunger, or a craving, brought on by stress, boredom, anger, sadness, depression, or some other feeling. In that case, you need to find an alternative coping strategy that doesn’t involve food.⁣ If, however, you’re at 4 or below, then what you have is physical, or true, hunger. In that event, go ahead and eat until you’re around a level 6 or 7. Go beyond that and you risk taking in more calories than you need to satisfy your hunger, in addition to also experiencing symptoms of discomfort.¹The chances of overeating also increase if you wait until you’re at 1 or 2, at which point you may be famished and open yourself to the double whammy of you making poor food choices, such as choosing high-calorie items, and it being more difficult to know when to stop eating. As such, eat before reaching that level on the scale.

Glossary: calories

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Monster Longe

Monster Longe is a personal trainer in San Diego. He has been lifting weights for +25 years and training clients in the gym and online for about half of that time. When not working with clients or making content that's easy to read, understand, and apply to everyday life, he enjoys long walks and leaving buildings crushed and entire city blocks decimated in his wake.

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