Healthy Eating Skill: Learn to Listen to Your Body

Healthy eating is a skill. Or rather, it’s a set of skills that you can learn, and adapt and incorporate over time to improve the way your body moves, feels and looks. Step one: learn to listen to your body. In this article we’ll dive into the skill of mindful eating and appetite awareness. By the end, you should have a set of strategies and some actionable steps you can take to immediately shift towards a more intuitive, healthier way of eating.

What Does it Mean to Listen to Your Body?

Your body has a phenomenal ability to communicate with you. Unfortunately, most of us have either a) never been taught how to listen or what to look for or b) been “re-taught” to mistrust those internal cues in favor of external rules – like set meal times, cultural standards and appearances. Listening to your body requires mindfulness.

The term “mindfulness”, though perhaps a little overplayed these days, is one I actually love. The ability to mind is what enables a person to be aware of the world and their experiences. To think and to feel. To have conscious thought.

With that in mind, you can take a lot of ownership of the act of mindful eating: the practice of paying attention to the present moment and being fully engaged in the act of eating. To experience and savor the flavors, textures, and aromas of your food using all of your senses. Slowing down and finding a distraction-free opportunity to enjoy your meal. To connect to the privilege of being able to choose what you eat. To understand satisfaction, satiety and enjoyment.

The Benefits of Listening to Your Body and Honoring Physiological Cues

Nutrition is not as simple as “eat this, not that“. It’s not super useful to have a list of what to eat if you don’t know how or why.

Cultural norms, social structures, societal standards (and so much more) shape how we eat. The amount of guidance, support, knowledge and sense of importance we have in terms of our bodies, our diets and our goals differ from one person to the next. Learning to listen to your body, to understand and honor your internal cues is imperative to developing skills and habits that will stick with you in every situation, for life.

In honoring your physiological hunger cues you’ll be better equipped to:

• manage your weight regardless of your goal or current fitness level
• navigate life changes such as pregnancy, moving, switching careers, menopause, and aging
• find more enjoyment in choosing, preparing and eating meals
• feel empowered in making optimal food choices in social or high anxiety situations
• improve digestion and nutrient absorption
• support a healthy metabolism

How to Listen to Your Body and Practice Mindful Eating

Consider these “big rock” habits. Skills and focuses that will create a solid foundation on which everything else – every trickier or more time consuming, high-level skill – can be confidently built.

Noticing (and Honoring) Physiological Hunger Cues and Satisfaction

Learning to notice – and act on- what it feels like to be physiologically hungry and physiologically full can help you adequately fuel your body without overeating.

Ironically, the more you try to resist hunger, the more you probably feel you want to eat. Once your hunger is extreme, most well-thought-out meal plans go directly out the window. Your best move: eat when hungry.

So how do you tell if you are truly hungry? Hunger is a physiological response. It’s often described as feelings of emptiness or hollowness. Energy dips or plunges. You might experience shakiness, have issues focusing or become easily irritated. These are all signs that you can trust.

How about satisfaction? Satisfaction, to me, requires two things: physiological fullness (satiation) and personal contentment. Satisfaction is the difference between a bowl of lettuce with a spritz of lemon juice and a bowl of lettuce mixed with grains, topped with grilled chicken, tossed with a rainbow of vegetables and covered in pesto vinaigrette. (We both know we’re reaching for dessert after one of those meals…)

The Hunger Scale and Check Ins

Think of hunger as existing on a scale of 1-10. 1 is extreme hunger – the shaky, unfocused feeling mentioned above. 10 is overly stuffed. Keep a journal for a few days and note how you feel before, during and after meals. Include physiological feelings and match them to your hunger rating.

How hungry is too hungry to make smart food decisions? How full do you want to feel when you finish a meal? After a few days, you should have a good idea of what varying levels of hunger and fullness feel like.

Take action

Now that you have started to gain an awareness and trust, you can start to act on those cues. If you find that you make healthier choices when you’re mildly hungry (maybe a 4-5 on the scale), try to eat before you fall below that hunger level. If you dislike the feeling of being uncomfortably full, stop at about 7-8 when you feel sufficiently satisfied (more on that soon).

Differentiating Between Hunger and Cravings

Hunger is a need. It’s a sensation caused by a physiological need for energy.

Cravings are a want. Your mind makes them up to compensate for an unmet need of another kind. Typically, cravings pop up when we’re bored, sad, anxious, stressed, procrastinating, or emotional in some other form. Cravings are generally particular – the desire for something sweet, or salty, or nostalgic and comforting.

Will Chicken and Vegetables Do?

One way to differentiate between hunger and cravings (besides the steps mentioned above), is to ask yourself: “Can I be satisfied with chicken and vegetables?“. If the answer is “no, only cupcakes will satisfy me“, you can be pretty sure that it’s a craving.

If the answer is “yes”, and you haven’t eaten in a few hours, you’re probably hungry. If the answer is “yes” but you just had lunch, move on to tactic #2.

The 10-Minute Rule

Take a 10-minute break from whatever you are doing. Go for a walk. Stretch. Chat with a co-worker. If what you are experiencing is a craving, the movement/change of scenery/companionship/time will be enough to reset or at least deal with the craving rationally.

*Note: it’s okay to indulge in cravings occasionally. What matters is that you feel aware, honest with yourself and intentional about your choices.

Eating (Fairly) Regularly

There are no hard rules when it comes to meal timing or frequency. Some women prefer to eat 3-4 larger meals. Others feel better eating 5-6 smaller meals more frequently. What matters is that you find what works for you.

Experiment with different schedules. Use the skills listed above to help decide what works for you, your eating style, hunger levels and preferences. What most women find is that to maintain a comfortable level of fullness and energy throughout the day, eating every 3-4 hours is ideal.

To get started:

• eat breakfast within 1-2 hours of waking
• do a hunger check in about 3 hours later
• eat lunch about 6 hours after waking
• have a healthy snack planned for those afternoon witching hours
• eat dinner a coupleof hours beforebed

Eating Slowly and Distraction Free

Did you know that eating in a relaxed state activates your parasympathetic nervous system? And that activating your PNS calms your digestive tract which:

• decreases gastrointestinal upset
• increases nutrient absorption
• lessens symptoms of of gastrointestinaldisorders
• enhances satisfaction cues

Before you eat, take a few deep breaths. Clear distractions: put away your phone, silence emails, don’t eat-and-drive. While you eat, make a conscious effort to slow down and enjoy your meal. It takes 20 minutes for your brain to recognize fullness and signal you to stop eating. That’s a long time!

Every time you eat, make it an occasion. Try to always eat off of a plate (instead of from a bag or box). Take your time, putting your fork down between bites and savoring your meal. Turn off external distractions and pay attention to the experience, the company around the table and the time spent together.

Tracking These Nutrition Skills

You can track progress with and adherence to these skills in a variety of ways but it’s important to keep one thing clear: aim for better, not perfect. Perfect adherence (whatever perfect even means), isn’t required for you to see and feHabitel improvements.

Here are a few ways to stay on track:

1. Pen and paper. Simply keep a daily journal.
2. Tracker apps.
3. Photos.
4. Check lists like this one that I created for my clients.

Decide what’s convenient/most accessible to you. Make sure you know what variables/results are most important to you (consistency? quality?). And define what success is/looks like for you. Declaring small victories on the road to your big goals does wonders for your success rate!