What are Hunger Numbers? How to Tune in to Your Body's Signals

Have you ever found yourself mindlessly munching through a bag of chips or box of cookies, not really tasting or even wanting the food, but just eating out of habit or boredom?

Or have you felt stuffed to the point of discomfort after a meal because you didn't realize how full you actually were until it was too late?

If so, you're not alone. In our fast-paced, food-obsessed world, it's all too easy to lose touch with our body's natural hunger and fullness cues. We eat for reasons beyond physical hunger - because we're stressed, because the clock says it's time, because the food is there and it looks good.

This disconnection from our innate eating intuition can lead to all sorts of problems like overeating, weight struggles, food guilt, and an overall unhealthy relationship with nourishing ourselves. But there's a solution: learning to recognize and honor your "hunger numbers."

Your hunger number is a scale from 1 (starving) to 10 (feeling sick from overeating) that allows you to quantify your level of hunger or fullness at any given moment. Tuning into this hunger awareness is key to retraining yourself to only eat when you're physically hungry and to stop when you're simply satisfied - not stuffed.

By knowing your hunger number, you'll be able to catch yourself before recklessly ripping into that bag of chips when you're really just bored, not hungry. You'll learn to eat when you're at a comfortable 3 or 4 on the scale to properly fuel your body. And you'll be able to stop at a 6 or 7, honoring your fullness so you avoid the all-too-familiar overstuffed, uncomfortable feeling.

Hunger mapping puts you in the driver's seat of your eating, allowing you to cultivate a healthy, intuitive relationship with food. So get ready to ditch the diets, forget the food rules, and start tuning into the wisdom of your body's own hunger numbers.