Working with clients on intuitive eating, one tool that is commonly used is the hunger and fullness scale. I did an in depth run down on how to use the hunger and fullness scale in this blog post, which I’d encourage you to read, but if you haven’t had a chance, here’s the tl;dr:
Eating disorders, disordered eating, and dieting can all disrupt hunger and fullness cues by suppressing and ignoring hunger cues in an attempt to eat less. For most people, this restriction results in binge eating or eating until the point of uncomfortable fullness. Over time, both hunger and fullness are only recognized and responded to in their most extreme presentations.
The hunger and fullness scale is a tool that can help you get back in touch with the more subtle signs of hunger and fullness. Our body is designed to self regulate around food, and our hunger and fullness cues help steer us towards eating an appropriate amount of food for our own unique biological needs – needs that can change day to day based on multiple different factors. By providing language to describe the different levels of hunger and fullness, it can be helpful both for reconnecting to cues and for figuring out how to respond to them.
Here’s the hunger and fullness scale we use in my practice:
