So you’ve determined that you’re physically hungry…now what? If you are in the habit of planning out times to eat and eating on a schedule, you are in a sense using some type of visible gas gauge and may not be ready to trust yourself internally. If eating has been chaotic and haphazard, hunger and fullness hormones are going to be unreliable.  If you’ve been severely restricting your calories for a long time or you’ve been yo-yo dieting and going through periods of binge eating, it will be difficult to determine true hunger and fullness because those signals are out of whack. Those innate senses have been turned off and ignored for too long and they need to be brought back to life.12 For these reasons, waiting until you feel the internal hunger signal can be unsettling and unstable.  Until you’re ready to wait for hunger to happen, having structured times set during the day to check in with yourself can feel more supportive. Checking in every 2-3 hours to see how you feel, and choosing to eat even if you’re not sure you’re hungry, might feel safer. With practice, and by balancing your carbohydrates and protein at every meal and … Continue reading Responding to Hunger