1. Before you eat something check your hunger level and ask:

'Do I really feel like eating this?’

2. Try to develop an awareness of the motivation urging you to eat.

Is your hunger ‘Physical hunger’ or is it ‘emotional hunger’

If it is not for physical hunger, then it may be emotional hunger. It may take a while at the start to tell the difference.

3. If you can't determine what the hunger is allow yourself 20 minutes before you take action.

If you are angry and want to eat because you are angry, then this could be eating to deal with your anger. Take 20 minutes out and sit with your emotion. Try our binge blocking exercises.
After 20 minutes ask yourself if you are physically hungry, your feelings may have changed after this time.

4. To master ‘fullness’ and ‘satisfaction’

Being aware of what feel like eating can be difficult at the beginning. With practice this becomes less challenging.

The key is to be full and satisfied, ‘not just full’. The salad bar might suit your mental thinking, however if you are not feeling satisfied there is no point eating it.

5. Remain within your hunger zone

Using the hunger tracker chart try and always remain within your hunger scale. Be aware when you see yourself entering warning zones. If you do enter the warning territory ask be aware what lead you there. Is this a once off or is it happening more than you want it to.

It is common to eat when you are not hungry on many occasions therefore it is important to understand where this urge to eat is coming from. Many people eat and are not aware of their eating. By raising some awareness people can really help to gain control and listen to their body again.

You may not be aware that you are on a continual diet that is leading you into a vicious cycle of deprivation, binging - vomiting - and then dieting again.

The first step is to work out what actual physical hunger is:

It is important to try again to recognize what your body is saying. Use the hunger tracker, assess how you mouth, tongue, stomach and overall body feels before you eat. With continual practice we can get more in tune and be able to determine what our body wants.

Visualization Tool

To help you decide what you feel like eating

Look at each food group, you may want to touch it, imagine it cooked, imagine the smell, texture and taste, then imagine what it feels like in your stomach and after you have eaten it.

Or

Imagine a conveyor belt, like in a sushi bar – only the sushi has been replaced with all different types of food.

Letting your intuition do the speaking, you are going to think hard about what you really want to eat. Your goal is to achieve a sense of fullness and satisfaction from your choice.

Along the conveyor belt comes a large fruit bowl, perhaps you initially react and want to eat the delicious juicy fruit , however with a little more thought and awareness you realize that this may fill you up but you will probably be left unsatisfied.

Second along comes a large baguette filled with tuna, salad and mayonnaise, your body tells you that this looks extremely appetizing and can imagine the soft warm baguette and tuna melting in your mouth and you can visualize that this feels nice and satisfying in your stomach

So left to pass is the fruit bowl because you realize you 'really' feel like this and your successful choice is made.