Empty Or Full?

Dear Ellen:

Can you explain the “gas gauge” concept of hunger and fullness? I’m trying to use it, but it’s hard to know when I’m too hungry or full enough.

J.S., North Vancouver

Dear J.S.:

This strategy can be very helpful in reacquainting you with your appetite for food. First, visualize your stomach as a gas gauge with the numbers 1 through 10 evenly spaced from end to end. 1 is absolutely empty, ravenously hungry, and 10 is so painfully stuffed you can’t fit anything else in. 5 is perfectly neutral – the way you might feel an hour after a decent meal. The optimal time to start eating is around the 2.5 mark; you’re hungry, but not so frantic that you will eat everything in sight. The optimal place to stop eating is around 7.5; you’re comfortably satiated, but not overly full.

The problems I frequently hear about are when people let themselves go below 2 on the scale, and then they don’t have the clarity of mind to make food decisions they feel good about. Or, perhaps they only eat up to 5 or 6, just enough to take the edge off their hunger, and then they’re hungry again shortly afterwards. This tends to trigger bingeing. And eating past 9 on the scale is very uncomfortable both physically and emotionally. The goal is to eat enough to fuel your body for about 4 hours, a good chunk of time when you don’t think about food at all.

It takes practice to notice where you are on the gauge, and to plan for times when you’re heading toward empty. And if you think that you’ve gone overboard and eaten too much, you need to trust that your body will eventually metabolize what you consumed and will let you know when it’s hungry again. Everyone’s biochemistry and metabolism is different, so it may take some time to understand your signals and how your body works.

Let me know how this works for you -

Ellen