Hunger and Satiety

[Guest guest]

This was sent to me from the woman who facilitates the Napa Kaiser WLS Meeting (Camille). I thought some of you may find it useful.

Ron

Maintenance Mentality Tip of the Week - Hunger and Satiety

By Janean Hall

Tips on Recognizing Hunger and Accommodating the True Need for Food

People who struggle with excess weight often have difficulty identifying the difference between physiological hunger and psychological hunger. It is important for people who have had WLS to understand the difference between these two types of hunger and recognize if this is a problem for them personally.

Let's take a look at the two types of hunger and suggest a simple way (by using the Hunger and Satiety Rating Scale) to identify what type of hunger you are experiencing and when it is really time to eat.

Physiological hunger occurs two to four hours after your last meal. Symptoms include an empty or rumbling feeling in your stomach, a headache, or lightheadedness. This type of hunger is your body's way of telling you it is time to eat more food.

Psychological hunger occurs at any time and has no physical symptoms. Obsessing about food, emotional situations, certain personal triggers, or food cravings may cause you to think that you are hungry when you're really not.

To assist you to recognize which type of hunger you're feeling, seriously think about this little Hunger-Satiety Rating Scale.

Satiety

10 = Stuffed to the point of feeling sick

9 = Very uncomfortably full, need to loosen your belt

8 = Uncomfortably full, feel stuffed

7 = Very full, feel as if you have overeaten

6 = Comfortably full, satisfied

Neutral

5 = Comfortable, neither hungry nor full

4 = Beginning signals of hunger

Hungry

3 = Hungry, ready to eat

2 = Very hungry, unable to concentrate

1 = Starving, dizzy, irritable

Where do your habits fit into this scale? If you are waiting to eat until you are "starving", irritable, or unable to concentrate, you will likely eat beyond a comfortable feeling of fullness just to get rid of those bad physical feelings.

Pay close attention; start eating when you have early signals of hunger (level 4) and stop eating when you are comfortably full (level 6).

Keep a written record of your feelings of hunger, using this scale. This will help you to recognize if you are waiting too long to eat, or eating beyond a comfortable, satisfied level. Record what and how much you are eating - when you are too hungry versus the times you are just beginning to feel hunger.

This exercise will assist you to adjust your eating schedule to accommodate your true need for food.

You can find more tips in Janean's book Maintenance Mentality.

Reference: The Hunger-Satiety Rating Scale Why Weight? ( G. Roth, New York, NY, Penguin Books, 1989).