Dieting is, at its core, about following someone else’s rules for your body.
To follow these rules about what and when to eat, we often tune out our body’s natural hunger and fullness cues — the signals that are part of our internal awareness system, known as interoception. When we trust and follow diet rules, not our own bodies, we further degrade interoception, which can make eating feel confusing and harder to regulate.
When we lose touch with our body’s internal cues, we become accustomed to eating for reasons other than hunger. This paves the way for emotional eating and impulsive eating, which makes it even harder to notice or trust our internal cues. Poor interoception is associated with emotional over-eating and is predictive of higher body mass index, according to a recent study.
Other studies show that strong interoception is associated with healthy eating habits and well-being. Learning how to listen and respond to our hunger and satiety cues — the fundamentals of intuitive eating — is a prerequisite to developing a sustainable nutrition habit.
Begin strengthening your interoception with these approaches.
Exercises to Build Interoception
The noise of diet rules and restrictions crowds out the more subtle and quiet messages your body is sending, so lower the volume on diets to become aware of your hunger cues. Though tuning into your natural signals seems easy, it takes a conscious effort at first. These exercises can help:
Body scans. Pause, take a deep breath, and bring your awareness to the sensations in your body, observing without judgment — are you feeling pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? What’s your energy level and mood? Notice any hunger sensations and where you feel them in your body. What is your body trying to tell you? Set a timer to remind yourself to check in with your body once or twice a day to start.
Before eating, rate your hunger level (or lack of hunger) using a scale like this from the University of California at Berkeley:
- Starving, no energy, very weak
- Very hungry, low energy, weak and dizzy
- Uncomfortably hungry, distracted, irritable
- Hungry, stomach growling
- Starting to feel hungry
- Satisfied, but could eat a little more
- Full but not uncomfortable
- Overfull, somewhat uncomfortable
- Stuffed, very uncomfortable
- Extremely stuffed, nauseous
Check in with your body more universally. Are you thirsty? Tired? Stressed?
Think about the emotions you’re feeling. Are you happy, nervous, sad, lonely, bored? Notice these feelings without judgment, and understand they can drive you to take action, such as eating, though they’re not necessarily tied to hunger.
How to Honor Your Body’s Needs
Once you understand the language your body is using to communicate its needs and desires, you can — and should — listen to it.
Attend to early hunger cues when you’re at a 3 or 4 on the scale above. Don’t wait too long to eat in an attempt to reduce your calorie intake. This can backfire, causing you to become famished and overeat.
Eat mindfully. As you eat, notice the texture, tastes, and temperature of the food. Consider how it’s making you feel. Does it feel nourishing? Is it satisfying a craving?
Feel your fullness. It’s easy to distractedly eat until you finish what’s on your plate — or the whole bag of chips, especially if you’re doing something else, like watching TV. It’s important to notice when you’re starting to feel full. Try to create simple check-in strategies like pausing once or twice during meals or snacking to see if your sense of fullness has changed.
A Mindfulness Practice for Eating
Research shows that a mindfulness practice, which allows you to tune into the sensations of your body, like your heartbeat and muscle tension, may improve your perception of hunger and satiety. In a study of mindfulness training specifically for hunger and satiety, participants were asked to do the following exercises once a day for eight minutes. Tackle the first exercise for a week, then move onto the second one the following week.
- Hunger meditation. Before eating, sit comfortably in a quiet space. Focus on your perception of hunger signals, including the location in your belly, and their intensity.
- Satiety meditation. Tune in to your stomach’s sensations, this time after a meal. Do you feel full, and if so, how full? What kind of sensations comprise the experience of fullness?
Once you become better at recognizing your bodily cues in a quiet environment, you will begin to notice them in your busier contexts, such as at work or with friends.
Rebuilding interoception takes practice, but each small step strengthens your ability to trust your body. Over time, hunger and fullness cues become clearer, eating feels less confusing, and food can return to being a source of nourishment and enjoyment — not stress.
