Regardless of if your goal is to gain muscle, lose fat, or maintain your body weight calories become important. What if you don’t want to spend hours measuring food, weighing it out, or counting calories? Is there and easier way to accomplish your goals with out making it so tedious?
Take a deep breath, put the food scale down and let’s talk this out. Learning to listen and obey our bodies cues and signals is the first step to getting or keeping the body you desire. We were born with an innate ability to listen to our bodies. When we were babies, we would cry when we were hungry, and we stopped when we were full. No one had to tell us or show us how to do this. Somewhere along the way as we get older, we got used to ignoring our body signals. Staying awake when we feel tired, not eating when we are hungry, or eating past the point of feeling full becomes part of our life
Eating when you are hungry sounds like such a simple task except when you have ignored this signal for years. For some of us that means we eat because it’s dinner time, instead of when we are actually hungry. For others it’s that when we did feel hungry, we got busy and forgot to eat all day. No matter the circumstance we all would benefit from learning to listening to the messages our body is sending.
Common symptoms of hunger are:
·        Lack of concentration
·        Headache
·        Irritability
·        Headaches
·        Growling stomach or gurgling
·        Shakiness
·        Blurred vision
Before eating take a few minutes to check in with yourself and find out if you are truly hungry. Rate yourself on a scale from 1-10, 1 meaning you aren’t hungry at all, 10 being you are starving. If you are at least at a 7 on the scale, go ahead and eat. If you aren’t hold off until you are. If you are someone who forgets to eat, set an alarm on your phone every 2-3 hours to remind yourself to check in on your hunger level.
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The more you practice observing your hunger cues the easier it will be to differentiate between true hunger and just a craving. With everything, the more you practice the better you will get.