Ep. 008 - The Hunger Scale

SHOW NOTES

I have an incredibly simple but very effective tool you can use that will greatly help improve your eating habits...

Have you ever noticed there seems to be a lot of 'rules' you can follow with respect to losing weight? What about using weight loss 'tools' instead?

I believe in providing people with effective tools to succeed and one of the tools I love to use and teach is called THE HUNGER SCALE.

In the today's episode of Man in the Arena, I explain what the Hunger Scale is, and how to use it so you can identify how much food you need to eat rather than restricting your diet and depriving yourself.

 TRANSCRIPT

 Today I'm gonna teach you about a simple tool you can use to identify how much food you need to eat. Rather than restricting your diet or depriving yourself,

welcome to Man in the Arena, your go-to podcast for all things related to health and weight loss for men over 40. Here we discuss strategies that will get you off the sidelines and into the game so you can achieve your optimal health. It's time to lead a legacy of longevity. Welcome back to Man in the Arena.

I'm so glad you are here. For those of you who I haven't met, my name is Craig Spear. I'm a former professional football player, turned Ironman and Entrepreneur. I'm also a certified weight loss coach, and I'm here today to tell you about a very practical tool that I teach that helps my guys lose weight and live a healthier life.

And it's called The Hunger Scale. Now, let's face it, we all have different demands calling upon us every day, and that makes pursuing our health goals and weight loss a challenge at times. So the idea of counting calories or measuring our macros, or journaling about our food isn't very practical in my opinion, and that's where the hunger scale comes in.

So today we're gonna dive deep into the hunger scale. We're gonna talk about the science behind it. We're gonna explore some common myths and misconceptions about weight loss, and then I'm gonna share some practical tips for you to incorporate the hunger scale into your daily routine. So let's first talk about the science behind the hunger scale.

Now the hunger scale is a concept based on intuitive eating, which is the idea that our bodies are naturally equipped to regulate our food intake based on our hunger and our fullness cues. So in other words, our bodies know when we're hungry and when we're full. And if we listen to those signals, we can maintain a healthy weight without relying on restrictive diets or meal plants.

Now, unfortunately, many of us have lost touch with our internal hunger and our fullness cues due to a variety of factors. And the ones that I see most commonly are the emotions that we have, and mainly our thoughts around the availability of food. And, and a lot of these were conditioned in us when we're really young.

And so we're, when we're disconnected from our bodies, we may eat when we're not hungry. Or we overeat or we turn to food as a way to cope with our emotions and different stressful situations. And so that's where the hunger scale comes in. By paying attention to our internal cues and using the hunger scale as a guide, we can start to learn how to eat intuitively and make choices that support our health and our wellbeing.

But I want to be very clear here, the hunger scale is a tool. It's not a rule. It's not something that you have to use all the time or an on an ongoing basis. What I'm saying is it's available to you whenever you want to gain new insights and understanding about what your body needs. Okay, now let's address some of the common myths and misconceptions about weight loss.

And one of the biggest misconceptions is that weight loss is simply a matter of calories in versus calories out. And while it's true that creating a caloric deficit is necessary for weight loss, it's not the entire story. Our bodies are complex systems that respond to a variety of factors, including hormones, genetics, our microbiome in our gut.

And then at the same time, many diets and weight loss programs promote restrictive eating patterns, and that can actually backfire in the long run. So when we deprive ourselves of certain foods and nutrients, we trigger feelings of deprivation, and this leads to overeating and binge eating later on. This is why it's so important to focus on sustainable, enjoyable eating patterns rather than quick fix solutions, and that's where the hunger scale can be particularly helpful.

When we tune into our bodies and eat in response to our natural hunger and fullness cues, we avoid feelings of deprivation. And we enjoy a variety of foods in a way that's balanced and it's sustainable. So there are a few different variations of the hunger scale, but here's the one that I use and the one that I teach.

So think of the scale as being a spectrum. On one end you have negative 10. In the middle you have zero. And then on the far end of the spectrum or the scale, you have positive 10. So it goes negative 10 to zero to positive 10. Now, negative 10 is a really dire situation. It's starvation, it's an emergency.

It's something that hopefully no one ever gets to anyone that you know, or hopefully you would never get to. It's a really dire situation, but it gives context to the scale. So complete starvation, you haven't eaten in days on the far end of the scale is positive 10, and this is over fullness. This is, again, extreme in nature, but on the opposite end of the spectrum and you haven't eaten, or maybe you overate rather you know, for six hours at the buffet.

It's really extreme, but again, it gives context to the scale and rate in the middle is zero, and zero is neutral. Satiating, you're not hungry, you're not full. It's just a nice balanced place to be. Now, very rarely are we at a zero, okay? Because where we ultimately want to live on this scale is we wanna live between negative four and positive four.

So think of it this way, negative one is little hint of hunger, starting to kind of feel a little bit of emptiness in your stomach. Starting to growl, maybe just a little bit negative two. You're further away from your last meal, maybe a couple hours negative three. Again, those hues start to intensify even more, so even more hunger and emptiness in the stomach, growling in the stomach, and then of course, negative four.

Now it's time to eat, right. It's either I'm breaking my fast or I've been a couple hours or a few hours since my last meal, and I'm ready to go. Okay. We never really want to go beyond negative four because when we get to negative five and negative six, what tends to happen is we swing in the opposite direction.

When it's time to eat, we're gonna overeat to a plus five and a plus six. So when we get to negative four, chances are we're gonna eat to the opposite side of the scale to a plus four, and that's why we wanna live within that kind of boundary. Okay, negative five, negative six to me looks like skipping meals, working through meals, forgetting to eat.

And so what happens internally is you become very food sensitive. Very food focused, and what I've witnessed in my own life and then in the clients that I teach, is when they get to a negative five and negative six, they start to look for foods that are calorically dense. Burgers, french fries, potato chips, candy stuff that's got a lot of calories in it because they're essentially in a state of deprivation and they gotta fill that gap.

They gotta get those calories back. So if we could stay within negative four and plus four, we're more nutrient focused. We're focused on fat, fiber, protein foods with lots of vitamins and minerals, fruit and vegetables, those sort of things that help us nourish our body. That's why I really like to stay within the negative four to the plus four.

And then as you get more familiar with this scale, then you can start to maybe, uh, refine it a little bit. So you're eating within negative three to a plus three or negative two to a plus two, especially as you're getting closer to the end of your target weight. But when you're starting off, what I want you to do is utilize this scale by tuning in throughout the day.

And specifically, more specifically, tune in when you're about to eat a meal while you're eating that meal, and then after you finish eating that meal, see where you are, you know, before that meal. I'm a negative four as I'm eating this, okay? I'm a, I'm at a negative one. I'm at a zero. I'm at a plus three.

All right, you know what? I've just finished that meal and now I'm at a plus four. I'm good. What I often see is, A lot of guys eat really fast, especially guys that are busy. They've got a lot on their plate. You know, they've got meetings, they've got people to see, appointments to make. They eat really quickly.

And when we eat quickly, we're not allowing ourselves to fully tune into the hunger cues and the fullness cues that we're getting. So this takes a little bit of practice, a little bit of mindfulness, because what happens is if you eat too quickly, You overeat past a plus four, and next thing you know, you know, a few minutes later or even 10 minutes later, you're thinking, oh my God, I'm, I'm so bloated, and I definitely overate there.

Your body needs some time to kind of catch up. So how can you start to incorporate the hunger scale into your daily routine? Here are a few practical tips. I've already shared a couple with you, but pay attention to your fullness cues while you eat. Stop eating when you're satisfied, even if there's still food on your plate.

Remember I said back in earlier in the episode, there's a number of of variables that impact how we eat, and one of those things is the thoughts that we have and one of the thoughts that I often see is you have to finish everything on your plate. In fact, I, I cringe sometimes when I still hear parents say that to their kids that you have to eat everything on your plate because all it's doing is conditioning that child that you know it's wasteful to leave food on your plate.

And. So just eating for the sake of not wasting food creates a really unhealthy relationship with food. Another practical tip is to practice mindfulness while you eat. So avoid distractions like the TV or having your phone with you and instead focus on being present with the taste of the food, the texture of the food, enjoying the company of people you're eating with.

If you listen to music, notice the pace of the music. There's a lot of studies that have been shown that when uh, music is a little faster tempo, we tend to eat faster. So maybe you listen to something that's a little slower or when will kind of subconsciously cause you to eat more slowly. Another thing is to experiment with different types of foods and eating patterns to find out what works best for you.

So some people find that eating smaller, more frequent meals throughout the day helps them stay satisfied and avoid overeating. While other people like myself, I prefer larger meal, and that means less frequent meals. And then lastly, be patient with yourself. So it's gonna take time to relearn your body's natural hunger cues and fullness cues, especially if you've.

Done a weight loss journey before, and, and that was based in dieting or restricting your food intake. And just remember that the hunger scale is a tool, it's not a magic solution, and it's certainly not something you have to do all the time. Okay? It's, it's something that you can rely on when you need it, gain new insight and understanding, and then put it back in the toolbox for a later date.

Okay? So that's all I've got for you today. I just wanna reiterate that using the Hunger Scale can be a really powerful tool for entrepreneurs, for executives, for busy guys over 40 who wanna lose weight and improve their health. I've seen it as a really beneficial thing in my life, and I've seen it work in my client's lives, and I know that you can use this tool very easily, even if you're busy and you've got a lot going on.

Okay? If you wanna stop gaining weight and you wanna lose weight, you want to change the trajectory of your health. Let's connect. You can find me on Instagram at the Spear Method search for me on LinkedIn. Just search Craig Spear and then of course head on over to my website, the spear method.com. Thank you so much for listening.

I look forward to connecting with you again next week, and in the meantime, keep leading a legacy of good health and longevity.

If you're ready to step inside the arena and change the trajectory of your health, head on over to the spear method.com and download by free guide to learn simple and effective strategies on how to optimize your health today.