More About Hunger-Fullness Scale…

At Way, we believe that there are two main objectives we help you with – helping you listen to your body, and, helping you align your way of living and eating with your values – and the Hunger-Fullness scale is one of the best tools to help you start with the first objective (listening to your body).

Naturally, A Blue Zone Had A Similar Tool

The Hunger-Fullness scale is a tool that was popularized by Intuitive Eating. It wasn’t the first time a tool of this nature was developed – as the Blue Zones author Dan Buettner reports, the people in Okinawa have long used the collective phrase “Hara Hachi Bu“. It means “8 of 10” and they say it out loud together before each meal.

It’s a reminder right as they begin eating, that they should stop eating when they feel 8 of 10 full. The reason behind this is simple physiology – it takes about 15 minutes for your stomach to recognize how much food has been eaten and for the brain to receive that message. So, if you eat until you’re 10 of 10 full, you may end up really being 12 of 10 full – and feel uncomfortably full or bloated as a result.

The History of the Hunger-Fullness Scale

The original observation and purpose of the Hunger-Fullness scale is to give you more understanding of the “gray” areas between being a 0 of 10, aka “Ravenous”, and being 10 of 10, aka “Painfully Full”.

Most of us live in a world where we’re moving so fast and ignoring our body so often, that we wait until we’re a 1 of 10 or even a 0 of 10 before eating – but that’s a really tough place to decide what eat! When you’re sooo hungry, it’s not a good time to choose what food to eat, because your body could be in some sort of survival mode, believing whatever you eat next may be your last meal. Especially if you wait until you’re a 1 of 10 or 0 of 10 regularly.

When you start to understand and apply the wisdom of the Hunger-Fullness scale, you have so many more points in time to make a decision!

The Four Different Types of Hunger

This really opens up the 4 Different Types of Hunger – Practical Hunger, Taste Hunger, Emotional Hunger, and the obvious one we all know, Physical Hunger.

Practical Hunger is when you’re not super hungry now – maybe a 4 of 10 or 5 of 10, but you know that you won’t be able to eat for the next few hours or more, when you may be in the middle of work or a meeting that you can’t eat at. So you eat now, even just something small, so that you aren’t hungry later.

That way, you never get to a 0 of 10 and because you had a little something to eat, you’re making the bigger decision around a whole meal, from the place of being a 3 of 10 or 4 of 10.

Explore Hunger-Fullness Scale in The Way App

There is so much more to learn about your body signals, your emotions and how they influence how you eat, but the Hunger-Fullness scale is a great place to start so that you can practice and really know and absorb an understanding of your hunger cues and signs of fullness.

If you want to explore how to listen to your body deeper, one avenue you can explore is the Body Feels Pathway in the Way app. The purpose of the Body Feels Pathway is to help you learn how to listen to your body – there are specific sessions on the Hunger-Fullness scale and the four different types of hunger, so you can learn more about how to feel what your body signals are saying and know what your body really needs.

Join 10,000+ people who’ve started their journey. We’ve made it affordable at less than $10/month, because our mission is to make your health and happiness, and Way was named the 2023 Best Non Diet App by Healthline, the biggest health website on the internet.