Welcome back, everyone! I’m so glad that you’re here and ready to learn! I can’t wait to get started with all of you.

The first concept I want to introduce to you is the Hunger Scale. This is the first in a 2-part series about the hunger scale. There are many different hunger scales out there, but I’ll show you which one I like to use. It looks like this:

-10 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 +10

-10 = Starving to death

+10 = So full you want to be sick (like after an extremely indulgent Thanksgiving feast)

0 = Neither hungry, nor full; neutral

The way I describe some of the numbers in between is as follows:

-1 = The very first whisper of hunger

-2 = Where I’m starting to notice that I’m getting hungry

-4 = Hungry. It’s not an emergency but I would really like to eat, sooner than later

+1 = Just starting to feel my stomach filling up

+2 = The hunger is gone and I could run around the block

+4 = The hunger is definitely gone and I feel a nice comfortable fullness. I couldn’t run around the block but I could definitely walk around the block.

Some people have had great success eating -2 to +2. Usually this means eating 5-6 small meals per day.

But the latest weight loss research (which I’ll get into in a future blog post) shows that the action of eating every couple hours causes frequent surges in blood insulin levels, which prevents body fat from being burned. Our goal should be to keep our insulin levels as low as we can, while still eating the fuel we need. One of the best ways to do this is to eat three meals a day without snacks.

If you choose to eat three meals a day without snacks, you can lose weight while eating -4 to +4. And I think eating -4 to +4 feels a lot better in my body. I like being able to eat until I have a nice comfortable fullness in my belly and not having to stop just as the hunger goes away. For me, eating -4 to +4 feels like how my body is meant to eat, meaning it thrives when I eat this way.

In the next post, I’ll help you to zero in on how you can apply the hunger scale to your own eating habits.