WEEK 1 CHALLENGES
Body Reconnection: Hunger, Fullness and your Appetite
Goal:
This week's goal is to reconnect with your hunger, fullness cues, and appetite. It’s clear that you have an amazing and confident understanding of the foods you enjoy and generally a healthy relationship with certain ingredients.
The obsession isn’t necessarily driven by guilt or a fear of weight gain/desire to lose weight, but rather by a disconnect when it comes to your hunger and fullness signals, and habitual eating driven by emotions. This week, we’ll focus on addressing that first part.
In Practice:
You acknowledge that you don’t fully understand your hunger and fullness cues, which suggests that the physical side of eating—recognizing when you’re truly hungry or full—is still an area you’re learning to navigate. Building this trust is crucial and will lay the foundation for the next three weeks when we focus primarily on habitual eating.
Because of the body disconnection, likely lingering from intermittent fasting, it can be harder for you to trust your body’s signals, potentially leading to overeating or bingeing at night and obsessing over certain foods.
🔔 Please take note of your emotional triggers, situations, or anything that happens before a binge and drives binge urges. No need for pen and paper—just make quick notes on your phone whenever you notice a trigger. Feel free to email them to me by the end of each day. This will help me tremendously over the next three weeks. :) Thank you!
👉🏽 If you notice any difficulties, please write them down and share them with me during our call/email. That way, I can adjust next week's challenges to keep the progress going for you :)
Updates (Sep 12th) Additional Content:
Here is an additional video on how to manage snacks. Let's discuss this further in our next call, but this will give you a better understanding of how to manage snacks between meals.
✅ This way, you won't have to wait too long and then end up being too hungry when it’s time to eat, making you more likely to overeat.
Day 1, 2 & 3
Hunger Reconnection (Challenge 1)
🔔 You seem to have an overall good relationship with food, but there’s a misunderstanding in your bodies cues and trusting its signals.
So the goal of this exercise is for you to feel and react to your inner hunger, the physical one to get a better understanding and build stronger trust.
For three days, only recognize physical hunger
Eat when you feel physically hungry
Check in with yourself and see if you notice any of the hunger signs below.
When you do feel hungry, eat.
If you’re not hungry, that’s okay. Wait.
Don’t push it out or eat when not physically hungry just to 'pre-eat' because you know later it won’t be possible or inconvenient
Focus solely on eating when you feel physical hunger signs
→ Don’t focus on ingredients or portion size; prioritize reacting to your hunger signs.
→ For example, when you wake up, check in and see if you feel hungry. If not sure, wait and eat when you feel sure.
→ Have snacks or ingredients ready for when you are not at home but feel sudden hunger.
→ We are doing this because I want to gain awareness of what your needs are. When are you hungry, for how long etc.
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Physical Hunger Signs:
Stomach Growling: A rumbling or growling stomach.
Low Energy: Feeling tired, weak, or lightheaded.
Headache: A dull headache or feeling foggy.
Shakiness: Feeling shaky or jittery.
Hollow Feeling: An empty or hollow sensation in the stomach.
Mental Hunger Signs:
Difficulty Concentrating: Trouble focusing or thinking clearly.
Irritability: Feeling more easily frustrated or moody.
Food Thoughts: Constantly thinking about food or what to eat.
Cravings: A specific desire for certain types of food.
Anxiety: Feeling anxious or uneasy, often tied to thoughts about food.
Watch this video to better understand what hunger feels like.
Day 4
Fully Aware of Your Appetite (Challenge 2)
🔔 I can clearly see that you have great awareness of your appetite 😊
I still want to add this 1-day exercise to pay extra attention to your appetite on day three. Focus on eating until you feel satisfied. Only when you eat what you truly want in the moment can you reach that point, which will help with your fullness and aid in stopping habitual eating during the following challenges.
After the two three days, now start recognizing your appetite by doing the following:
Before deciding what to eat, check in with yourself and ask what you truly crave. If sweets or binge foods come to mind, ask if it’s what you really want or if it’s due to emotions or any trigger (the action plans will help you with the thought process).
If you’re unsure, experiment. Try a specific sauce and see how you feel after. If the need for more persists, although you may be physically full, but not mentally satisfied, adjust for the next meal.
If you have no clue what you like, browse Pinterest for meal ideas. Whatever seems appealing, try it out. If you like it, have it again. If not, adjust and continue exploring.
→ Don’t focus on portion size yet. Just add honoring your appetite to respecting your physical hunger signals (challenge 1).
✍🏻 After each meal, take a few minutes to reflect on how you feel. Note any feelings of guilt or satisfaction. I don’t want you to put a number on how you feel, but I want you to be aware of how listening to your hunger signals and appetite leads to positive changes.
Perhaps you're already doing this fully, in which case this exercise will just build more confidence by making you even more aware of your appetite. The more confidence you have in your cues, the better!
❓If anything is unclear, please email me and ask. I want you to fully understand the exercises, so don’t hesitate to reach out 🤗
Day 5, 6 and 7
Fullness Reconnection (Challenge 3)
🔔 The goal of this exercise is for you to feel your inner fullness, and understanding your portion size and eating frequency.
How long are you usually full? This differs from person to person. Our goal is it to learn your fullness language to build back trust, able to stop when full and without relying on your work schedule especially when snacking.
For the last three days of week 1, focus on feeling your fullness in addition to challenges 1 and 2, so that you can consciously experience what fullness actually feels like, both physically and mentally.
I won’t give you tips like chewing a certain number of times or sitting at the table. Instead, pay attention to your fullness signals by stopping, checking in, and asking yourself the AP questions, answering honestly.
I created a list below with examples to help you identify signs of fullness—both physical and mental. I tried to make it as realistic as possible (the phone example), because I want you to really understand those moments of increased fullness.
→ Don’t focus on stopping easily just yet—we’ll work on that next week. For now, I want you to simply understand and acknowledge your fullness signals, just like you did earlier this week with your hunger.
→ Video 1 linked above is an addition to this challenge
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Physical Signs:
Increased Energy: You may start feeling more energized rather than sluggish/weak.
Slowed Eating Pace/Pause: You naturally slow down as you become more satisfied. You might even pause more often or get distracted more easily (for example, checking your phone and stopping eating to answer a message, as eating is no longer your top priority when you feel fuller and more satisfied). You find yourself naturally pausing or putting down your utensil, feeling content rather than driven to keep eating.
Comfortable Stomach: A sense of ease and calmness in your stomach, without tightness or discomfort.
Reduced Cravings: Your desire for more food or specific tastes diminishes. You might feel unsure or ‘whatever’-mood.
Satiated Appetite: Food starts to lose its appeal, even if you continue to eat. Especially when you eat something you were really in the mood for, it’s not as delicious as it was when you started.
Light Burping: A light burp can be a subtle sign that your stomach is full ☺️
Mental Signs:
Less Focused on Food: Your thoughts begin to shift away from the meal or snack. For example, you might mentally shift your focus to something else, like the text message mentioned above.
Increased Awareness: You become more aware of your surroundings and less preoccupied with eating. Like when watching a show, you start to pay more attention to the show itself, whereas before you were more focused on your food, its taste, and so on.
Emotional Calmness: A sense of contentment and satisfaction replaces any previous anxiety about eating.
Shift in Interest: Your attention may start to wander to other activities or tasks. You might think about when to do the laundry or remember that you need to book a table for dinner this weekend.
Decline in Taste Intensity: The flavors are less vibrant or exciting as you continue eating.
Satisfaction: A clear feeling that you've had enough and don't need more (which will become more obvious with continued practice and trust-building).
I’ve added a couple of videos that will help you with understanding fullness over the weekend. Next week, we will explore fullness in more depth, and you'll learn how to better respect it. In the meantime, these videos offer practical tips that you can try out during the weekend.