WEEK 2 CHALLENGES
Body Reconnection: Fullness & Habitual Eating
Goal:
This week's goal is to further reconnect with your fullness cues and appetite, specifically to overcome thoughts of: I should/shouldn’t. You’ve already practiced that amazingly last week. This week, we focus more to get even more awareness.
In the second half of the week, we’ll start addressing habitual eating. Over the weekend, we’ll practice changing your reactions. For now, I’m keeping it open because I don’t want to overwhelm you with content. In our call on Friday, let me know how you’re doing. If you’re ready, I’ll add more content that day. If not, we’ll address it next week :)
Day 1-3
Understanding Your Fullness Window (Challenge 4)
🔔 The goal of this exercise is to notice how long you feel full for. Being aware of your individual portion size and how long it keeps you satisfied will make choosing your next meal easier, whether that’s a bigger meal or a snack in between..
This is just a quick additional exercise that deepens what we touched on last week (fullness intro).
For now, I want you to become more aware of how many hours you are usually full—not to track time, but to get an idea of what your body usually needs and to build trust in it.
I eat bigger meals, especially for lunch and breakfast. During the beginning of my recovery, I noticed that I eat lunch 4-6 hours after breakfast. Not because some app told me, but because my body did. When I was hungry after 4 hours instead of 5 or 6, I could tell it was because I moved more, had a smaller breakfast, less protein, etc. I found it super interesting to feel my body telling me when to eat and being aware of what I had for breakfast. A shorter period, like four instead of six hours, made sense.
Why are we doing this? I want you to observe your body and gain more proof that it will tell you when to eat, not some rule (build more trust).
So while you observe, pay attention, but don’t let your food choice and eating time be influenced. Just see this as getting more insight into how your hunger and fullness work.
Tip: Protein makes us feel full for longer. Try to add that to your breakfast if you can’t eat snacks in between.
Or have snacks ready (anything from hard-boiled eggs, nuts, fruits, cheese, or even sweets—whatever you prefer to fill the time between bigger meals).
✅ Feel free to re-watch last weeks videos I added on Sep 12th 👍🏽
→ Rewatch the video from min 6. I explain a bit more in detail why knowing your fullness window is beneficial
Day 2-3
Appetite II (Challenge 5)
🔔 This is a quick additional exercise to challenge 2 from last week. Guilt often arises from not being aware of why we eat.
In this challenge, I want you to practice distinguishing between physical hunger and snack/appetite hunger and juts becoming more aware of why you eat.
I want you to ask yourself what kind of hunger you are experiencing:
The pure physical hunger you noticed in challenge one
Or is it simple appetite?
Dessert, cake is an appetite, which is just as important to honor as your physical hunger signals.
You experienced it several times last week, and today and tomorrow, I want you to become even more aware of it. Normalize snacking, whether for appetite or a little hunger, and move past the mindset of “I should wait for time XYZ to eat.” :)
→ a useful additional video to help you better differentiate
↓
Here to the Action Plans
Day 4 and 5
Habitual Eating (Challenge 6)
🔔 We now dive into habitual eating. First I want you to understand what it is and observe your own habits to see how it shows up in your daily routine.
For today and tomorrow, please watch all the videos below.
It's important that you truly understand the difference between habitual/emotional eating and a regular appetite (→ email me for any questions).
After you've watched the videos, write down moments when you feel the need for habitual/emotional eating.
This is all I want you to do for the first two days. On the weekend, we’ll dive into how to change your reaction.
As you observe your eating, here are some useful prompts:
Has anything triggered my desire to eat? (stress, boredom, insecurity…)
How did my body feel before I ate?
What foods did I crave?
examples ↓
Non-habitual: “I was hungry and wanted pasta” or “I craved ice cream because I had an appetite."
Habitual eating: "I wasn’t hungry, but I felt unsure about what I wanted and then felt confused about why I couldn’t decide, so I had several ice cream.'“ → In this case, the emotion would be overwhelm/stress, and the ice cream provided comfort. We’d need to change this reaction.
Was I able to stop eating when I felt full?
✅ You do not have to ask these questions for all meals, only the ones that aren’t clearly driven by hunger or true appetite.
↓
The videos below are an introduction to understanding what a habit truly is and what drives the urge to eat when you’re not hungry or don’t have an appetite.
You will give you better insight into my approach to overcoming habitual eating. For you, emotional eating is the main issue, but strong binge attacks happen for the same reasons, it’s important to know that when you did, two reasons caused them:
→ Restriction/diets (body disconnection — for you only leftovers from the intermitted fasting back then) + the habit
We’ve addressed your body disconnection, worked on it last week and earlier this week, and now we’ll work on eliminating the habit that causes emotional eating.