Practicing Mindfulness

58. It's okay to be a little hungry.
59. Don't let yourself get too hungry.
60. Consult your gut.

Right, so, as we all know by now, MP has a lot of rules not just about what to eat, but how to eat.  In fact, if you break it down, about 30% of the rules in the book are about how to eat - a ratio that is clearly not reflected in the blog.  Because, as I've also mentioned, these are the rules that I really, really want to pretend don't actually exist.

(UPDATE: I am doing NO BETTER at leaving food on my plate.  I'm compelled to lick the damn thing clean, God help me.)

So, in an effort to better listen, and react accordingly, to the cues my body is giving me, I employed the use of this nifty hunger chart I ran across recently while cruising the interwebs:

So this chart is lifted off a post on some British chick's blog (thanks, StumbleUpon!) about her philosophies on dieting and healthy lifestyle.  I agree with about 85% of what she says on the blog, and I think she's got the right idea with this hunger scale. 

I am, admittedly, slightly skeptical of the numbers this girl throws out there.  She recommends starting to eat when you hit a 4 on the scale, which is defined as "starting to feel hungry and think about food."  I find this utterly baffling, as I am always kind of hungry and thinking about food, so, basically, to fully follow this advice I'd have to eat all the time, which can't be right.  Furthermore, she advocates stopping eating at a 5, as defined as "more or less satisfied, but could eat a little," which falls pretty well in line with Pollan's ideas about stopping eating before you get too full.  BUT, that's only if you're trying to lose weight.  For those happy with their weight and simply trying to maintain, she recommends stopping at a 6, or "perfectly satisfied/content."  Conversely, Pollan repeatedly advocates for stopping while you're still a little hungry.  Rule 58: it's okay to be a little bit hungry.  Rule 55: Stop eating before you're full.  So, there's obviously a small difference in philosophy here.

But the general idea - pay attention to how you feel and don't stuff your face - is essentially the same.  So I decided to do a little experiment and check in with my place on the hunger scale for two full days.  The goal was to start eating when my hunger fell between a 3 and a 4, and to stop eating when it reached somewhere between 5 and 6.

The results were surprising.  I don't know what exactly I was expecting; my best guess was that I would fall on the hungry side of the scale most of the time, and occasionally - accidentally - be way too full.  Which is not actually not an inaccurate summation of my observations, but the little details I started to notice about why and when and how I moved from one number to another on the hunger scale were eye-opening.  The full journal proved fascinating, but somewhat epic, so I'm going to give it its own separate post.  Stay tuned tomorrow.  In the meantime, how do you think you would measure on the scale?