Learning that the intensity of your hunger sensation is not related to how much you need to eat to satisfy the hunger, but rather, how soon you need to address the hunger, is what changed the game for me.

Instead of responding to feeling ravenous by getting in the kitchen cooking a big meal and sitting down to eat, 40 minutes after I felt hungry, eating easily 2-3 portions, and justifying it with “well I haven’t eaten all day”.

Now I have an orange or something the second I start to feel that intense hunger, go distract myself, and then 20 minutes later I can think clearly, without food noise and intense hunger to cause me to pile crap onto my plate. So now I can plan a well portioned meal that fits within my goals.

But I think part of that is that I have poor interoception, I never felt hungry unless I was already ravenous. Learning to identify hunger before it turns into “eat everything in sight” is something I need to do. I’m still not very good at it, but I’m better. (for context with my interoception, I also can’t tell when I need to pee, or when I’m tired, or when I’m too hot or cold. I’ll just randomly feel shooting pain in my hand, look down and notice my fingers are turning blue, then remember to put a jacket on)

I don’t like feeling over-hungry because it gives me migraines and I get really nauseous and end up dry wretching when I know what I need is calories. Hence why in the past if I started to feel hungry I’d overeat to really try and nip that sensation in the bud. I failed at diets in the past because I assumed that you were supposed to be constantly hungry, and for me hungry is painful, so I’d give up on diets pretty quickly.

So I personally need to stay on top of my hunger to stay on track with my calorie intake.