Why would anyone eat if they weren't hungry?
Because it is simply a habit. Many people are so desensitized to their body's messages that they've forgotten how to pay attention. Real physical hunger is different to emotional hunger (which we will deal with later). Physical hunger comes on gradually. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly, when you feel bored or upset. If you starve youself you will end up bingeing. That's how your body gets thrown off balance. In future when you feel physical hunger, eat! When you starve yourself your body goes into ‘survival mode', it slows your metabolism and your body starts to store fat. When you eat when you are truly hungry you tell your body there will always be enough food and your metabolism is likely to speed up.
The Hunger Scale
Take a few moments right now to look at the hunger scale and tune in to your body. How hungry are you right now? Each person is different, but as a general rule, you want to eat whenever you notice yourself between 3 and 4 on the scale - that is when you are fairly hungry, but before you become ravenous. If you wait until you get down to one or two your body will go into starvation mode and you'll end up probably eating more than your body needs and storing the excess as fat. Ideally, you'll want to stop eating at right around 6 or 7 on the hunger scale - when you are feeling pleasantly satisfied or full but not yet stuffed or bloated.
From now on never go into the RED areas!
Of course, if you have been a serial dieter you may be so used to overriding your body's signals that you may at times ‘forget to eat' until you're ravenous or keep eating until you're full or even stuffed before noticing it's time to stop.
If you think this might be you, practise tuning in to your body once an hour until you begin to notice differences between different points on the scale. The more you practise tuning in to your own hunger, the sooner you'll be able to recognize your body's subtle signals long before your stomach growls and your brain starts to get fuzzy.
