Reconnect with Your Natural Hunger and Fullness Cues

The Hunger Fullness Scale is a helpful way to tune into your body’s signals before, during, and after meals.

Recovery often involves relearning these cues, especially after long periods of eating disordered behaviors and disrupted appetite signals. This tool encourages awareness rather than perfection, guiding you toward consistency and balance with eating.

Why Using the Hunger Fullness Scale Supports Recovery

Understanding your hunger and fullness cues helps shift your focus from external rules to internal guidance. Instead of basing your intake on food rules or fear, this practice encourages compassion and awareness of your body's needs so you can respond with care.

The Hunger Fullness Scale helps you:

• Build awareness of appetite fluctuations throughout the day.

• Reduce anxiety by connecting physical sensations with emotional understanding.

• Support a balanced, mindful relationship with food and body trust.

This scale serves as a daily anchor for self-awareness at mealtimes.

What’s Included

The Hunger Fullness Scale outlines the spectrum of sensations your body may experience from hunger to fullness:

• The Hunger Fullness Scale outlines the spectrum of sensations your body may experience before, during, or after eating:

• 0–3: Hunger Signals and Lack of Focus
  Feeling empty, lightheaded, irritable, or distracted - your body is asking for nourishment.

• 4–5: Transitional Sensations
  You notice the first hints of hunger or start to feel comfortably satisfied - ideal moments to begin or continue eating.

• 6–8: Satiety and Comfort
  You feel pleasantly full, content, and energized - your body has what it needs to function well.

• 9–10: Overfull or Discomfort
  You may feel physically uncomfortable or disengaged.

Using this scale daily builds mindfulness around nourishment and helps you eat in a way that supports energy, healing, and emotional balance.  This worksheet can be used independently or as a collaborative tool in treatment with a therapist, registered dietitian, or care team.