Ep 2 The Physical Hunger Scale in Menopause to Lose Weight

Thinner Peace in Menopause, Weight Loss and Beyond, Episode 2

Dr. Michael Butler: Welcome to Thinner Peace in Menopause. That’s the mindful management of your mind and your body. This is Episode Two. In Episode Two, Dr. Deb is talking about how to listen to your inner voice, your whisper within. And the more you can listen to the whisper, and the more it’ll help you to be thin. So today, Dr. Deb, go ahead, please continue. Tell us why people eat.

Dr. Deb Butler: Hi, this is Dr. Deb, and welcome to Thinner Peace of Menopause. This is Episode Two. And today, what we’re going to talk about is taking that basic instinct of hunger and putting a number on it so that you can decide when you want to eat and when you want to stop. Before I get into that I want to go over a little bit about what we talked about last week about having that basic instinct in your body, to know when you’re hungry and to know when you’re full, to know that each time you take a bite of the food, you have to check in with yourself and ask yourself those questions.

Now, kids don’t do that. They don’t sit down and ask themselves, “Am I hungry?” They know exactly that they’re hungry and they know exactly when to stop. They don’t have to have the scale that I’m going to teach you, because it’s innate in them. And really, to be honest, it’s innate in you, too. So, here’s the truth about being in menopause. Your positive and negative emotions tend to increase, but your actual physical hunger decreases over time. So, the question that I ask you, what are you feeding and why are you gaining weight? Now, most of us want to treat our bodies the way it used to be 10 to 30 years ago, and we want to expect the exact same results that we always got. That seems to get more and more frustrating the older we get, if you know what I mean, at least for me it was. But we also want to look the way we used to look to. So, we want to lose that exact same weight fit into that exact same dress and look just the way we looked when we were 20 even though we’re 50 or 60, not going to happen. What I want to teach you now is how to see yourself as you are now and to check in with your body as it is now. I want you to learn your body now because if you know your body now, then you’re going to know how to treat it now.

So, my first question to you is, “When is it hungry?” “How much does it need to feel full?” are two basic questions and it’s a physiological fact that your metabolism goes down as you age. And I think you know this. But really, if you look at a chart over 30 years, if you continue to eat what you ate when you were 20 years old, the same amount of calories and you’re 50 now, you would have easily gained 30 pounds without changing anything, just because your metabolism goes down a certain percentage every year. And if you give it 30 years, it’s going to end up to be around 30 pounds. When you start paying attention to this physical hunger, and I’m telling you that your appetite has decreased because your metabolism has decreased. It’s interesting that so many of us around 50 years old don’t even recognize that our appetite has decreased. We think that it’s increased. And I think the reason that we think that it’s increased is because we have stronger emotions that we’re not handling and it’s very, very easy to confuse emotional sensations in your body from physical sensations in your body. I have a lot of my clients tell me that they’re hungry all the time. They tell me that when they sit down to eat, and they think they’re hungry, that they don’t feel full, and they’re eating food, and they’re eating the right kinds of food, and they’re still not feeling full. And yet I have other clients tell me that they know they’re full. They’re very sure that they’re full, but they want to keep eating anyway. You probably fall somewhere in that category of either not feeling full or knowing that you’re full and wanting to eat anyway. So, what if you’re feeding emotions instead of what true physical hunger is, but you never paid attention to it before to notice this? Many of my clients tell me they know they’re emotional eaters. And when I asked them why they think this is, they say it’s because they have to eat when they’re under stress like this is just a fact of life when I’m under stress I eat.

What I want to do with you today is start with the physical hunger in your body, what it feels like how to rate it, how to know how hungry you are. And remember, this is something you always knew how to do. But because you stopped paying attention, you and your body have stopped communicating. Like I’ve said a lot already using food is a great way to help you learn to know your body again. I also want to introduce this concept of the whisper of your body. And I love this because as a chiropractor for so many years, many of my patients came to me when their bodies were screaming, and you know what they wanted for me? To get rid of the screaming fast. What I taught my patients as a chiropractor, that to effectively use the chiropractic adjustments that I knew how to do that they wanted from me, they needed to bring their bodies in earlier, not when it was screaming. But when it was just whispering the whisper of pain, not the screaming of pain. And it was so much easier for me to help them feel better and faster when they came in when it was just whispering. And they didn’t have to suffer as much either. Why is it that we have trained ourselves to only listen to the screaming in our body? Now, eating is really no different than this. Do you feed your body when it’s screaming? Or do you feed it when it whispers? All physical sensations in our body can be rated. I used to ask my patients all the time when they came in, “Tell me from one to 10 how much pain you’re in,” then they would give me a number. And that would help me understand we would have a language that we could talk because I can’t feel their pain. This is what I want to do with you in recognizing your own physical hunger. We’re going to apply numbers to hunger and fullness, so that you have a concept of when to start and when to stop. Now I know you should know this. And I know that I should know this. But I will tell you when I first began this, I did not know this. And the reason I didn’t know it is because as I told you before, I was not paying attention to my body, I was paying attention to points. So, I really didn’t know when to start, when to stop. This episode is a lot more about just learning from your body, when to start eating, and when to stop eating, and to recognize if something gets in the way of those numbers.

So, what I want you to do is to imagine in your mind a scale, and that scale goes from a negative 10 to a plus 10. A negative 10 is when you’re starving and a plus 10 is when you are stuffed. And my best scenario of a plus 10 used to be on Thanksgiving. A plus 10 to me means I had to take my clothes off. I was hot, I was full, I was grumpy. But I had to take my clothes off, I had to unzip my dress, I had to unzip my pants, plus 10. A negative 10, probably not many of us have been there, but I guess if you’ve starved yourself and have paid attention, maybe you do know what it’s like. But I would guess that a negative 10 is your stomach feels like it’s sunken in. Your brain probably feels like it can’t think that would be my guess of the negative 10. So, from a negative 10 to a plus 10, there are a lot of numbers. And what I want you to do is to think about where you might be when you start if you know what a negative 10 is and what the plus 10 is. Know what our goal will be. Our goal will be to start eating at a negative two, and to stop eating at a plus two. Now that is a lot different than this range of negative 10 to plus 10. There’s a huge range there. But if you think about a negative two to a plus two, it’s not a very big range. And really, it’s not a lot of food, which is so amazing when we first start this, that to bring ourselves up to a plus two does not take a lot of food to feel satisfied. What does a negative two feel like? I think a negative two, now, you know, I’ve been using this term a lot is like a whisper in your body. It’s a whisper in your stomach, that tells your mind that it’s time to start doing something about food. It’s time to start eating and it’s so light, that it’s easy to ignore, if you’ve never paid attention to it, it’s this whisper of hunger. Now, a plus two is also a whisper of fullness. If we’re not used to paying attention to whispers in our body, it is very easy to ignore this, and it is very easy to think that you’re still hungry. So, this takes training. And this is where we’re starting. That’s why I always like to start with this physical hunger first, before we get into the emotions, because I want you to be able to identify what this feels like for you.

So, for instance, for me, a negative two is really there’s no grumbling going on in my body, and I do not feel light-headed. But I do maybe have a little bit of growling maybe just a little bit and I know that it’s just time to do something. I know my stomach is asking me for something because I’m tuned into it now. But it was so easy when I was on Weight Watchers and I was counting points to ignore that negative two, I could wait till a negative six easily. I wanted to be really hungry when I ate those points because I thought I deserved them, I would put a lot away for one meal, and I really wanted to enjoy it. And the most interesting thing to me about this point system that I used to use is that if you’re eating 10 points at a meal, sometimes it goes way beyond the plus two. But to me, I wanted to go beyond a plus two. I wanted to feel really full, but a plus two is what I’m telling you now it doesn’t feel that full at all. It is a whisper of fullness. And a plus six is more like a screaming of fullness right we’ve got this whisper and screaming thing going on. We’re starting to pay attention to the whispers. So, when you sit down to eat, you want to be at a negative two which means by the time you sit down, you may be feeling the negative one and starting to think about it a little bit. And then this negative two you’re really sitting down to eat. And let me tell you the difference for me between eating at a negative two and eating at a negative five. A negative five I’m definitely got some rumbling, some growling in my stomach, and I’m also starting to feel a little light-headed, might be a little crabby. If I go to a restaurant and I’m in the negative five or negative six, say I’m going out for lunch. And we have this restaurant here in St. Louis called “Companion” and they have the most beautiful baked goods and they’re all in the front window for everybody to see and you see it as you’re ordering your lunch. When I’m in the negative five or negative six, you know what looks really good to me? The pretzel roll. That’s what I want to eat. Why? Because I’m way too hungry to choose what is really good for my body and my body is becoming compulsive, the urge is stronger, and my choices seem less. That’s where the negative five or negative six. If I go into companion in the negative two, it is so easy for me to feed my body something that is healthy. It’s an easy choice. Does that make sense to you? I hope it does. Because this negative two, this whisper is so important when you start to eat. And now this plus two, when to stop? So. I’m at Companion. I started at my negative two. I’m eating, for me I eat salads a lot with lots of beautiful vegetables and I also have chicken, salmon, whatever, something in it. That’s a lot of times what I like to eat, and I enjoy it thoroughly. Okay, it’s a pretty big salad. When do I stop eating? Do I stop eating when the food is gone? Or do I stop eating when my body is at a plus two? Or do I stop eating when my body is at a plus six. There’s so many different things going on here. Well, first of all, what I’m not going to do is decide when to stop eating based on if my bowl is empty or not. And we’ll get a lot more into that later on. But for now, I just want you to know that you don’t stop eating because the food is gone, you stop eating because your body says it’s time to stop. Now, your body, you could be tuned into your body, it’s stopping at a plus six, because that’s what you’ve always done and that’s what feels full to you. But when you’re starting to really tune into this whisper, you’re going to go to this light satisfaction. You can be satisfied way before you’re at a plus six. And to me when I’m actually at a plus two I really feel light and energetic like I could go out and walk. I don’t think I could go out and jog, but I could go out and walk, and I don’t feel tired. That’s a difference to me between a plus two and a plus five, or six. Plus five or six, I don’t want to take my clothes off, like plus 10. But I really don’t feel like using my brain to do anything, I feel like taking a nap plus five plus six. So that’s a little bit about how the physical hunger scale works. And you’ll be able to go to my website and be able to get this PDF on The Hunger Scale so you can look at it for yourself, and you could look at the ranges. But for now, you just want to imagine it in your head. You just want to imagine in your mind what it looks like. And you want to be able to almost see the scale going up as you eat. And the interesting thing about going from a negative two to a plus two is that really, it’s almost like the size of your stomach. Like if you could see the size of your stomach, it’s the size of a fist. It doesn’t require that much food. And I think the biggest change in me from when I used to do a point system, to going with the whispers of my own body is that I eat so much less. And when people who have known me for a long time watch me eat, they think I’m on a diet because I eat so much less. But really, I’m not on any diet, other than my body says this is what it requires and I’m listening to it. This is what I want for you, to be able to pay attention to those whispers in your body, not the screaming, the screaming is the negative sixes negative sevens, the plus sixes, the plus sevens. The whisper is the negative two and the plus two. That’s going to be the sweet sound. That’s what you’re going to be working on.

Another way to apply this is when you’re with your kids or your grandkids and how do you feed them? I think that you feed them when they’re in the whispers of hunger. Not at the screaming. And I mean literally really, because none of us want screaming kids, we want to feed them way before they get to this point. And this is the way I want you to equate this physical hunger scale to you. When you’re negative sixes and negative sevens, you’re screaming, you’re screaming, your kids would be screaming, they would be throwing a tantrum. You don’t want to get to that point. You got it. You don’t want to get to that point. So, you want to do for you what you’ve always done for your kids. This is exactly what I trained my chiropractic patients to do with their bodies when they were in pain. And we called it “maintenance care.” You can learn to treat all your physical sensations like this, all your physical sensations. You pay attention to the whispers, you take action early to avoid negative results. Now, physical sensations in your body are all involuntary actions. That’s what I’m talking about. So hunger is involuntary. When it hits, there’s nothing you can do about it other than feel it and act on it. Pain is another involuntary action. Sleep, another involuntary action, and actually the urge to go to the bathroom, another involuntary action. And all of those things can be equated to scream some whispers. I know what you do with your kids. And I know why you do this with your kids, because it’s easier on you and on them. The happier the kid, the happier you are. Have you ever had a kid or a grandkid throw a tantrum in the store because they haven’t eaten? It is not a pretty sight. And it’s really hard to calm them down. And you don’t get any shopping done. You get where I’m going with this?

So just for this week, this is what I want you to do. I want you to pay attention to this physical hunger scale in your head. And every time you put something in your mouth, I want you to rate yourself hunger before you eat, and I want you to rate your hunger after you eat. You might be thinking to yourself, “I don’t want to do this all the time. I don’t want to have to go through all this all the time.” But you know what? Right now, you have to get this connection going. It’s like training your body to do something that it’s always known how to do, you just forgot. And we always talk about athletes, how muscles have memory? Well, really, it’s the same thing with your body when it comes to these sensations. Your brain in your body already have this connection. It’s just been disconnected. So right now, you’re just in training, and once the connection happens, you won’t have to think about it anymore. It will be automatic, just like it is for your kids. So, when you sit down to eat, you want to be at a negative two. And when you stop eating, you want to try to stop at a plus two. It may be a little difficult in the beginning to even decide what these numbers are. Just go with your best guess that’s all you have to do. If it’s not exactly the right number doesn’t really matter. The thing that matters the most is that you’re paying attention to you. You’re not going to let yourself scream and yell anymore like your body has been doing. You’re going to treat yourself like you do to your kids, just like I said in the last episode, and you’re going to do it’s like having respect for yourself again, it’s like saying to yourself, that you matter. You know, really what we could actually call this second episode, “How To Become A Body Whisperer”, because that’s really what you’re learning how to do is you’re learning how to pay attention to the whispering in your body, so that you get so much better results in your life. And this might be a great time when you’re sitting down to eat and you’re putting something in your mouth and you’re asking yourself where you are on your hunger scale. Might be a great time, you know, to jot a few notes down about what you notice. Like you notice that you can’t tell the difference between a two or four, just write that down. Or you notice that when you get to a plus two, you want to still eat. Just write that down, don’t judge it, just write it. You’re just learning about yourself. Make yourself like a science experiment about you, where you’re looking at yourself more like the observer with less judgment. You will learn so much about yourself. So next week, what we’re going to talk about is “The What That Gets In The Way.” And that’s going to be your emotional hunger scale, which is different from the physical hunger scale that we talked about today. The emotional hunger scale it is, it’s all in your mind, and you need to learn it. I also want to help you differentiate and then take action between physical hunger and emotional hunger. It’s going to be juicy, but for this week, honoring the physical sensations in your body, going from a negative to two a plus two, and just being able to notice it. It’s such a great honor and such a great respect that you can do for yourself. And it’s really exciting when you start just paying attention. Until next week, look inner to be thinner.

Dr. Michael Butler: To get a free copy of Dr. Deb’s companion workbook, with all the tools, homeworks and discussions that she uses in her podcast with our private clients, please go to drdebbutler.com/change. This will make it even easier to follow along with her in future broadcasts.