I've been learning a lot on my road to recovery and I'd like to periodically share with the rest of you some of the things I've learned. The first is The Hunger Scale. 

The hunger scale is a helpful tool for everyone. For someone in the depths of an eating disorder, it will probably seem ridiculous at first. We all know how we “should” be eating, but having the knowledge doesn’t make it so. That’s why it’s not just about the numbers but also about some other helpful practices that make it work. 
What is the hunger scale? The hunger scale is a scale that goes from 0 to 10 and measures the level of your hunger/fullness. It looks like this:

At 0, you are empty. You probably haven’t eaten in quite some time (7+ hours). You might be feeling nauseous, dizzy, or light-headed. You might have trouble concentrating. Your metabolism is slowing down to conserve energy. These are all signs that your body is begging for food. 
At 1, you are ravenous. All you can think about is how hungry you are. You are consumed with ideas about what you want to eat. Because you’re so hungry, once you do eat, it’s likely that you will over-eat to compensate.
At 2, you are over-hungry. You’ve been thinking about food for a while now. You are probably irritable. Your stomach might be aching by now. 
At 3, you are having hunger pangs. It’s time to eat. Your body is giving you the natural signals that it needs food. You start to salivate when you think of something that tastes good, and your stomach might be growling. 
At 4, your hunger is just starting to awaken. Eating isn’t your biggest priority, but you’re planning to do it in the next hour or two. 
At 5, you are neutral. You aren’t really hungry but you might have a light snack if someone offers you something. 
At 6, you are just satisfied. You aren’t hungry anymore, but probably will be again fairly soon.
At 7, you are completely satisfied. You got your fill of the food you wanted. You are no longer hungry and you probably won’t need to eat again for 3-5 hours. 
At 8, you are full. You had just a couple bites too many. You might feel a bit bloated like you need to undo the top button of your pants..
At 9, you are stuffed. Your eating experience has surpassed pleasure and is now just uncomfortable. 
At 10, you are sick. You feel terrible. You are likely to throw up or need to lay down until you feel better. 
Ideally, a person begins eating at a 3 and ends eating between a 6 and 7. Even once you’ve mastered the hunger scale will you constantly eat between 3 and 7? No way. There are all kinds of other factors that might effect your eating. Sometimes a hectic schedule causes you to go without food longer than you’d like. Sometimes you take a snack even when you aren’t hungry just to be polite. Sometimes you eat a little beyond your comfort level of a certain food because you rarely get to have it. These are all okay things and you should NEVER criticize yourself for them. Instead, just be mindful of how far you’ve gone below or above your ideal hunger level.
A great way to begin utilizing the hunger scale is to keep a Hunger Journal. No this is NOT a food diary. In fact, I don’t even want you to write down what you’ve eaten. And if you feel hesitant about committing to keep a journal ongoing, then just start with one day, 4 days, or a week at a time. I’ve attached a worksheet that you can use for your Hunger Journal. You can print it out and make copies or print out several. And you might want to save it to your computer (by right-clicking on it and selecting Save Picture As…) for future use. You can also make your own with the same categories. For your Hunger Journal you will document every time you eat. That doesn’t mean you have to carry the piece of paper with you to school or out with friends. You can take something smaller to take notes on and fill in your journal when you get home. Or you can try to remember it all and write it down when you get a chance. The first category you fill in is the time. This is helpful to find out how spaced apart your meals/snacks are and therefore why you might be more/less hungry. Next is the place you’re eating. I found that I’m more likely to binge if I’m in the living room or bedroom in front of the tv, but not as much if I’m in the dining room. Next is the trigger for your eating or the feelings you’re having. You might find a pattern that every time your mother criticizes you you binge afterward. Or every time you feel lonely you eat until you’re sick. Sometimes you might want to write down your feelings if you’re trying particularly hard not to eat. There might be a pattern there as well, like every time you come home from a bad day at school you restrict until the next morning. Next is your hunger level before eating and your hunger level after eating. And if your restricting then write down your hunger level at the time of restriction along with your feelings. A sample entry in your Hunger Journal might look like this:

Usually at the end of a few days or a week you’d take your Hunger Journal to your therapist or Nutritionist to discuss the patterns you’ve discovered, but you can do that all on your own as well. Look for reoccurring feelings, reoccurring numbers, reoccurring times. Once you are able to identify your trouble spots then you can start to fix or prevent them. (And if you have trouble assessing your Hunger Journal on your own, feel free to email or PM me and I’d be more than happy to help.)
But the hunger scale isn’t just for when you’re eating. You should use it all throughout the day to check in with your hunger. It doesn’t take more than a minute or two to picture the hunger scale, determine how your body is feeling, and come up with a number. At first it might be hard to remember what each number stands for, but if you can remember that 0 = empty, 5 = neutral, and 10 = sick, then you should be able to gauge your hunger fairly accurately. Soon it will become second nature. Also be sure to use it while you’re eating. If you have an average size plate of food, then check in with your hunger based on fourths of your plate size - When one fourth of your food is gone, check the hunger scale. When half is gone, check the hunger scale… etc. If you have less food than the average meal size then check in with your hunger when you are done eating. *(And be sure not to beat yourself up if you find that you are still hungry. Instead, get another serving of food and once again check in with your hunger when you are done.)* If you are binging and it’s hard to measure how much food you have total then check in with your hunger according to the clock. Maybe set a timer for 2-5 minutes, or just keep an eye on your watch. *(During a binge, even if you do check in with your hunger and decide that you are satisfied that does not mean that you’re going to stop eating. It would be great if you are able to, but this takes practice. What you might want to try is this: when you check in with your hunger during a binge and discover that you are full, put in a speed bump. That means that you decide to do something else for a period of time before returning to your binge. This does NOT mean you have to give up your binge, it just means that once you find yourself at a 6 or 7 on the hunger scale you take five minutes out to play a game of solitaire or read a few pages of a book. Once the five minutes is up, you can return to your binge. Each time try to increase the length of your speed bump. Eventually there may come a time that you forget you were even supposed to go back and finish binging.)* Even when you are out with friends you can check in with your hunger. I found it helpful to create a hunger scale on a piece of heavy paper the size of a business card. That way I can put it in my pocket and during a meal out I can excuse myself to the bathroom and have a quiet place to reflect and check in with my hunger mid-meal. 
There are a number of other principles that go hand in hand with the hunger scale that I’ll be writing about in the future, but hopefully the things I’ve talked about here will help you become more in tune with your natural hunger cues and fullness.