Just as you can’t build a home without a foundation, your relationship with hunger and fullness also requires a solid base

Build the Foundation

Shira Savit

SO

many women blame themselves for not being able to “eat intuitively.”

I hear it all the time: “When people say, ‘Trust your body,’ I panic… it’s so confusing. I feel like my hunger cues are broken. I either feel nothing, or I’m starving. How am I supposed to actually know when I’m hungry?”

Of course it feels confusing to tune in to your body’s cues. Intuitive eating isn’t something you can just start doing, like a new diet plan. It’s something that unfolds slowly, through awareness and gentle steps that build over time.

Just as you can’t build a home without a foundation, your relationship with hunger and fullness also requires a solid base. Before your body can “speak” and be heard, it needs to feel steady underneath. Once there’s a reliable foundation, hunger and fullness cues become easier to notice.

There are many reasons why that foundation can feel shaky — the ways our bodies have learned that hunger and fullness aren’t trustworthy. Some days pass by in a rush. We skip breakfast, grab a bite between meetings and carpools, and realize at 4 p.m. that we haven’t eaten since morning. Over time, our body learns that hunger doesn’t get answered. So it quiets itself. Later, when we try to “eat intuitively,” we feel nothing. Not because we’re doing it wrong, but because our body hasn’t yet learned that it can ask and be heard.

Or maybe we’ve spent years dieting, ignoring hunger because it wasn’t “time to eat,” or stopping before we’re full because certain foods weren’t allowed. Our body learned that its messages don’t matter. When signals have been overridden by rules, it makes sense that they would fade.

Stress can also blur hunger and fullness cues. Rushing to get everyone dressed and out the door before school, juggling work, errands, deadlines, a child’s crisis, or stress in a relationship puts the body into a fight-or-flight response. In this state, the body redirects energy away from digestion toward survival. Hunger cues quiet down, fullness takes longer to register, or appetite can swing between extremes. It’s not a flaw — it’s simply our body trying to help us cope with what is.

And for some of us, food becomes tied to comfort. We eat when we’re lonely, anxious, or exhausted. In those moments, it’s not physical hunger we’re responding to, but an emotional need. Over time, the body receives mixed messages: Do I eat when I’m hungry… or when I’m hurting? It’s no surprise it’s hard to tell the difference.

Instead of forcing intuitive eating, we can start smaller. You could try eating at set times, even if you’re not sure you’re hungry, just to show your body it can trust you. Or perhaps pause after a meal to gently notice how you feel, without trying to “get it right.” Other times, simply taking a deep breath before a bite, or sitting down for a minute while you eat, works. And sometimes, all it takes is noticing when food feels emotional and meeting yourself with curiosity instead of judgment.

Each small step quietly rebuilds trust with your body. Slowly, intuitive eating becomes less about doing and more about connecting — a gentle dialogue where your body can share, and you can listen.

Shira Savit, MA, MHC, INHC is a mental health counselor and integrative nutritionist who specializes in emotional eating, binge eating, and somatic nutrition. Shira works both virtually and in person in Jerusalem.

Reflected Back at Them

Shona Kaisman-Schwartz

G

rowth-mindset parenting begins with the premise that children need to learn or practice a skill, while fixed-mindset parenting suggests the kids know the correct way and are choosing the wrong path. I’ve always been a believer in growth-mindset parenting, but somewhere along the way, as my kids got older, something shifted in my approach. I’d unconsciously transitioned to expecting that my children would know better.

This subtle shift in perspective has made everything feel harder as a parent; I frequently feel more negative, judgmental, and impatient with my kids. For example, when my 12-year-old forgot their homework, left dinner dishes on the table, or escalated a sibling argument, I found myself becoming frustrated or annoyed. You know better, I thought, and that disappointment seeped through in my tone and demeanor.

The result? Big emotions from my child, which spiraled into further challenging behaviors.

The concept of kamayim hapanim lapanim — that just as water reflects a face back to itself, so, too, does one person’s heart reflect another’s — applies here. Once I recognized my parenting style was becoming more negative, I doubled down on the growth-mindset parenting I’ve long subscribed to but let fall by the wayside.

Lost shoes when running late for the bus? I consciously worked to release my frustration about what they “should have done better” — knowing full well that children can sense and internalize that disappointment. Forgot to clean up after themselves? I practiced offering calm, repeated reminders rather than expressing frustration.

While this shift isn’t always easy in a hectic moment, once I made the effort, I came to understand just how deeply our feelings truly do reflect back at our children. When I approached situations with negativity, they absorbed and mirrored that negativity in their behavior. When I maintained a positive, supportive perspective, they responded in kind.

Shona Kaisman-Schwartz is an educational consultant.She is the author of How To Stop Caring What Others Think: For Real and Always On: An Interactive Parents’ Guide to the (Dis)Connected Generation.

Don’t Look Past the First Step

Hadassah Eventsur

M

any people with ADHD will share that starting is the hardest part of task completion. What makes the initiation stage of a task so challenging? There are multiple reasons, including fear of failure, fear of success, perfectionism, boredom, and overwhelm. In this article, I’ll focus on the feeling of overwhelm that we often face at this phase.

When your brain looks at a task and sees the entire thing at once, it simply doesn’t know where to start. As a result, it will either freeze or move on to a less overwhelming task.

So what can you do about it? The solution is to shrink a task into the smallest possible step. Instead of “make Shabbos,” you can defrost the chicken. Instead of “clean the kitchen,” you can clear one countertop. Instead of “call the teacher,” you can locate the number.

The key to annihilating this feeling of overwhelm is to not look past the first step. Once you start, momentum often carries you forward to completion.

Hadassah Eventsur, MS, OTR/L, is an occupational therapist, certified life coach, and founder of MindfullyYou, a program that supports frum women who struggle with executive functioning.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 979)