1 - you've eaten too much food and can't stand the sight of any more food.

3 - starting to get hungry, about to enter ‘4'. Unlikely to overeat.

5 – very hungry, will eat anything in sight! You are very likely to overeat.

This is exactly what happens when you skip a meal. You reach stage 5 and more than likely overeat. Try and eat when you are between stages 3 and 4. Stop eating when you are between stages 2 and 3. In other words, avoid wild fluctutions in your 'hunger scale'. If you start to get hungry, then eat something healthy. Carry balanced snacks (more tips and ideas on that in the coming chapters). Dont wait till you are starving and then binge (swinging from stage 5 to stage 1). Also, stop eating as soon as you start to feel even slightly full. Know when to stop!To improve digestion, eat in a slow and steady manner.

Always take your time at the table. In our time-starved society, it's easy to consume too many calories in too little time. We tend to eat high calorie food, eat quickly and take large bites. We don't chew food as well as we should. In a typical workday, we rush through our meals. Our meals lack variety. We tend to stick with foods that we are familiar with, and are easy to prepare. This limits our nutritional intake and can cause deficiencies in some vitamins and minerals. To make matters even more complicated, there is always something going on while eating - watching TV, talking on the phone, reading a book, having a telephone conversation.

Good luck with these food strategies. Eating food should be considered an important and controlled experience, and overindulgence should be avoided.