Registered dietitian Shira Lenchewski is The Food Therapist. Her new book of the same name is a genre-bending guide to nutrition and self-mastery — and the perfect pick for any book club this spring since it’s guaranteed to stir conversation. 

We’ve been relying on advice from Shira for years, from self-care routines to edible earth day plans. Our favorite piece of advice from Shira over the years? This bite-sized, but high impact piece of advice excerpted from the pages of The Food Therapist below. If you have a tough time deciphering whether or not you’re truly hungry or just bored from time to time, Shira’s trick works every time…

I figured this one out when I was in grad school. Quite stressed, without much structure to my days, I ended up snacking all day and losing touch with my hunger cues, and then being kind of dissatisfied with dinner because I had been snacking all day. As I discovered, one easy way to gauge hunger is by keeping fresh crudites (raw veggies like carrots, cucumbers and bell peppers that have been washed and cut) and a tasty dip at eye level in the fridge at all times. If you’re between meals or post-snack but you’re not totally satisfied, go for the crudites. If you don’t want the crudites, you’re probably not really hungry. In my practice, I see a lot of students, moms, freelancers, actors and other people who don’t have much built-in structure to their days often grab snacks when they’re stressed or procrastinating — they, too, have found that the crudites trick really works!

Bored by raw veggies? Discover our fave non-traditional
crudites and how to make them here.