Health professionals, myself included, like to talk about "eating to satiety" and "listening to your hunger cues". But there's more to it than a quick check to see if your stomach is rumbling.

 Often we think about hunger purely from the point of view of our stomach. Long before your stomach starts making a fuss, there are a whole raft of cues that your body starts sending you. Being attuned to those cues is easier than it sounds and a great way to stop yourself from over eating later in the day.

I'm going to start with a real world example. The last few weeks in my house have been every flavour of chaos imaginable. We've had gastro wipe us out, I crashed my mountain bike and ended up in hospital with some pretty bad injuries, its been school holidays and then I've been juggling work around all of that. So last Wednesday came around and I had more things to fit into my day than time comfortably allowed, especially off the back of the previous couple of days. By the time I got to about 1pm I realised that I was feeling agitated, anxious and overwhelmed. I wasn't hungry - my stomach wasn't rumbling. I was frazzled well and truly though and because of that I stopped for a moment and thought about the last time I ate, which was breakfast by then.

STOP EVERYTHING!!!

HANGRY is a thing. The most overwhelming and out of control day is only going to be made 10 million times worse by a lack of food, even if you think you don't have the five minutes required to make or eat that food.

You do. There is ALWAYS five minutes. But with our daily pressures we choose work, our children and everything else over eating because we convince ourselves that those are the things that cannot wait. Actually, it is all of things that can wait and it is our food that cannot. All of this led me to my new mantra:

"First we eat. Then we do everything else."

While 2 eggs boiled, I grabbed whatever vegetables were in the fridge, a jar of mayonnaise and a wholegrain cracker. Was it the best lunch I could have eaten? No, I could do better. It was a darn good compromise though. I had lunch ready in five minutes and ate it while I worked in the lead up to my first afternoon client. I felt better for eating - I was calmer, my head was clearer, and the mountain that I felt like I had to climb before the day was over, seemed much more achievable.

Hunger cues are just as much an emotional and physical feeling as they are your stomach talking to you. Hunger can be:

• difficulty concentrating
• anxiety
• stress
• light-headedness
• fatigue
• low mood

So in future: "First we eat. Then we do everything else." Make 5 minutes, grab something nutritious, grab a snack that might be just enough to give you the clarity of mind to realise you need a meal. Whatever it is, make nourishing your body and mind your number ONE priority, no matter what.