We often hear the phrase “listen to your body” when talking about food and nourishment.

Notice hunger. Notice fullness. Pay attention to satisfaction. Recognize what you need.

But listening to the body requires more than simply paying attention. What happens when those signals aren't clear? What happens when noticing the body feels confusing, unfamiliar, uncomfortable, or simply inaccessible?

These are questions I've found myself returning to throughout my work as a registered dietitian.

Before we ask someone to respond to what their body is telling them, what if we first became curious about what they are actually able to notice? Whether they can make sense of what they're noticing? Whether those signals feel trustworthy? And what might influence whether responding to them feels possible?

There can be a lot that happens before “listen to your body” becomes accessible.

When Body Awareness Isn't Accessible Yet

If your relationship with your body has been shaped by stress, past experiences, years of dieting, or an environment where your needs were consistently overridden or ignored, those internal signals can be:

• Quiet or muted — you genuinely don't feel hunger or fullness clearly
• Confusing — you notice something but aren't sure what it means
• Absent — you've spent so long disconnecting from body cues that they've become difficult to identify
• Untrustworthy — you feel body signals but don't trust them, or don't feel safe acting on them

These experiences aren't necessarily evidence that someone is doing something incorrectly.

They may tell us something about what that person has experienced, what their body has learned, and what has helped them navigate the environments they've experienced.

That context matters.

The Difference Between Knowing and Being Able to Integrate

This November, I'll be giving a guest lecture in the University of Pittsburgh's undergraduate nutrition program as part of its Lifecycle Nutrition course. As I've been preparing, I've found myself thinking about the version of me who was once sitting in those classrooms.

Much of what we explore through TIME reflects perspectives I wasn't exposed to in either my undergraduate or graduate nutrition education. I began seeking out this information later in my career, after years of working with patients whose relationships with food and their bodies were far more complex than nutrition knowledge alone could explain.

Nutrition professionals learn an enormous amount about physiology, nutrients, disease states, assessment, and nutrition interventions. This knowledge offers one important lens. And there are other lenses to consider, including what influences a person's ability to integrate that information into their actual life.

Someone can understand nutrition guidance and still have difficulty acting on it consistently. They can know what supports their health and still find that eating is complicated. Knowledge can exist alongside limited resources, stress, competing needs, past experiences, disrupted body awareness, cultural expectations, caregiving demands, or a history of being taught not to trust their own needs.

Understanding that complexity can change the questions we ask.

Instead of only asking, What does this person need to know?, we can also begin asking, What might be shaping their ability to engage with this information?

What Interoception Has to Do With Nourishment

Interoception is our ability to notice, interpret, and respond to signals arising from within the body.

Hunger and fullness are part of interoception, but interoception extends far beyond food. It includes sensations associated with thirst, temperature, fatigue, pain, heart rate, breathing, emotional states, and other internal experiences.

And interoception is not simply a skill someone either has or doesn't have.

Our relationship with internal sensations develops within the context of our experiences.

Sometimes we learn that certain sensations are important to notice. Sometimes we learn to override them. Sometimes paying attention to the body hasn't felt useful or safe. Sometimes external demands repeatedly take priority over internal information.

So rather than assuming everyone begins with the same access to body cues, we can become curious about what noticing is like for this particular person.

What do they notice?

What don't they notice?

What sensations feel clear?

Which feel confusing?

What happens when they do notice a need?

And what influences if responding to that need feels possible?

Where TIME Begins

TIME — Trauma-Informed Mindful Eating — is an educational framework for exploring the many influences that shape our relationships with nourishment.

Rather than beginning with an assumption about what someone should be able to notice or how they should eat, TIME begins with curiosity about what is already present.

The goal isn't to arrive at one particular way of eating.

It's to create more room for curiosity, context, awareness, choice, and agency.

Because there isn't one right way to eat — and there isn't one right way to experience a body.

For Practitioners: Expanding the Questions We Ask

If you work with people who eat, you're already encountering many of these influences.

They may show up when someone understands your guidance but struggles to integrate it.

They may show up when a patient repeatedly does something that seems inconsistent with their stated goals.

They may show up as difficulty recognizing hunger, uncertainty around food choices, or rigid eating rules. You might notice patterns of avoidance, disconnection, or feeling overwhelmed by the amount of mental energy eating requires.

These moments don't necessarily require us to provide more information.

Sometimes they invite us to become more curious.

What might be shaping this?

What has this person learned about food, bodies, and needs?

What has their environment required of them?

What signals are available to them right now?

What choices are actually accessible within the realities of their life?

TIME offers a framework for exploring those questions. It doesn't replace nutrition science, clinical expertise, or other approaches practitioners already use. It offers another lens through which to understand the person receiving that care.

A Note on Nourishment

We use the word nourishment deliberately.

Nourishment includes food, but it also invites a broader conversation about needs, care, rest, connection, access, and our relationships with ourselves.

Food doesn't exist separately from the rest of our lives. The way we eat is shaped by our histories, environments, resources, relationships, bodies, responsibilities, and experiences.

So perhaps the question isn't only:

What should we eat?

There is another question worth asking:

How are our relationships with nourishment shaped?

That is the question TIME was built to explore.

Kristen Zappone, MS, RDN, LDN is a registered dietitian with nearly two decades of experience across clinical care, health education, and wellness, and co-creator of TIME (Trauma-Informed Mindful Eating) alongside Dr. Helena Benton TIME is a product of the Center for Trauma and Embodiment (CFTE). Learn more at healwithcfte.org/time.

This content is for educational purposes only and does not replace medical advice, therapy, or professional treatment. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider or licensed therapist for support with medical or mental health concerns.