The Story About Hunger
When I wrote my thoughts about goal weight a few weeks ago, another issue came up that often plagues me. It has to do with my thoughts about hunger and how it affects me…
Hunger is scary to me. I’m afraid of it. When I notice that unfamiliar rumble in my stomach, I often become uneasy. Many thoughts go through my head…
When I think about the idea of hunger and my feelings or reactions about it, I know that my body’s natural hunger signals have really been skewed. I believe the reason can date back to all of the deprivation and starvation diets I participated in most of my life. Whenever I was on a diet, I would start off well for a day or so, but inevitably hit that day where I was starving and couldn’t take it anymore! Food thoughts and obsessions would consume me. I would eventually act on those thoughts which led to eating HUGE quantities of food to quiet the starving stomach. Then came the guilt and despair. Diet over. More eating ensues due to feelings of failure.
I had a moment this week where I felt hunger. My stomach growling immediately triggered an emerging sense of panic. The head took over and the internal conversations began…
Sheesh. Just eat already, would ya?!
In this moment, I came to realize that I view hunger as a negative. Instead of seeing hunger as a wonderful sign that my body is functioning properly, I see it as a disadvantage or something that causes me to lack control with food. Instead of being excited that I’m hungry and have a new opportunity to eat something healthy and delicious; I am fearful that hunger will drive me to grab everything not nailed down in my pantry and shovel it into my mouth.
Obviously, there is a disconnect here. Today, I want to change it. I want to embrace hunger and be excited about it. Most of all, feed it when it needs to be fed, regardless of the what, when, where and how. This is where the real journey begins.
Have a great day, everyone!
What are your feeling about hunger? Do you fear it or embrace it?
Questions? Email me! aloserforlife@gmail.com
21 comments
Oh, my goodness, I have struggled with this one, especially lately. All this running I think has caused me to have days when I’m just so hungry, physically hungry, not the mental hunger, but the stomach growling, lightheaded, cranky kind of hungry.
And when I get that kind of hungry, that’s where I have not found a way to control it, and I end up eating, not counting points, eating, not counting points, thinking oh, I just ran 10, 11, 12 miles, I can have that, but it’s the lack of control that upsets me.
This is what I will be working on after the half-marathon. Controlling it and eating the things that will satisfy the hunger instead of feeding the panic.
Great post and great thoughts! I really love that you are working through these feelings…
I used to be much more focused on eating at certain times, and when I was hungry “when I wasn’t supposed to be” it threw things off for me. Now, I listen much more to my body and when I’m hungry. That sometimes means eating before I’m “supposed to” and sometimes going without eating longer than “I’m supposed to.” I guess I really got rid of a lot of what I’m “supposed to be doing.”
I love that you made the connection that hunger isn’t bad. It tells you that your body needs fuel. And not eating or waiting to eat really is very counterproductive.
Have a good week!
P.S.: The no mirrors challenge didn’t go so well for me. But it did make me a lot more aware that I do look in the mirror (with a critical eye) a lot…
I never am hungry, never! it is so weird but I don’t. Wish I did.
Since I’ve started low carbing, I’ve come to appreciate hunger. Before, I was ALWAYS thinking about food. Always. So I could never really tell if I was truly hungry. But now, without the constant preoccupation of food, I wait for hunger to let me know when it’s time to eat. I love being in tune with my body, and I know that I can do it now that I’m not craving foods all the time.
For me, I know why I got fat – the father of my daughter (who I dated for 3 years before I got pregnant) didn’t want anything to do with me or my daughter – he said my life would be ruined if I had her.
Of course, she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but I got fat so I wouldn’t get hurt anymore – I mean, who wants to date a fat chick? It wasn’t until Hannah was 7 that I decided I needed to lose weight for me, I lost 70 pounds, loved myself, that love found me.
Hooray for hunger this week Marisa!
What a great post Marisa! I struggle with hunger because when I get too hungry, I go over the cliff and overeat. I really have trouble finding that balance between the “I am hungry, but okay” and “I must eat right now!!!”.
What a wonderful post Marisa! We are learning so much through your posts. Thank you for sharing!!! Have a great Monday.
Hmm…haven’t really thought about it. I guess when I was in “diet mode” I worried about it a lot but now that my focus has shifted more towards fitness I don’t seem to be too concerned about when I’m hungry. I just eat! LOL
Good post, girl.
This IS a great post! I plan to put a great deal more thought into those questions. And I totally LOVE the idea of celebrating true hunger as a “what can I eat now” mindset. Thank you so much for allowing us into your life as you work with the emotional eating coach.
thank you so much for posting this…i have a love/hate relationship with hunger…sometimes i like the feeling and start playing games with myself about not eating…and then other times i have that same panic reaction of “when am i going to get to eat!” or obsessing over when my next time to eat will be and what will be available to me.
Wonderful post. I seem to be constantly obsessed with what to eat most of the time.
Was looking for fitness blogs and stumbled on yours. Adding you to my blog roll. Do stop by mine when you get a few minutes. I am new to the fitness-blogosphere.
afitnessjournal@blogspot.com
Dang, girl. After reading that, it makes a lot of sense to me. I see so much of myself and my wack-a-doo reasoning in there, too. I think this fall with teaching SO much, I’ve noticed that my hunger isn’t quite as ravenous as I thought it was. I generally go from 7am (or earlier) until 2 pm a few days a week and I’m okay. Teaching doesn’t allow me to eat much as I’m always gabbering away, but it’s working. It’s sometimes the hour long ride home that I have to have a plan for lunch…at home, otherwise, my car seems to go onto autopilot else where. Like Arbys. Last week. GR!.
The hunger things is tricky business and your post is one I can relate to.
It took me along time but I finally figured out that I won’t starve if I don’t feed that hungry feeling right away. I think it was an exercise in a book that I did that had you not give into the hunger, to wait to eat and feel what happens. It wasn’t easy at first. But since then I have been able to do get through that hungry feeling if I am out somewhere and can’t get something healthy immediately.
It’s taken me quite a while but I have come to see my hunger as a normal, natural cue…but I used to feel very much like you do. Hunger used to scare me, make me angry, overwhelm me.
You can do this!!
Wonderful post and it’s something I’ve been thinking about. A few months ago when I was really hungry I would try and find the quickest, largest thing i could find and eat. Just in the last couple of weeks I’ve learned that I CAN wait for food to be done cooking and I’m usually way more satisfied eating the meal I was planning on eating instead of opening the pantry and just start eating. It’s a slippery path and I hope to have a normal relationship with food=fuel one day.
Oh wow, I totally relate. I lost a lot of weight by timing when I ate (every 2 hours, don’t get too hungry or else you’ll hit the candy jar, that sort of thing) and I still have times where I think that it hasn’t been 2 hours yet, but I’m hungry, so should I eat? Or it’s been 1 hour, so should I eat half my snack? It is tough. I need to embrace your attitude of eating when hungry, not bingeing, but not ignoring the feeling either. Much better that way.
when i am on vacation or traveling for work, I feel like i overeat because of exactly what you just said… I suddenly start wondering when I will get to eat again and if they don’t have healthy food I won’t want to eat it…umm but stuffing myself isn’t exactly the answer either
[...] guys! Thanks so much for your kind comments on my hunger post. Sharing these insights is hard, but nice to know that many of you can relate to them. [...]
Here’s another one where I never thought I feared hunger, but the conversations you have with yourself sound awfully familar to conversations I’m constantly having with myself. Maybe I do have a fear – just didn’t want to admit it to myself.
Marisa, thank you for this! *My* problem is in falling for any excuse to *not* exercise. When I skipped out on my workout this morning, I came home and thought about this thing you wrote, right here. It helps to know how much work other folks put into their health lifestyles.
What a great post and what a wonderful paradigm shift for hunger. I definitely think I’ve somehow, over time, skewed my hunger mechanism. Yes, fear of getting too hungry. I often eat when I am not truly physically hungry. I still remember Oprah, many years ago, talking about feeling a bit of hunger before going to bed and why that was a good thing.