Honor your hunger
Hey you! So this week I want to talk to you about honoring your hunger. What does this mean and how can you apply it?
The more you deny your true hunger and fight your natural biology, the stronger and more intense food cravings and obsessions become. The hunger drive is truly a mind-body connection
Simply stated, this means eating when you’re hungry, and doing this every time. But how come that can be so complicated? It sounds so simple right?
Well think about this have there been times you’ve felt hunger but didn’t eat? Perhaps because you were scared of eating too much and gaining weight, or you are practicing intermittent fasting and it was not time to eat..
What happens if we ignore that hunger cue?
You could gain weight
But in reality, “the more you feel like you're starving, the more likely you are to binge later on.” If you wait until you reach that point where you are extremely hungry to eat, your blood sugar levels could fall so low that you will be tempted to wolf down whatever's in sight.
As the authors of Intuitive Eating state in the introduction of the chapter on honoring your hunger, “Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for rebuilding trust with yourself and food.”
Hunger is a normal, biological process and hunger cues are a biological signal that we cannot ignore because guess what they don’t go away even if you ignore them. Try to override these feelings or honor them unsatisfactorily (like drinking water when hungry instead of eating) will ultimately lead to overeating, stronger cravings, and being unable to trust your body. Dieting leaves us feeling deprived and hungry, and kinda sad. And honestly we lose our ability to perceive what a good portion size is and the ability to be truly be conscious of what or the quality of what we are eating when you reach the point of extreme hungry. Learning to honor your hunger will allow you to establish self-trust. And don’t we all truly want this? A healthy relationship with food?
However, so many of us have dishonored our bodies’ cues and started to implement external food rules ( IE: Diet culture) that have caused us to lose touch with what hunger really and truly feels like. Society tries to convince us that we need to control our hunger and is always promoting a new way to “overcome” it. But guys reality is - Hunger is not a matter of willpower, it’s pure biology. If you’re hungry, you just need to eat. (*See footnote on a study done on 36 men who were deprived of food and how these healthy men once given an extreme caloric deficit lost a lot of their strength and health.)
So how can we learn to honor our hunger cues? -
TO HONOR YOUR HUNGER AND YOUR BODY, HERE’S A FEW THINGS YOU CAN DO!
Recognize YOUR hunger cues. These may not be the same from one person to the next, but it's important that you are able to realize when you're hungry so that you can honor it. ... so ditch any idea or app that tells us what and when to eat.
Forget the clock. ... our hunger is not set between the hours of 12pm-8pm so forget this mindset
Eat what you WANT. ... yes! restrictions only lead to binges so if you want the cookie then eat the cookie!
Be prepared. Especially as you start this journey to intuitive eating.
Appetite suppressant
Just Eat and your hunger will be “suppressed”
1. RECOGNIZE YOUR HUNGER CUES.
These may not be the same from one person to the next, but it’s important that you personally are able to realize when you’re hungry so that you can honor it. There is no right or wrong way to feel hungry. Some signs of hunger might include:
stomach gurgling
constantly thinking about food
dizziness or light headedness
lack of energy
irritability
lack of concentration
shakiness
moodiness
emptiness in your stomach
2. FORGET THE CLOCK.
No matter what time of day it is or how long it’s been since you last ate… if you’re hungry, eat. A diet or meal plan or eating schedule doesn’t know what your body needs when it needs it; you’re the expert. So stop waiting till noon to eat and ifs its 6am and you are hungry go ahead and eat.
3. EAT WHAT YOU WANT.
Give yourself permission to eat exactly what your body wants in that moment. No food rules, regulations, or judgment. By doing this, you build body trust and are able to move on with the day, putting your focus on the things it should be on not on food and cravings. By teaching yourself that you can eat what you want, when you want, you’ll heal your relationship with food and rebuild trust with your body.
4. BE PREPARED.
Meal plans that try to tells us what and when to eat are not helpful but rather harmful, but and this is true especially if you’re somebody with a busy schedule, having meals or snacks ready to grab-and-go is important. This will help eliminate the excuse of “i have nothing to eat” from being a reason to not eat. Keeping ALL foods in your house is important too, because they are not off limits, remember no food rules, and sometimes you’re going to crave potato chips or a cookie so allow yourself to have it. That’s normal. That’s allowed. That’s okay. If that’s what you want, eat it.
If you need a little coaching as you build trust with yourself and with food work with me.
*In November 1944, 36 young men took up residence in the corridors and rooms of the University of Minnesota football stadium. They were not members of the football team. Rather, they were volunteers preparing for a nearly yearlong experiment on the psychological and physiological effects of starvation. Known as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment.
At the time, World War II was raging around the world, and so, too, were hunger and starvation. Over the centuries, people had recorded anecdotal reports of the effects of famine and starvation, but there was little in the scientific literature that described its physiological and psychological effects. Just as important, doctors and researchers didn't know how to help people rehabilitate and recover from starvation.
Subject selection was stringent. Subjects had to be male, single and demonstrate good physical and mental health.
The research protocol called for the men to lose 25 percent of their normal body weight. They spent the first three months of the study eating a normal diet of 3,200 calories a day, followed by six months of semi-starvation at 1,570 calories a day (divided between breakfast and lunch), then a restricted rehabilitation period of three months eating 2,000 to 3,200 calories a day, and finally an eight-week unrestricted rehabilitation period during which there were no limits on caloric intake. Their diet consisted of foods widely available in Europe during the war, mostly potatoes, root vegetables, bread and macaroni. The men were required to work 15 hours per week in the lab, walk 22 miles per week and participate in a variety of educational activities for 25 hours a week. Throughout the experiment, the researchers measured the physiological and psychological changes brought on by near starvation.
During the semi-starvation phase the changes were dramatic. Beyond the gaunt appearance of the men, there were significant decreases in their strength and stamina, body temperature, heart rate and sex drive. The psychological effects were significant as well. Hunger made the men obsessed with food. They would dream and fantasize about food, read and talk about food and savor the two meals a day they were given. They reported fatigue, irritability, depression and apathy.
The story of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment is many stories rolled into one. It reminds us of the privilege we have; most of us can avoid the unpleasant sensation of hunger by simply reaching for something to eat. Hunger is debilitating and tragic, all the more so when it is created by human affairs.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/10/hunger
