Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Hunger Confusion

I know it’s a question that I’ve asked before and I’ll undoubtedly ask it again but, how do I know when I’m hungry?
Lately I’ve been really focusing on being aware of true hunger-that gnawing feeling in the stomach which may or may not be accompanied by audible rumbling and I have come to realise something.
I’m not sure I can trust my hunger cues. I don’t often feel hungry. It is very rare for me to become conscious of a need to eat. That is, I’m not readily drawn out of whatever I am doing by an awareness of hunger.
One of the rare exceptions to this is after I’ve eaten. I’ve noticed that within about half an hour of eating I tend to feel hungry again. Even if I have eaten a substantial meal (roast with all the trimmings and desert for example). If I ignore it, the feeling soon passes.
In fact hunger soon passes whether I ignore it or not. If I notice that I am hungry and it’s inconvenient to eat, or food is not available the feeling soon fades and doesn’t tend to return.
Added to this is my suggestibility. If I focus on my body and ask myself the question “am I hungry” I almost always answer yes. The very thought of food seems to set off my hunger signals.
Unsurprising that I’m having trouble tuning in to my body’s physical food needs.
So what do I do? Should I carry food with me at all times and eat the moment I sense hunger hoping that my body will learn that when it needs food it should send me that signal? Or should I eat something every three-four hours from rising until bedtime in the hope that my body will learn food is plentiful and reduce the urge to binge (which is still present though not as strong as it was before I started eating whatever I fancied)?
This intuitive eating is a lot harder than it looks on the surface, that’s for sure.

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