Week 2-Honor your hunger
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mommamuscles
Posts: 584 Member
How's everyone doing?
I know quite a few of you have mentioned you are reading the book, and I'm sure we are all in different places there. I don't know about you, but I'm finding that it is ALOT of info to take in all at once, much less apply.
So trying to break it down Into weekly chunks. I'll also try to get on here and there and check in.
The challenge for this week is honor your hunger. Basically, eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. This seems really easy. But for a lot of us who have been hard working at managing our weight, I think we may live more in tune with our calories for the day than our hunger/fullness cues!
Since I've been trying to put this into practice, I've noticed I often have a hard time discerning this.
“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.
Steps for this week:
1. Begin to listen to the smallest noise or feeling that indicates that you are experiencing hunger, such as a growling or grumbling stomach, a slight headache, a lack of mental focus, grouchiness, lack of energy, etc.
2. As soon as you recognize your biological hunger, make the time to eat.
3. If you neglect this most basic signal and get over-hungry, it will be very hard to identify what you really want to eat or when you’ve had enough.
While I was reading through this I kept thinking about intermittent fasting. Seems like this is a popular thing right now and I've experimented with it some myself. I really don't like breakfast that much and our mornings are crazy rushed around here so it seemed a good fit for me. However Somedays I catch myself being soooo hungry. Also I think my reasons for IF are tied to the diet mentality.
The book has some really great things to say about limiting carbohydrates which I found really interesting. Seems like they are kind of the dietary scapegoat right now.
I think my biggest challenge has been and will continue to be really evaluating why I want to eat, whether it is true hunger or not.
I am still pretty much trying to eat every 3-4 hours and include protein, fats and carbs at each meal. Seems to be kind of in line with this advice:
“If this is difficult for you to gauge, a general guideline is to go no longer than five waking hours without eating. This is based on the biology of fueling up your carbohydrate tank in the liver, which runs out every three to six hours. We have observed that clients who go longer than five hours without eating tend to overeat at the next eating opportunity.”
One last note:
“A common mistake with our newer clients is that they initially embrace the honor your hunger concept in the form of a diet mantra, “Thou shall eat only when hungry.” The problem here is that this rigid interpretation can leave you feeling as if you have broken a rule, or failed, if you eat for any other reason than hunger. When you feel like you have broken a rule, you can get “pulled right back into the diet mentality. It’s important to recognize that normal eaters don’t always eat just from pure hunger, yet they maintain their weight.”
Excerpts From: Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch. “Intuitive Eating, 2nd Edition.” St. Martin’s Press. iBooks.
I definitely experienced this yesterday. I had what I was wanting to classify as a "bad" day- too many carbohydrates, lacking in protein and too many treats. There were times I ate for reasons other than hunger and ate beyond the point of fullness. I have been having a hard time feeling like I failed and can't do this! Instead, I think it's important to just look at it objectively and ask how we can learn from our experiences. For me, I know that skipping breakfast led to being overly hungry later in the day.
I know quite a few of you have mentioned you are reading the book, and I'm sure we are all in different places there. I don't know about you, but I'm finding that it is ALOT of info to take in all at once, much less apply.
So trying to break it down Into weekly chunks. I'll also try to get on here and there and check in.
The challenge for this week is honor your hunger. Basically, eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. This seems really easy. But for a lot of us who have been hard working at managing our weight, I think we may live more in tune with our calories for the day than our hunger/fullness cues!
Since I've been trying to put this into practice, I've noticed I often have a hard time discerning this.
“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.
Steps for this week:
1. Begin to listen to the smallest noise or feeling that indicates that you are experiencing hunger, such as a growling or grumbling stomach, a slight headache, a lack of mental focus, grouchiness, lack of energy, etc.
2. As soon as you recognize your biological hunger, make the time to eat.
3. If you neglect this most basic signal and get over-hungry, it will be very hard to identify what you really want to eat or when you’ve had enough.
While I was reading through this I kept thinking about intermittent fasting. Seems like this is a popular thing right now and I've experimented with it some myself. I really don't like breakfast that much and our mornings are crazy rushed around here so it seemed a good fit for me. However Somedays I catch myself being soooo hungry. Also I think my reasons for IF are tied to the diet mentality.
The book has some really great things to say about limiting carbohydrates which I found really interesting. Seems like they are kind of the dietary scapegoat right now.
I think my biggest challenge has been and will continue to be really evaluating why I want to eat, whether it is true hunger or not.
I am still pretty much trying to eat every 3-4 hours and include protein, fats and carbs at each meal. Seems to be kind of in line with this advice:
“If this is difficult for you to gauge, a general guideline is to go no longer than five waking hours without eating. This is based on the biology of fueling up your carbohydrate tank in the liver, which runs out every three to six hours. We have observed that clients who go longer than five hours without eating tend to overeat at the next eating opportunity.”
One last note:
“A common mistake with our newer clients is that they initially embrace the honor your hunger concept in the form of a diet mantra, “Thou shall eat only when hungry.” The problem here is that this rigid interpretation can leave you feeling as if you have broken a rule, or failed, if you eat for any other reason than hunger. When you feel like you have broken a rule, you can get “pulled right back into the diet mentality. It’s important to recognize that normal eaters don’t always eat just from pure hunger, yet they maintain their weight.”
Excerpts From: Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch. “Intuitive Eating, 2nd Edition.” St. Martin’s Press. iBooks.
I definitely experienced this yesterday. I had what I was wanting to classify as a "bad" day- too many carbohydrates, lacking in protein and too many treats. There were times I ate for reasons other than hunger and ate beyond the point of fullness. I have been having a hard time feeling like I failed and can't do this! Instead, I think it's important to just look at it objectively and ask how we can learn from our experiences. For me, I know that skipping breakfast led to being overly hungry later in the day.
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you took the words right out of my mouth! I nearly said, "I can't do this, I'd better just stick to tracking the rest of my life" yesterday. Thought I was doing great until I let the munchies get out of hand. I've been really trying to watch my emotional eating, and I realize I have the period of about 2 hours most days where I'm just completely unsatisfied. I munch, graze, nibble, you name it! And I don't really know why.
It used to be my daughters "cranky" time every day when she was a baby. 2 hours of squalling, from 5 to 7. I would have to strap her to my chest and try to get dinner on the table, the house cleaned up, catch up on laundry so on and so on . . . it's also when my stepson would be fighting with me about his homework or arguing with me about the latest reason why he had gotten in trouble at school. It's also just when my husband gets home from work and if he's had a bad day, there seems to be a lot of complaining about a little of everything. Maybe I'm just used to having emotional upheaval that time of day. Now that's usually when I'm trying to get dinner on the table and I've just gotten up from a nap if I worked the night before. I've tried sipping on tea, making a small bowl of popcorn, nibbling on an apple with peanut butter, eating nuts or trail mix. Now I realize that I'm not truly hungry, just waiting for dinner to be ready.
Tonight I'm trying to honor that feeling, that I HAVE to eat, but don't really NEED to. I'm just stumped as to what to do. Historically it's a time of day that I eat a lot of empty calories. I've already eaten 4 miniature chocolate bars and a small bag of popcorn.
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Yuck. I'm sad to say I feel like this weekend was an epic fail. I ate non stop when I got home from work yesterday. I didn't eat intuitively at all, just munched on what tasted good at the moment. I don't think I'm ready to stop tracking yet. But on the positive side, my hunger signals are getting clearer and clearer all the time. Next step for me is to track and curb my emotional eating.0
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I have had a few days like that too. I am not one to say whether or not that means you need to continue tracking but what I will say is that I think we need to view these experiences as an a opportunity to learn rather than viewing it like we failed! At least that's where I am. I'm also not focusing on fat loss right now though.Yuck. I'm sad to say I feel like this weekend was an epic fail. I ate non stop when I got home from work yesterday. I didn't eat intuitively at all, just munched on what tasted good at the moment. I don't think I'm ready to stop tracking yet. But on the positive side, my hunger signals are getting clearer and clearer all the time. Next step for me is to track and curb my emotional eating.0
