Listening to my body

As a recovering food addict (I hated myself and medicated myself with food) I had to learn what hunger and fullness felt like. During my addiction, hunger felt like a craving and fullness felt like TOTAL PHYSICAL DISCOMFORT. Identifying TRUE hunger and TRUE fullness was a challenge for me. Here’s how I did it:

Hunger:

I got out of my head and into my body.

When I’m in my head, seeing food makes me crave it and tricks me into thinking I’m hungry. I’m not, I’m just human who is susceptible to the power of suggestion. Being able to identify a craving and KNOW that it’s a craving and not TRUE hunger makes it easier to resist a craving.

When I’m in my body, hunger FEELS like emptiness, fatigue, grumbling, I feel shaky. You might feel different, but this is how I feel. I try to never get too hungry and now that I know the signs of true, PHYSICAL hunger, I can give my body the fuel it needs WHEN it needs it.

Fullness:

This one was much harder for me to feel. I spent my entire life BLOWING past fullness and not stopping my ‘meal’ until I was in physical pain. I learned how to recognize fullness by (1) slowing down and (2) checking in.

Slowing down: Slowing down was SOOOOOO hard and I still have to remind myself each meal to take my time. Take one bite, chew, swallow, take a breath, repeat. Fill my fork or spoon up with half as much food (as opposed to shoveling in as much as I can with each bite). Eat with my inferior hand. Use chopsticks. By slowing down, I am less likely to miss fullness when it happens.

Checking in: I divide my meals into halves (or quarters) and ‘check in’ with myself after I finish each section to see if I’m full or if I need to eat more. Before I divided my food, I would blow through the entire portion before checking in. I don’t HAVE to divide my food, I can also ‘check in’ every few bites (which is easy to do when I slow down). Once fullness hits, I put the food away.

Eating when I’m hungry and stopping when I’m full have made it possible for me to eat whatever I want.

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY!!!

Charmagne