How to get over the fear of feeling hungry

For a long while I was scared of feeling hungry.

“I’ll just have a snack now in case the meeting runs late.” “I’ll eat something to get me through the school run”. “I’m going out to dinner, and I don’t want to get hungry, so I’ll eat something now”

In fact, there was a time when I was so scared of feeling hungry that I hadn’t felt hungry for years. I never let myself get to that point.

At the very first sign that I might get a hunger pang, I’d tuck into something. At the thought that I hadn’t eaten for a few hours, I’d open a packet. If I began to realise that there may be a gap between meals – I’d ensure there wasn’t.

And it has taken me a long time to get over that fear.

A review of the (more honest) comments of Hollywood actresses, reveals that many of them admit to feeling hungry all the time. This is the only way they can maintain their abnormally thin frames. Feeling hungry all the time is very draining and exhausting.

But that is very different to feeling hungry for half an hour.

It is absolutely worth letting yourself feel hungry. When you eat, the food tastes better. There is a real sense of the body refuelling. It’s a true sign that you need to eat.

But first of all you need to know what hunger feels like, and that may take a while.

October 17, 2017 0

Why you still fancy one last diet…

You do, don’t you? Just one last time. And THEN, after that, you’ll address the other things.

When I was in thrall to food, I wrote in my journal:

Another binge… three weeks now. What stops me from eating normally is:

Guilt from over eating in the last three weeks
Terror at the weight I must have put on
A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that I’ll ever lose it
A consequent hatred of my body
Disgust and despair at myself

Overeating acts both to blott out those feelings and to punish myself. If I felt attractive and glamorous and interesting, I wouldn’t feel like bingeing.

The terror of the weight, and the terror that my life might be one long endless binge without the constrains of a diet, kept me locked into diets. And diets were the very thing preventing me from being thin.

But the lure, the promise that they make is almost irresistible. There are endless before and after photos, lists of science or pseudo-science that back up the claim.

And if only you could lose those kilograms/pounds, that everything would be alright. Wouldn’t it?

October 10, 2017 0

The basics of weight loss for life

The basics to weight loss and weight management are really very simple:

You get hungry

You decide what you’d really like to eat

You enjoy your food, savouring every mouthful

You stop eating when you are no longer hungry

Repeat until death

But somehow we seem to have made this incredible simple process very difficult. Over the years we are told what to eat, when to eat, where to eat, until you eat when you are told, not when you are hungry, you eat what is prescribed or ‘allowed’ not what you’d really like to, and as for stopping? Isn’t is when the plate is empty? Or when the serving bowl is empty? Or worst of all, when the fridge is empty of all its temptations….?

Hmmm, there were many years when I actually thought I had been born without the stop button.

Listening to what we are told, rather than our bodies, means that we over-ride our natural mechanisms for hunger and satiety. We no longer recognize when we need to eat (or when we don’t) and we no longer recognize when we should stop eating. This means we eat long past the point of fullness. It means we eat when our bodies are not hungry or ready for food. It means we eat when we already have sufficient energy to live so it means what we eat is laid down as fat.

Eating in tune with your body is a very satisfying thing. Your body does not want to be overweight, or heavy. It wants to be lean and energetic. This is how it was made to be. But years of over-feeding, starving, fast food, Christmas and Thanksgiving and diets have beaten it into submission. Now it just opens its mouth and digests whatever you next put into it.

But if you start listening to it again, it will actually talk to you. It will tell you when it is hungry and when it is not. It will tell you when it needs some red meat for iron or when it craves the vitamin C in citrus.

September 7, 2017 0

But I want it now!!

It will have taken you many years to create the body that you are currently living in. Realistically, it will take months or years to create a new body and a new way of living. I know, I know, you want the results NOW. Well, that then leads back to those diets that are restrictive, make you feel deprived (see the post on Dieting) and that you end up breaking…. And usually putting on more weight than you lost.

So here is a different method. It does not involve pain, deprivation or doing anything that you don’t want to do. You get to decide. You get to eat your favourite foods. You don’t have to feel hungry. You can set your own pace. You can still eat out with friends. Yes, you can still eat chocolate. In fact, there is a blog post coming devoted to just that!

July 25, 2017 0

Weight loss – is it really so difficult?

Weight loss is a complex and difficult task. It is made more so by the current waves of diets that sweep the market. This blog is an alternative to those diets and methodologies. It takes the best from each and allows every one of us to work out for ourselves what we like to eat, when we like to eat and how to work with our bodies to lose weight.

All of us want to be slim and attractive. We all want to look our best. But not many of us want to go the rest of our lives without eating birthday cake. And even fewer of us really look forward to weeks of dieting, and existing on tasteless and unsatisfying meals that leave us hungry and irritable.

The simple idea here is if you engage in a program that actually suits you, and that doesn’t force you to eat foods that you don’t like at times when you’re not hungry, well, there is no reason why you couldn’t do it forever. And that means that the weight stays off for good.

If you can lose weight while still eating chocolate, then losing weight doesn’t seem so punishing. And if you can keep the kilos off for good, that’s even better.

July 24, 2017 0