Hunger

[feedthehunger]

As I’ve switched over to the one-and-done, 3 meals a day scheme from the No S Diet, I have experienced something I haven’t for a long time: genuine, mouth salivating, uncomfortable pangs of hunger.

I think my snacking habit was more developed than I thought as previously to beginning the No S Plan I seemed to have got myself used to quickly assuaging any small hint of hunger. I rationalized my behavior by thinking I was on my way to intuitive eating, but what I failed to understand about myself is that my answer to the question “Are you hungry?†is the same answer it would always be for my dog -- “YES!†-- which lead me by a short route from snacking to grazing to gorging all day. Counting calories or points in the absence of any other structure was not working for me. I was overwhelming my diet with snacks, healthy and unhealthy alike.

Over the weekend I was reflecting on some of my posts (on another website) about suffering and thinking about how agonizing hunger feels to me and yet how insane it is that I’m labeling as “agony†a little between-meal hunger in a world where almost 900 million people are literally starving and/or are undernourished every single day. It makes me feel like I’ve lost my mind in a really serious way and I get mad at myself for complaining about a very light self-imposed burden when so many others are in real pain, truly suffering and actually dying out of genuine want and by no choice of their own.

I know it’s not really fair to compare suffering because we all struggle within the framework of our own lives no matter how blessed we look to others, and it is true that you can always find someone better off or worse off than oneself, but sometimes I think I need to see the small sacrifices I am making as exactly what they are: miniscule amounts of discomfort to correct a really big problem – my overeating. I’m very good at turning weight loss and its associated phenomena into an Opera, so sometimes I need to remind myself to get a perspective. As my new favorite author says: your mild feeling of hunger is how a lot of people in the world feel after the best meal of their lives.

Besides which, as I continue to go through each 3-meal day, I am training myself NOT to be hungry between meals because my brain will eventually only associate food with mealtimes and will learn not to beg (too much). Reinhard says the first month is as hard as it gets which, given my new perspective, is not that hard.

No failures yet; I've stayed right on plan since I started. I think I'm getting this (but early days yet).

[Amy C.]

This is a timely post. I just finished listening to the podcast on snacking and how it has contributed to the obesity rate in the world. Since most of us snack to assuage the hunger felt in-between meals, this podcast was poignant to me: http://everydaysystems.com/podcast/episode.php?id=28.

As far as mindful eating goes: I have discovered that my body does not give dependable cues. Sometimes when I am hungry, if I drink, the hunger goes away. Many times I am hungry right after I eat, then it subsides after an hour. I want to eat when stressed - desperately. No, I cannot ready my own body's cues.

Hunger is a good sauce to enjoy the next meal. I am really relishing my meals if I have a good 5-6 hour period between meals. I even try to have a good 12-16 hour period between supper on one day and breakfast/lunch on the next.

[feedthehunger]

Thanks, Amy for posting the podcast. I'm trying to do regular meals with breakfast at 7:00 a.m., Lunch 5 hours later at 12:00 p.m. and Dinner 6 hours after that at 6:00 p.m. 13 hour overnight fast. It seems like such a long time as I'm writing it out, but the experience of it is that I only realize it's been a long time since I've eaten about an hour or so before I'm due to eat again. Sometimes that hunger can be quite acute, but I'm living with it because I love this plan so much.

[oolala53]

If I had a nickel for every post of members marveling at real hunger.

[krawford13]

I used to think that I could never go 5-6 hours between meals. But I started doing Eat Stop Eat a while back (not doing it currently), and I would go 24 hours without eating 2 times a week. I could go 24 hours but not 6 hours? I now know that I can easily manage the hunger between meals. The greater includes the less. I am not going to die. My next meal is right around the corner.

[Amy C.]

I learned the same thing with 5:2 fasting. I wouldn't eat for 24 hours and survived. Yes, it is possible to go without eating and not fall over dead.

I didn't like it much, so I do the 16:8 fast, more or less. I want to think less about food and do the same thing every day. Obsessing over food is a challenge I face and the No S diet addresses that.

Lots of folks are on the intermittent fasting band wagon.

[krawford13]

I like the 16:8 fast. It took my body a little while to get used to it. I would go from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 pm. Intermittent fasting has many health benefits.