Breakfast question, plus a baby shower experience

August 20, 2011

Theresa's question about integrating IE with her teaching schedule got me to

thinking about an assertion in one of the IE books I read yesterday, namely,

that as people progress in IE, they tend to eat less at night and get hungrier

earlier in the morning. For those who have been doing IE for a while, what has

your experience been? I'm less than 5 weeks in and most mornings, I am not

hungry until about 10am. Some nights I don't eat after dinner with the family

(which I am more and more often hungry for, which is a relief). Other nights,

we stay up late enough that I need a little something. Usually lately, it has

been mainly protein, as opposed to dessert.

In other news, I attended a baby shower today for a former foster daughter.

Anticipation of it was fraught with emotional baggage and feelings of rejection

(since like most of the other women there, I had not been invited to meet the

baby in the 2 months since her birth), but the actual shower was lovely and I

got to hold the baby several times for quite awhile. Lunch was served and I was

really hungry, as I'd been hungry for about an hour but hadn't yet eaten, as I

knew there would be food at the shower. But all I wanted was to hold that

little girl, so I did that first while everyone else ate. Then I was shocked at

how high I piled my plate and realized it was my old pattern, which put me on

guard to try to stay mindful. It was hard, with all that chattering going on

and my confused emotions at that early point in the shower. Suddenly, I felt

slightly ill and braked to a halt on my eating. After a couple of burps, I felt

okay and was grateful I'd stopped so promptly after noticing the pleasure was

gone, even though I still had food on my plate. Over an hour later, we had cake

and I definitely wanted some, although I wasn't at all hungry. I ate the piece

served to me and as usual when eating when I'm not hungry, I wanted more, but

since I was in public, I didn't have any trouble not taking seconds. Then about

an hour and a half later, while out shopping, I realized I WAS ALREADY HUNGRY!

So I think I must have actually done well as far as amounts. I wasn't able to

eat at that time, because it hadn't occurred to me I might get hungry while out,

so I waited another hour and a half until I was home, but I wasn't starving or

anything. The sensation came and went and came again. I felt like I was eating

a largish dinner, but afterward, my stomach felt fine, so once again, I think I

did okay. Two larger meals, but not somehow over the top. Whew! Social eating

is so hard for me to judge!

Fine-tuning when exactly to stop eating is what I'm focused on right now, as I

seem to have plateaued on dropping weight and also prefer feeling " light " after

eating, rather than " heavy " and " full " and it seems to shift towards fuller

about 15 minutes after I've quit eating, which makes it even harder to judge.

Does anyone have any hints on how I can get this right more often?

Jane

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