Re: Principle 2. Honor Your Hunger

[Guest guest]

This is the principle I've been focusing most on, as it's where I think I

automatically fall down (too many years of restricting thoughts). I find that

when I can do it, I eat more often throughout the day with small snacks between

meals, but that it removes the 'last supper' feeling at mealtimes where I feel I

have to empty my plate because it's the last chance I'll get to eat before the

next meal so I've got to make sure I've had everything I can get.

I find that just the knowledge (constantly repeated) that you can eat any time

you are hungry, and that you have full and free permission to do so with no

guilt, can make a huge difference to your attitude at meal times.

>

> To clarify my previous post on Principle 1, and with some nice comments from a

member here, I am journaling about the Principles in a kind of linear way - one

at a time, because " that's how I've always done it, " but I am applying them all

to my life non-linearly as each day goes by and as my growth in Intuitive Eating

directs.

>

> So I am asking myself how do I want to address Principle 2, Honor your Hunger,

here in writing, and how am I addressing it each day?

>

> As I read about the role of carbs, protein, and fat in the body's process,

something came to me differently about my eating and activity. It makes much

more sense, and therefore seems somehow easier, to design a day's eating around

the essential needs of my body than around someone else's rules for what I

should eat. The whole thing about carbs and fuel made all the difference in how

I talk to my son the athlete about food, and all the difference about how I

approach anything involving physical activity. What has really impressed me

deeply is how all of this takes away the craziness of restricting what I eat as

if something outside of me is in control.

>

> One time when I've always been challenged is 5:00 pm. For my entire adult

life, I have worked in the same place, with an increasingly long commute, as

I've moved further out from the big city. It's now 2 hours one way, or 4 hours a

day spent on a bus, a train, or in a car. Eating is not allowed on the bus.

Because of my commute, I have to have a snack at the end of the workday and

before dinner, or it will be 6-7 hours between meals. I know primal hunger at

that time of day better than any other!

>

> What I'm learning with IE is that it takes far less to feel satisfied and make

it to dinner time than I thought. I do like the rule that a meal need be no

larger than the size of my stomach, lest I over fill myself, but a snack doesn't

need to be that big at all. So there's a delicate balance, right now in the

beginning of IE, between thinking restrictively and eating something small

because that's all I need and want. As I write this, I can feel a kind of tiny

excitement that maybe the years of dieting really are over, and the future holds

more energy, more freedom, more health, more mobility, and all the other

" goodies " I imagine in the IE life.

>

> It's the end of New Year's Day here; we've been to the movies ( " Sherlock

Holmes " - quite good, but our seats were too close in a crowded theater. I do

like Jude Law, but better in romantic comedies; Downey was good but kind of

disgusting, in a roguishly charming way.); and we're getting ready to rest.

That's a topic for another day - getting enough sleep and its effect on eating

and exercise.

>

> Thanks for letting me share.

> Happy New Year to all!

> Barbara

>

[Guest guest]

My biggest roadblock to honoring my hunger, after figuring out that, like my

kids, I DESERVE to eat within a reasonable amount of time of feeling hunger, is

being prepared and caring enough about myself to feed myself when I am hungry.

Some of us work so hard at our jobs and caring for our families that we let our

own needs fall to the bottom of the list of priorities.

~

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