Principle 2. Honor Your Hunger

[Guest guest]

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