Have you seen the Tiny Hamsters Eating Tiny Burritos video yet?? So adorable, so cheeky, so… weirdly mesmerizing! I think it’s because I used to make elaborate set ups like when I was kid – but for the imaginary fairies that I was absolutely positive weren’t imaginary:) And there’s already a part two: Tiny Hamsters Eating Tiny Pizzas. (Click through if vid isn’t showing up in your reader/email!)
“Who killed JFK? What color would a smurf turn if you choked it? Where in the nursery rhyme does it say humpty dumpty is an egg? Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but people don’t point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?” – With so many important questions that need answering sometimes it can be easy to overlook the more simple ones. So when I got a recent e-mail from a reader who asked me a question about Intuitive Eating, it took me a minute to realize what she was really asking me: How do you not eat when you’re not hungry?
For everyone who just yelled “Why would you eat if you’re not hungry?!”, class is dismissed and you can leave now. For the rest of us who can think of eleventy different reasons to eat besides physical hunger (including my cat, who I just learned is obese), we will continue.
Reader A (who said I can use her question “as long as I remain the anonymous, has all of her crap together, wealthy, gorgeous, perfect mom that I am” which cracked me up so hard) writes,
Hello!
Where have you been ??? I just found your site and am loving it!!!! I am trying to read the archives and get caught up, so to speak. I really enjoy your writing style and humor, along with your true compassion! Plus, it is sooooo refreshing to read real information from a woman who is also a mom and not a 20 something (and all that silliness 🙂 I have now been battling the binge eating that has come about from starving myself and over exercising for three years since having my daughter. I am trying to set a better example for her. I do have a question about intuitive eating. How do you manage it when you have little ones and a husband? It seems like their eating schedules are always different than mine and I want to eat as a family, but there are many times my hunger doesn’t match with everyone’s appetite. Do you have this issue? Or any recommendations? Sorry this is so long, but I would appreciate any feedback or resources that you may suggest. Thank you for your time and keep up the interesting (and funny ) writing!!
Have a good day!
First, I would like to highlight something really important that A wrote: “I have now been battling the binge eating that has come about from starving myself and over exercising for three years.” I’ve talked before about “functional anorexia” – trying to live on that razor’s edge between starving to be skinny and starving and hospitalized – and how even though celebrities make it look easy, it’s actually setting you up for a lifetime of mental and physical problems and A’s letter demonstrates one of those perfectly. If you are constantly starving yourself, you screw up your hunger cues and hormones to the point where eventually, for almost all of us, you binge. People often thing of bingeing as bulimia and being totally different from anorexia but it’s been my experience that many people cycle back and forth between endless cycles of restriction and bingeing. It’s a miserable way to live.
But that’s not the question! A is doing a marvelous job of working on her past issues and as part of that, she’s trying Intuitive Eating which I think is awesome. IE helped pull me out of a similar cycle and while it’s not been all sunshine and rainbows (I gained 10ish pounds doing it), it’s definitely vastly improved my life. It’s the freedom to walk into a party with a buffet and not feel trapped between my desire to shovel in all the forbidden goodies and my panicky need to hide in another room for the whole party so I won’t shovel in all the forbidden goodies. It’s the freedom to go to a restaurant without checking the menu online first. It’s the freedom to skip over all the diet tips in magazines because the majority of them make no sense to me any more. Why should I drink 16 ounces of water before every meal to “trick my body” into feeling full when I already know, without tricks, what full feels like? Indeed, I no longer hide treats from myself (did that ever work anyhow?) and ended up giving away half a bag of Godiva chocolates because I just didn’t like them. I know.
The most essential part of IE is figuring out if you’re actually hungry or not. This question sounds silly to a lot of people – heck, we’re born knowing this – but to those of us who have screwed up our hunger cues through years (decades, for me) of dieting, restriction, rules, guilt and disordered eating it can be really, really difficult to answer. When I first started IE, I remember sobbing at my kitchen table because I couldn’t say for sure if I was hungry. I was sure that I was broken beyond repair and I’d have to go back to meal timing and calorie-counting. But it did eventually happen for me.
It took about two weeks of following Geneen Roth’s program to the letter to feel those hunger cues come back – two weeks of sitting down at the table every time I thought I was hungry, asking myself after each bite if I was full, putting the food away when I sated and then possibly pulling it out again ten minutes later because I’d gotten it wrong. I’ve talked a lot before about how to know what your body is telling you it needs (versus what it wants) when you’re hungry. But A’s letter brings up the flipside to that: How do you not eat when you’re not hungry?
1: Recognize re-learning how to be hungry is a process. During those intense two weeks, I didn’t worry about timing my meals to coincide with my family. Sometimes I ate with them. Sometimes I ate but it was something different than what they were eating. Sometimes I just sat with them while they ate. It wasn’t ideal but I knew it wasn’t going to be this way forever and I was determined to give myself this kindness of patiently re-teaching myself how to feel hungry.
2. Know what real, physical hunger feels like to YOU. One of the things Roth points out in her books is that cravings come on hard and strong while real hunger waxes and wanes. But it can feel different to everyone. For me, the only way I learned to recognize it was to let myself actually get hungry – no snacks or nibbles and definitely nothing that would suppress my hunger like caffeine, diet pills or the like. Not to the point of panic or starvation but hungry. Sometimes I describe it out loud, both for the benefit of myself and my kids. Also, distraction can be your best friend when trying to avoid a craving. (One type of distracting yourself that’s back in the news these days is EFT or the “tapping technique” – not sure if the science is there but it’s super interesting! Not to mention entertaining for onlookers – dinner and a show!)
3. Determine your priorities. Family dinners are very, very important to me. Not only does the research show that eating a daily meal together has numerous mental and physical benefits (girls who eat family dinners are less likely to get eating disorders, children who sit down for their evening meal are less likely to be obese or depressed) but my personal experience is that my kids needs that time with us. Not only do they need the time to talk and catch up but they also need to see my husband and I modeling good eating habits. So I knew that eventually I wanted to get back to a place where I was eating with them nightly. On the flip side, if you’re out with the girls and your priority is to spend time with them, then do that first. If you’re not hungry don’t feel like you need to eat just because everyone else is. You’re there for the company and that is fine!
4. Set incremental goals. At first it was just making sure that I was seated at the table with my family every night. Second was making sure that healthy food was available should I decide I was hungry. Third was spacing my meals so that my hunger would coincide with dinner time. That’s the cool thing about hunger: Once you learn what it feels like and that you can successful handle it, you realize that it doesn’t control you. So much disordered eating behaviors are driven by actual hunger, fear of getting hungry or shame from being hungry. Hunger is just a physical feeling – it’s not bad and it doesn’t own you. At first my hunger was all over the place and I was eating at the most random times but within a couple of weeks it settled out into a fairly regular pattern. Once that was established it was a matter of planning in advance so that I could have dinner ready around that time.
5. Be patient with yourself. If you’re anything like me when you make up your mind to change, you want to change overnight and do everything perfect on the first try. Not only does this never happen but it also sets you up for failure and frustration when you fall short. Praise yourself when you eat when you’re hungry or when you don’t eat because you’re hungry. And if you make a mistake? Learn from it and move on. Eating is not a moral choice. You weren’t “bad” or “good” – you are human and you need food. Even emotional eating isn’t bad! Sometimes food IS comforting.
6. It’s not all or nothing. A hallmark of disordered eating is black and white thinking. Sometimes you may be just a little hungry and only eat a bit. Other nights you’ll be ravenous and eat a lot. It’s all good. As long as you’re paying attention to what you’re eating and to your hunger cues, you don’t need to worry about eating.
7. Get okay with eating with other people. This was a hard step for me. After years of hiding my food and feeling ashamed of eating (I always felt guilty for “giving in” to my hunger), I didn’t like to eat in front of other people. Even if they were my own kids. But I quickly realized that they need to see me eat and to eat well if they’re going to have a good relationship with food. Plus, food is a social activity. Learning to eat with others is a life skill. Part of this is telling other people what you need. Sometimes this means learning to say “No thank you” to food pushers.
I hope that A – and you guys! – found some of these ideas helpful! I’m definitely not the expert on IE (nor am I a doctor, nutritionist or actress who plays one on TV) but I want to give you hope that no matter how many years of messed up eating you have, you can learn to trust your body to know how to feed itself.
Do you have a hard time not eating when you’re not hungry? Do you have any IE tips for Reader A?
I’ve been dealing with an ED (restricting/overexercising) for about half my life at this point (I’m 27), and that has, like you say, severely scrambled my hunger/satiety cues. By that I mean that I don’t really have any cues unless I’m super uncomfortably full or *eat now or pass out* starving. But I have noticed two different types of hunger: the classic, growly stomach hunger (which kicks in way late for me, thanks to years of mistrust/mistreatment of my body), and also “body hunger”, which basically happens when my stomach should be reasonably full but my body just needs more calories. I guess this is so common for me because I’m still over exercising and mostly eating low energy density foods. It makes me crazy to have that “body hunger” when my stomach isn’t “stomach hungry”, but it’s something I’m trying to learn to recognize and manage. Is this something you dealt with during your overexercising days too?
This is the best description I have heard of what I experience everyday also – “body hunger”. Since I tend to intake low calorie high density options, I generally feel like my stomach could explode but my legs won’t move another inch. I often wonder if I could ingest a higher calorie food would I feel less like dying? I haven’t jumped that hurdle yet. Either way, your analogy is spot on. And I am the queen of riding the fine line of hunger.
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That Humpty-Dumpty question blows my mind. I never thought about it; just made the same unfounded assumptions that my ancestors made.
I often eat when not hungry just because it’s time to fix food for my husband and there’s no way I’m getting all that food out twice.
Great question and great post!
I’m actually pretty good at knowing when I’m really hungry and when I’m just craving edible entertainment–but if I have doubts, I sometimes use the chicken soup test.
If I’m really hungry, plain healthy food will sound appealing–I could imagine enjoying a bowl of chicken soup or some grilled fish and vegetables. But if the only things that sound good are snacks like chocolate or nuts or turkey jerky or sweet fruits, then I’m probably looking for entertainment, not trying to satisfy actual hunger.
The problem is, even when I recognize my motives, I don’t always take the high road!
You just described me, Crabby, at least when it comes to not taking the high road, and especially when cravings are part of the deal. I like your approach and will definitely try to apply!
What often works for me is a simple question: Am I hungry or am I just in the mood to eat? Depending on the day, I can walk away if the answer is the latter.
My biggest problem is the food pushers. I’m actually pretty decent at avoiding the junk food, but it’s really hard for me to say no when someone is specifically handing it to me. It’s unfortunate, because that usually means when I get a treat, it’s not necessarily what I want, it’s what someone brought me. That’s probably my biggest thing I’d like to work on.
Other than that, I’m hungry a lot because I train a lot and burn lots of calories. While occasionally I’ll give in and eat something less than healthy, it’s always a choice. When I am actually full, I enjoy that feeling and the absence of necessity to eat!
Like Crabby said!
When I am hungry, healthy food will sound appealing.
Like when I remember that red bell peppers have a lot of Vitamin “C”.
Then its…*best Homer Simpson voice*… “Ummm! Bell Peppers!”
My drooling is mostly motivated by protein.
It has gotten to the point where I don’t even buy a bag of chips anymore because I know I won’t eat the whole thing. Again, like Crabby said, its entertainment food , and for me it now loses its entertainment value with just a few chips.
(Chocolate is still stalked and consumed though)
Yesterday at our family Mother’s Day gathering at the home of two of nephews and their kids. Acreage, rambling home, they cooked.
My Mom who is Mom, Grandma, and Great Grandma and their (nephews) Mom, my sister.
Experienced and watched the whole warm and loving family dynamic replayed happily again.
Tons of food. Always.
But…although food is always offered, it is never obligated. “Don’t be shy about asking if you want it, but don’t feel you have to!”
Food never gets completely consumed AT the event. Leftovers are a big thing for days to come, and the spoils are divided to whomever wants them.
There were chips…had a few. Had MORE of the fruit trays, and grapes from the bowel. Then the meal itself.
I watched as my almost eighty-two year old father eschewed the two high steps leading down from the deck and simply hopped off the edge.
82.
Hopping off the deck.
I was not surprised, but I realized that the casual observer MIGHT be…but most casual observers do not peg my Dad as almost 82. Other people figure late sixties, early seventies.
Same as they perceive my Mom, who admits to being past 29.
No one obese. No one especially skinny. Everyone healthy. AND highly functional even in advancing years.
My Dad dug up the garden the other day. With a shovel, not a roto-tiller. Did not even ask for help. Active. Mom is too.
The ONLY anomaly in my family history was me when I was married to an abusive spouse. I exercised then even more than I do now.
I ate more comfort food then.
But when she left, I dropped fifty pounds within two months. (Dropped from 240 to 190).
I did not do anything different exercise-wise.
I did not eat comfort food.
I ate when I was hungry. Mostly craved good stuff.
THAT particular stress (my ex) was gone, and I was not clinging to the weight for protection and comfort.
My body’s balance came back and I gained muscle back to 220…and I now even out at around 210.
I never had weight loss goals.
I never had weight gain goals.
I ate properly and exercised.
Satisfied with… it is what it is.
Like the rest of my family.
Who by all indications live long, happy, healthy and active lives.
Family meals can be hard for me, because my hunger doesn’t line up with convenient times to eat with my husband. I’ve found I always want lunch at 11am or earlier, to heck with the traditional 12! But that means I’m wanting dinner around 3, a good three hours before my husband gets home. I’ve just learned to have a light meal, like a bowl of yogurt and fruit, and then I’m hungry again by the time he gets home.
Eating with other people is still very hard for me, but not because of an ED. When I was young my mother would always tell me I “chewed for too long” and “sounded disgusting” when I ate, so I’ve developed a bit of a complex about eating in front of other people. We never ate as a family, either. I’m OK eating on front of people I know really well, especially if there’s a noise like the tv going on so no one can hear me chew (and in case you’re wondering; no! I don’t chew with my mouth open or something gross. I think I chew just like everyone else, my mom is just strange and accidentally messed me up!). I realized just how messed up I still am a few weeks back when I was at a friend’s house and we were about to sit down and have lunch in front of the tv, and one of her coworkers dropped by to chat. The woman encouraged us to go ahead and eat. I know it shouldn’t have been weird, but I just couldn’t, even though I was really hungry. I was terrified of her thinking I was gross. I pretended I had to use the restroom and hid there until she left, then slunk back in and ate.
Lose weight fast for summer!
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the ok eating with others is SO INTERESTING to me and always has been.
I can completely put myself in the place of the other with the … others 🙂 but that one is a challenge for me to wrap my brain around.
I think because I SO LOVE company at meals?!
I’m working on intuitive eating right now. There are definitely times when I want food, but realize I’m not hungry. What has helped me most is three things.
1) Reassuring my body and my mind that when I am truly hungry I can eat WHATEVER sounds appealing. It is taking time to rebuild trust with myself that there will not be future food restriction.
2) I have a little internal dialogue with myself to try to figure out what my hunger is for if it’s not for food and then I try to find something that is a better fit for satisfying the source of the hunger. If I’m really lonely, call a friend; if I’m tired, rest; if I’m anxious, pray, problem solve, talk it through with a friend. If I’m bored or desiring pleasure, find something else that I will enjoy (this one comes up a lot).
3) I find that the main reasons I want to eat when I’m not actually hungry are not (as I feared they might be) deep psychological issues. Usually I’m bored, or feeling short on pleasure and food is quick, easy-to-access pleasure. I started a list of “Ways to Take Care of Myself that Don’t Involve Food” and using this has really helped. So I give myself permission to do things from this list rather than eat when not hungry. It includes things like–reading novels, hula hooping, writing blog posts, lying on the grass in the sunshine, putting on perfume, calling friends, etc.
Everyone has different things that they take pleasure in, but so many of us our productivity-oriented and don’t give ourselves permission to take time to relax and do something just for fun. Creating spaces in my day for that helps.
It also helps me to plan something fun for after my meal is done. If I know the next job on my list is cleaning the bathrooms, I’m likely to keep eating past hunger just to avoid it!
I love Louis C.K. and that quote in particular, because give me something sweet and no matter my promise to make it last, I will gorge myself until it’s gone and I feel awful about myself for it.
I’ve had to reset my “hunger” meter a few times, usually after having a baby because I’d find myself eating to distract myself from how tired I am when I’m unable to just go to sleep.
Very informative post, Charlotte. Thank you.
I’ll add this: brushing my teeth after I eat is my best means of avoiding food/treats I don’t need. If I really want something, I’ll have it. And I’m currently learning that even a piece of fruit can set me off on an evening binge, so I’m skipping that. (If I don’t get through and wind up eating, I start fresh the next day. No judgment of myself. That helps.)
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