Trust your hunger
Guest Blog by Vita Babens, Caring Nature, Visit www.caring-nature.com
Why do we ignore some needs while honouring others?
Guest Blog by Vita Babens, Caring Nature, Visit www.caring-nature.com
It is no secret that we are all human beings and we all use the bathroom on a daily basis. We go to the bathroom when we feel the need to. We do not stop ourselves and think - “I am going to ignore the need and instead, going to wait till my usual bathroom time!”
So why do we very often do it when we feel hunger? Why we are trying to suppress hunger and “wait for the usual lunchtime”!?
In regards to going to the bathroom, we never think “Oh, I have already been here three times today, I don’t want to overdo it!” But why do we do this with our hunger?
It seems like so many of us have an unnatural relationship with our hunger. For a fact, there are so many women involved in dieting and binging patterns, promoting the desparation to control their weight.
It all can change if we decide to “relearn” our relationship with hunger and make peace with food. The very first step in this process is learning to reconnect with your own hunger. It might seem obvious, but the reason why many people eat has very little or nothing to do with hunger. They eat because they are bored, stressed, tired or because they need a break or maybe they are eating because food is available or free!
When learning to reconnect with your natural feeling of hunger, establish a habit to rate how hungry you are using a scale from 1 to 10.
Number 1 being extremely hungry.
Number 10 being absolutely full.
Start learning to evaluate your hunger using this scale and eat when you feel “comfortably” hungry - around numbers 3 to 4 on a scale. If we wait till we are really hungry - we tend to overeat. We all overeat at times, so don’t worry. We all know the feeling of being stuffed, overtired, and sometimes we feel shame for engaging in that behaviour. That’s diet culture talking.
When we eat before we enter into ravenous mode, we are more likely to eat mindfully.
When you are really hungry, you also tend to crave foods that may not make you feel energetic and great, whatever that may be for you. You are also eating really fast and not paying attention. In fact, one of the biggest predictions of overeating is letting yourself get too hungry in the first place.
When it comes to good energy levels, a balanced gut, being in a good mood and having the stamina to get through the day - learning how to eat when you first get hungry and stopping at fullness (not at overly stuffed) is one foundation!
Although what you eat is important, how you eat is just as important!
In terms of what to eat - there is a learning process involved as well - how to know what to eat?! Firstly, we should stop listening to everyone else’s opinion and start really listening to our bodies. Become silent, really tune in and feed your body with what it’s really craving.
The moment we get rid of judgment and guilt about what we are eating - we discover food like it’s the first time!
When we are really tuned with our bodies, we actually realize that we crave healthy and nourishing foods. When we commit to feeding ourselves with love - food is no longer something we punish ourselves for or restrict ourselves from.
Making peace with food will inevitably affect other areas of our life.
As we learn how to listen to ourselves, we become better at listening to others. We naturally become more empathetic.
As we make a point to trust ourselves, we become more trusting in our relationships and more vulnerable. It all boils down to learning how to actually love yourself and consequently to be able to feel what it really is to love someone else.
Making peace with food and learning to trust your hunger is about the way you live your life. Because the way we do anything is actually the same way we do almost everything in life. So when you make a point to listen to yourself and be unconditionally kind to yourself, it affects your overall life on a daily basis. It affects how you treat other people, show up at work and in your community.
So starting to really trust your hunger will be your first and important step to self-love and transformation.