Physical Hunger vs Emotional Hunger

If you know me, you know that I hate diets.  H.A.T.E.  I hate cleanses, I hate 30-day jump-starts, I hate counting calories, I hate monitoring macros, I hate em all!!  The reasons are many, but the bottom line is because they fail to address the underlying concern for almost all women who are overweight: they don’t change your relationship with food. These diets don’t change how you eat, they only change what you eat.  Epic fail.

But hunger is tricky thing….it takes a lot of work to figure out when you’re actually hungry and when you just *think* you are!  Dr. Anita Johnston developed a useful metaphor to describe the two different types of hunger signals:  “Your body operates as if you are a car with two gas tanks.  Tank B (biological hunger) is the tank for nourishing your physical body.  It needs to be filled with food.  Tank P (psychological hunger) is the tank for nourishing your spirit.”  The problem for most of us is that we try to fill Tank P with food.  And that doesn’t work.  Which is why we often continue to feel “hungry” even if we have recently eaten.

So how do you solve the confusing signals of hunger?  With a lot of work on awareness, triggers and sitting with discomfort!  :-)  BUUUTTT in the meantime, here are a couple quick questions you can ask yourself when the hunger pains start:

• Is it mealtime?

• Am I responding to something in my environment?

• Is food visible and readily available?

• Have I felt increasing hunger or did the craving or desire to eat come on strongly/suddenly?

• Am I tired/bored/sad/anxious/stressed?

• Am I procrastinating?

If it is your normal mealtime and you have felt your hunger increase steadily, then go ahead and eat.  If not, you are likely using food to distract you from other less desirable emotions.  If you’d like to take it one step farther, start jotting down notes about what negative emotions and crummy situations you are experiencing or feeling.  This will give you a clue to what your triggers are.  Then comes the fun stuff….removing triggers!  But I’ll save that for another blog!  :-)