by OneMoreBite | Oct 10, 2009 | Hunger
Just that Time of Year
It’s that time of year. From a nip in the air to a massive snow and ice storm, there is a difference now. It’s colder and the tendency is to put on a few pounds. We’ve generally accepted that it is nature’s way of helping us provide a little extra winter fat — just in case. But how long since you last had a food shortage or had to wait out the winter for your next meal? This year can be different.
Today consider making one small change
When you make a small change, it is easier to handle, you are more likely to incorporate it into your daily life, and you are more likely to succeed, than if you try to make a global change to your whole way of being.
Start by adding more fresh fruit and vegetables to your diet. Just for today, throw out your rules — if you follow any diet that forbids fruit or your favorite vegetables — because fresh foods are too important to miss. Fresh foods are sweet, satisfying and full of vitamins, minerals, bioflavonoids, and other things that your body requires for optimum health.
Choose a few you particularly enjoy. This time of year apples are good, bananas year around, citrus fruits are plentiful … Get some and start carrying a food sack everywhere you go. You can little packages of baby carrots, etc. A fellow I know always has a bagful of chopped cauliflower, carrots, and others that he munches on.
You Must be Crazy! I can’t Eat Fruits and Vegetables!
What? Have you lost your mind? Hear me out. The idea is when hunger strikes (or what you think is hunger), no matter where you are, you’ll now have a healthy snack handy. It’s not that you couldn’t wait out your hunger, but the tendency is to think about all the yummy foods you are trying so hard not to eat and this type of “I can’t have any” thinking sets you up for a massive binge once you do get ready to eat.
Instead, when you decide you are hungry, turn to your fruit/vegi sack for a quick, healthy snack. Give it a go and let me know what happens.
by OneMoreBite | Nov 15, 2005 | Book Reviews, Hunger
I recently read a book by the only man to have survived alone on a raft at sea for more than two months, Editor of Cruising World magazine, Steven Callahan. In “Adrift, Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea,” Callahan recounted how while slowly starving he dreamt of food, “My body knows what it needs. For hours on end fantasies of sweet ice cream, starchy baked bread, and vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables water the mouth in my mind.”
Reading an account of one man’s survival in the face of sure death was inspiring. My ex-husband is building Callahan’s redesign of “Solo” the very boat that capsized, so he too can take off on a singlehanded sailing adventure across the seas. He believes he could survive as Callahan did, while I’m telling myself I’ll die of starvation if I don’t eat in the next half hour. Sort of puts things in better perspective, don’t you think?
by OneMoreBite | Oct 10, 2004 | Hunger
This diary then becomes your window into your real eating habits. If you usually eat a pretty healthy diet for instance, then the food may not be a big problem, but what about the frequency or quantity?
Waiting for Hunger or I’m Always Hungry
Do you eat in anticipation of hunger? It can be very enlightening to play the, “Wait for Hunger” game. You do this by simply waiting for real hunger before eating anything. By real hunger I mean the, “I’m hungry, and I need something to eat,” hunger rather than a vague sensation that, “Hey, I could eat something,” or you suddenly smelled food and what a surprise, now you’re hungry. You’ll begin to recognize false hunger more often when you wait for real hunger to arrive, and once you know it’s false hunger, it’s much easier to simply ignore. Wait 10 minutes and false hunger disappears. Poof!
The odd thing while waiting for hunger is it can sometimes take a long time to arrive. People begin to worry that it won’t come at all. The same people who earlier said they are hungry all the time, now come to realize they are rarely truly hungry because they don’t wait long enough to actually get hungry. Other times you could be hungry very often throughout the day. Every day is different.
Iryna Tysiak
I carry some type of food with me such as fruit or nuts, sometimes a food bar, pretty much everywhere I go. If I get hungry, I want a couple of bites of something healthy pretty soon. It helps to stave off the, “I waited too long and now I’m going to eat everything in sight,” behaviors as well.
A food diary seems like a hassle but it can be such an excellent learning tool, and I highly recommend it. Use software if you like such as the Food & Exercise Diary, or simply get a small notebook and carry it with you. In fact, even if you use software, you still need to carry a small notebook because trying to recall what you ate is nearly impossible. You’ll easily forget those little nibbles here and there, and they count too. It can easily be just the food you don’t realize you’re eating that’s adding those extra pounds to your frame.
Give it a week, you’ll discover many things. 1) you’ll discover whether you’re really motivated to make a change in your eating habits because if you can’t do this one thing, then the chances are you’re just not ready to make a change, 2) you’ll discover you won’t die if you wait for hunger, and 3) you’ll discover you really aren’t truly hungry as often as you think you are.
by OneMoreBite | Jan 29, 2004 | Hunger
Sometimes when I wake this hungry, it’s as if nothing I eat will satisfy me. I’ll have my usual cereal (I nearly always have cereal and milk for breakfast), then I’ll start eating fruit, then I’ll have more fruit or a yogurt with Grapenuts, then maybe soup, then a bagel perhaps? Then …
I eat like this sometimes all morning, and usually by early afternoon I find I’m okay – I lived through another huge appetite morning. When you feel like you’re starving, even though you know you are not, eat real food. Fresh, wholesome food, not fake fat, not denatured crap, but fresh food. Fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans? Anyone eating beans? I love beans, soups, stews. This time of year a hearty soup with a big piece of heavy (I mean heavy in your hand) whole grain bread is so satisfying.
I don’t mean to make you hungry – I apologize. I tend to get carried away talking about food, I do love it so.
Learning Hunger Is A Signal From Your Body To Eat
Hunger Is Not A Disease
If you don’t know how to use EFT, which I refer to often, then get yourself some materials and learn it. It’s easy, and effective. Start at the beginning to learn, download the free materials at OneMoreBite for using EFT for weight loss and get started today.
by OneMoreBite | Jan 15, 2004 | Fears, Hunger
Yesterday I felt hungry all day. I decided it was because I felt trapped. I didn’t have a choice about what or where to eat – I couldn’t leave my house because there were a few inches of ice literally on everything outside , so I did what any normal, sane person would do. I ate. I might want to work on this issue since if I were ever truly in a situation where the food supply was limited I’d hate to think I’d wipe it out in one frenzied day of panic.
I didn’t eat junky stuff, but I did eat far more than usual. For instance I had a wheat bagel, sliced with raspberry honey. I never slice my bagels, and never put anything on them, so that was odd by itself. I have a very regular schedule of hunger, I eat generally around 7 AM, then again around 10 AM, again around 12 noonish, and maybe 4 or 5 PM is dinner. Thursday I had my usual breakfast, then snacks, then more snacks, then a big lunch, then more snacks, then a big dinner. I popped a few chocolates that day as well.
Basically healthy food but it still adds up. I had a mixture I hadn’t had for a long time where I get out a bowl and toss in granola cereal, raw almonds, raisins and carob chips. That sounds nice and healthy but those calories add up. I mentioned last week it was nearly 4,000 calories that day, of reasonably healthy foods, so I proved you can overeat on good food. I also ate two bananas, one on my cereal in the morning and another in the afternoon as a snack, so I wouldn’t faint from hunger, I guess.
I never used EFT that day. Thinking about it later it seems I had a fear of not having enough, of running out, of thinking I’m being controlled by outside forces, and of not having a choice. One thing I did not do that day was berate myself in any way shape or form. I do not say mean things to myself – I never have, except for the occasional, you idiot type of stuff but never in a serious way. I don’t do that, and if you do, stop now. Just stop. If you hear yourself saying something unkind to yourself just stop.
Since I Didn’t Pay Attention To My Hunger, I Ate Non-stop
Next Daily Bite look for my list of my favorite foods and a bit on tracking your hunger levels. I promise to post my hunger level worksheet so you can see that I’m not perfect either. I maintain a reasonable size and shape by eating like what I call a normal person. I don’t obsess about it, and I do overeat sometimes (witness last Thursday), but one overeating episode does not frame my whole day nor does it color my life. It’s not me, it’s just a behavior.
by OneMoreBite | May 28, 2003 | EFT Weight Loss, Hunger
Are You Hungry?
Here’s something I read yesterday that got my blood boiling. It’s supposedly diet advice, but I’d say it’s more of the same nonsense we’re fed in our daily “Celebrity Advice” diet.
“You eat when you’re hungry, and you can eat often,” Paula Zahn disclosed, saying she eats five or six small high-protein “meals” a day.” Here’s the stupid part: “On this plan, my energy levels are so stable … and I never feel hungry.”
Excuse me? First she says you eat when you’re hungry, and she eats five or six times a day. In the next instant she says, you’ll NEVER feel hungry. No wonder people are so afraid of hunger when celebrities and other so called “experts” claim you can eliminate the pesky hunger problem, just by following their diet.
Hunger is Healthy
For once and for all, hunger is a healthy aspect of daily life. Without hunger we would all whither and die. Have you ever truly lost your appetite? Not a lessened desire or “you’re not hungry but you could eat” hunger, but a true loss entirely? Without appetite the thought of food is repulsive; you not only don’t want to eat, you probably couldn’t eat, unless you were forced. That is the situation faced by those under extreme illness conditions and isn’t something I’d wish on anyone.
Since most diet plans are so restrictive, especially compared to what we normally eat, it’s no wonder we become fearful of our hunger pangs. (Please note the word is pangs, not pains). Case in point, The TWA Stewardess Diet which allows you half a grapefruit for breakfast. Talk about hungry!
Starting today, let’s eliminate the the notion that hunger is the enemy. One thing that helps enormously is to feed yourself well. Eat wholesome food more often – you’d be surprised how well it works!
EFT for Hunger, Fear, Loss of Control
Setup: “Even though I’m afraid of my hunger, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though my hunger is so great I’ll consume everything, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
“Even though I can’t control my hunger, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
Round 1: This hunger thing
Round 2: This remaining hunger thing
It only takes a minute, do as many rounds as are necessary to bring your SUD level to a 2 or lower.
What’s EFT? What’s a SUD level? Read One More Bite’s Intro to EFT for Weight Loss materials. It’s very easy to learn and even easier to use.
Some people stop using EFT because it seems too easy, or they are actually getting a good result but then something stops them from continuing. What do you think could be the problem? More issues perhaps? Exactly! When you find yourself thinking, “Oh, I don’t need to do this,” or “This is silly,” or “This is a waste of time, I’ll never…” that’s a perfect opportunity to use EFT on your limiting beliefs.
Do a round of EFT every time you catch yourself in a negative frame of mind and you’ll see the pounds slipping away.
Read about Infamous Hollywood Diets at Shape magazine. Great article!
