The Eating-When-Hungry Journal :)

[roundcoconut]

So, OK! The thing I've been exploring lately, is the idea that it would be nice to be the kind of person who eats when hungry. Of course, I know myself well enough to know that this'll take a few months of work, and a few months of actively rerogramming myself.

I'm deciding to share what I'm doing, and what I'm thinking, for a couple of reasons. One of the simplest reasons, is because it costs me nothing to share these ideas with you guys. Even if this never resonates with another human soul, it is work that I'd be doing on myself anyways, and since I am someone who processes new thoughts and ideas with words anyway, then I'd be writing it up no matter what.

But another of the reasons I'm writing this up is because I think it's a really common issue that people encounter, and one that the plant-based community has done a pretty shabby job of addressing, up until now.

I believe that it is true that, if you only focus on eating healthy foods, then you sometimes stay beholden to old patterns that we were taught, which is to give yourself food ANYTIME you need to stuff an emotion, cure a boredom or kill some time. And what the hell's up with that?

I personally don't want to be the kind of person who doesn't know how to respond appropriately to situations, but rather dumps a bowl of mashed potatoes over the top of everything. Screw that, man!

So those are my motivations! I'll pop this into multiple entries as I come up with them, and then anyone here can see if anything that I'm doing would be helpful to them as well.

[roundcoconut]

So what's the story about eating when not even hungry?

I started with these thoughts:

When I eat when not hungry, it's not that I'm giving my power over to food. Rather, it's that I'm giving my power over to boredom. Or, to anxiety. Or, to WHATEVER.

I am talking to myself about my emotion, and adding something like, "and I think I'm OK with that" Something like, "Work is really slow right now, and I think I'm OK with that." Or: "There's a tricky conversation I'm going to initiate with my boss this afternoon, and I can pretty much handle that."

I am starting to offer these ideas to my brain, because I think the default idea that we're taught is something like, "Business was so slow at work today, so I wound up eating and snacking and eating and snacking." We tend to say this as though food was a logical or rational solution to having too much time on our hands -- i don't think it IS logical or rational -- I think it's absurd.

The term that occurred to me about how we eat when not hungry, is that food is a SOCIALLY AGREED UPON PLACEBO for different emotions. Of course it is culturally agreed upon that people have a fight with their girlfriend, and then eat some leftovers. Which makes NO frigging sense. Or, you feel nervous about the job interview you just had, so you eat some banana-based ice cream. This is just a calorie-stuff, and how could it possibly be good for us?

I got home from work yesterday, and that is one of the situations in which i have often eaten without hunger. The grooves are very deep, and I DID engage in my normal food behaviors. I actually think this is fine for now. For a little while, I am just contemplating new ideas, and maybe just DELAYING some of those normal-for-me food behaviors by a few minutes.

So that's where I'm at right now!

[roundcoconut]

Oh, and I'm also noticing that the urge to mindlessly drink things when bored or anxious, is a pattern I'd like to replace.

If I am drinking coffee every time I have time to fill at work, then I will just wind up acidic and overcaffeinated by the end of the day. And who needs that?

Or, if I am drinking unsweetened hot cocoa (meaning just baking cocoa, plus a little cinnamon and vanilla) every time I am tying to relax in the evening, then I am just making a lot of dirty dishes. And for what?

So my idea is that I am becoming the kind of person who is able to handle lulls in the day without putting some type of pacifier in my mouth (whether that's food or drink, caloric or non-caloric). I'm totally not a little baby who needs to self-sooth with sucking, chewing or swallowing!

I'll add more as I go. Even as I write, I've got two and a half hours before I can catch a ride home, but I DID bring a carafe of 4/5 water, 1/5 orange juice, plus a thermos of cocoa. I'll be curtailing the actual behaviors over time, but I personally tend to do best when I get the underpinnings down first, idea-wise and belief-wise, so that's why I'm doing it this way!

[roundcoconut]

One of the most interesting things that I read recently, was the idea that in modern dieting, humans are not trying to break their addictions to unhealthy foods, or curtail their abuse of (healthy or unhealthy) food, but rather, trying to JUST WORK AROUND THOSE ADDICTIONS AND ABUSES.

That was a big "Holy Shit" moment for me.

It was the OprahWinfrey-WeightWatchers thread that got me going on this one!

Like, every diet program and food guru (including the plant-based ones) seem to be telling the masses, "You can still EAT when it is slow at work" and "You can still CHOW after you have a phone call with your mother" and "You can still CHUG a pot of coffee when you can't figure out how to structure your day" and "You can still GOBBLE apples on the way home from work." I do happen to believe that these messages are effing with us!

Of COURSE you can't expect to eat unlimited food in any situation and have good outcomes with your health, self-esteem and energy levels!

The problem is that, for me personally, WHEN I eat extra food during times of boredom, times of anxiety, times of uncertainty, THEN I still feel entitled to sit down with a normal meal at the end of the day. Thus, an overall situation of overloading my body with too much food!

I notice that EVEN IF I am eating healthy foods as my emotional crutch, then there is still no hunger available to me during the time that I like to sit down to a meal. I still want that normal meal at the end of the day, but I don't have the hunger. So, I'm writing a check I can't cash. In other words, when I eat my normal dinner, after a day full of snacking snacking snacking (on food or drink, of any calorie density) I'm accummulating a biological debt. I'm promising that today I'm going to eat-today's-food-without-that-level-of-activity today (out of balance), but that tomorrow I'm going to do the reverse high-activity-level-but-low-level-of-food-intake. Why would I do that to myself? This is just a form of procrastination.

Today you are not willing to redirect to a non-food activity, but you think you're going to make that happen tomorow? Oh, keep dreaming, sister!

So, it's something I'd like to get to the bottom of!

[roundcoconut]

Oh, and I think this eating-when-not-hungry is part of what's going on when people ultimately settle for having excess body fat. I don't think people have to settle for having excess body fat, if that isn't something they want to settle for.

I think that the patterns of eating-when-not-hungry is very much breakable!

Just for starters, I am liking the idea of handling boredom moments or fill-the-time moments with the strategy I've always used for anxiety:

Whenever I feel feelings of anxiety, I learned the strategy of "Just make yourself comfortable and be patient. Make yourself as comfortable as you can, and at some point, a different emotion will present itself as an option, or a different behavioral path forward will present itself, that you would like to pursue." So I don't generally "act" when I'm experiencing a period of anxiety. I put myself in time out. Eventually the anxiety passes.

So, I am liking the idea of using this strategy during times when I would ordinarily fill my non-hungry stomach with food. Just make yourself comfortable till the urge passes. And the urge probably WILL pass.

That is one thing I'm going to try! Even if I need to sleep. Even if I need to pace back and forth. Try any non-intake behavior and see how it goes.

[roundcoconut]

One other comment (wow, I'm on a roll) --

My body weight remains extremely healthy and low, and I credit this to a few things:

For starters, I have noticed that if you're going to eat when not hungry, then you would do well to eat lower on the calorie density scale than if you DID have true hunger. So, it DOES seem appropriate to me, to eat vegetables (rather than starches and/or beans and/or fruit) when I have no hunger to appease. Why take on a larger biological debt when you can take on a smaller one instead?

Last night, for example, i stopped by the store and bought some cauliflower and two green bell peppers. I had already eaten a big plate of pinto beans with tortillas and salsa five hours prior at work (can you tell I am working at a Mexican restaurant?), and so this seemed appropriate. Of course, the pattern of eating-while-not-hungry at work, and then eating calorie-dilute vegetables for dinner, is not the pattern I would like for myself, but it is CERTAINLY an okay way of compensating for overeating earlier in the day, by eating very lightly later in the day.

I should mention that I am really liking the Roger Gould website's Pocket Hunger Coach. One of the strategies that the hunger coach teaches, is that people who attain and maintain their favorite weight make a regular practice of COMPENSATING for calorie rich meals, either by doing a lot of extra activity, or lowering the calorie density or quantity of their future meals.

It's noteworthy that this goes COMPLETELY against the advice of most people in the diet industry, and most people in mainstream and plant-based communities. Most of these people say, "Just start with your next meal, and eat what you would normally eat." They are so afraid that if you compensate for a binge, by doing some exercise, or by eating a smaller or less delicious dinner, then you will be sucked without your permission into a pattern of binge and purge, binge and purge. I think this is one of the great myths of our modern food culture.

(They say, "Oh, if you only eat cauliflower and peppers for dinner then you will feel deprived and go eat ice cream." But I think this is such a lie. If you can never even out one foolish indulgence by wisely eating a big calorie dilute salad, then how can you ever dig out? That is like saying that if you overspend on a purse, then you cannot curtail your clothing budget for the rest of the month, or it will backfire and you will be in HUGE debt. This is ridiculous, people!).

Still, I think it is good to curtail much of the eating-while-not-hungry in the first place, rather than overuse the strategy of compensating for misguided meals and snacks!

[roundcoconut]

One other idea that seems appropriate here, is that we live in a culture where people are CONSTANTLY choosing to indulge a desire that isn't that important to them, and sabotaging a desire that IS very important to them. This of course would be behavioral stupidity!

I am thinking that whenever I frame things that way, I have no difficulty making the right choice!

I tend to frame things this way when I talk to myself anyway! So it makes total sense to let this framework cross over when it comes to food.

Like this:
I have this slight desire to eat a burrito at work right now (which I wouldn't enjoy very much and am not hungry for), but I have a much greater desire to sit down with a plate of beans and rice tonight at dinner (which I WOULD enjoy and be hungry for).

So that may help me along the way!

I suspect that people who are plateauing on a plant-based diet aren't saying to themselves "Would you like this food now, or would you rather wait for that food later?" I think it is just an impulse to eat when not hungry, and then be in a pickle later.

I love that: "be in a pickle". It sounds like a crazy sour-smelling room!

Anyways! The eating-while-not-hungry proposition is "would you like to have three apples even though you're not hungry on the way home from work, OR would you like to have a flat belly in the morning"? I don't think you can necessarily have it both ways -- eat freely from a place of no-hunger, AND look hot.

Tradeoffs, is the big thing I'm seeing here, and framing my ideas in terms of trade-offs, rather than impulses.

[roundcoconut]

So, it turns out I can have quite a long conversation with just myself. I'm proving this to myself today! Who knew!?!

One other thing I want to add to the "conversation", is that there probably aren't a ton of people who would go to the effort of training themselves to eat when hungry (and respond to other situations with non-food responses). I think that a lot of people are perfectly happy to have a BMI of 25 and 26, and even though non-hunger eating is (my opinion) a dicey behavior to leave in place, it seems like it's only the true food geeks who think non-hunger eating would be a rewardng thing to curtail.

So, probably just me and a few food nerds who are ever going to bother. Everyone else will just feel threatened by the whole idea of curtailing mindless eating.

It is interesting to note that eating in response to hunger, means eating less often. So a person's body weight probably drops by starting to replace food-based responses to emotions and boredom, with non-food-based responsese to emotions and boredom.

In other words, by transitioning into less non-hunger eating, I may settle into a lower weight than I have been at for the last year. I actually think this is a good thing, and I find it weird when people try to stay within the body weights that others are comfortable with. Because we all know that there are SOOOOO many people (plant-based and non-plant-based) who like to police you based on their perceptions of "too thin".

And I am totally like, "Screw that, man!" I actually don't let people police me, so ha!

[roundcoconut]

Well, back to some of the ideas I have about starting to do things differently, when I have been spending the last year (at the very least) engaging in non-hunger eating.

One of the ones that has been a big part of my life up till now, is the "reward yourself" food (like a few apples in the car, on the way home, after a long, hard, or boring shift at work) -- or let's be honest -- after ANY shift at work. I think we have this notion is society (one that I have osmosed) of, "Honey, you knocked that shift out! Good job, have a few apples."

And another one that has been a big part of my life so far, has been "ritual" eating. I just got home, and so I have a meal. Maybe I just had a meal while I was at work, or maybe I had a few apples on the way home from work, so maybe I'm not even hungry, but it's a ritual. As soon as I get home, I've been cooking SOMETHING. Even if it's late. Even if it's early. Even if I'm not hungry. What kind of plan is that?

I'm starting to say to myself: I don't need that crap. What, I'm rewarding myself with superfluous intake now? what kind of reward is that.

I'm starting to say to myself: I just got home from work. What would I be doing if I had just finished my meal (besides washing dishes)?

And I'm probably enough of a rebel in life, to say, "No one tells me what to do. The time of day can't boss me around. No one can make me eat just because I'm transitioning from one portion of my day to another. Am I really going to let mainstream America tell me to "treat myself" to more food than I need? Screw that.

Come to think of it: "treating" yourself and "cheating" yourself are concepts that get confused in the mainstream consciousness. People say you should always treat yourself with food -- bored? you should eat. happy? you should eat. restless? you should eat. No, I'm starting to think that we're cheating ourselves (of hunger, of our natural bodies' size and rhythms) when we are constantly treating ourselves.

Those are my thoughts for the evening!

[GlennR]

I'm not sure I know what real hunger feels like.

[roundcoconut]

Yeah, GlennR, I know what you mean! I just felt a sensation of hunger for the first time in AGES, just this morning.

I think it's probably true what I've heard people say about Americans, which is that we tend to gas up the tank, and then drive around the block, and stop at the gas station again. Metaphorically, of course!

I ate a veg-only dinner last night to hopefully allow my body to use up stores of glycogen and develop some true hunger. But of course, old habits die hard, so I DID wake up and stuff my body full of fluids that I wasn't actually thirsty for -- it's just such a well-formed habit to have hot cocoa in the morning, plus a bit of (highly-diluted) orange juice.

We'll see how this thing goes, but I'm pretty sure I can form some beliefs and habits in myself, whereby I am the kind of person who stops at the gas station when the tank is getting pretty low. Stay tuned...

[roundcoconut]

More thoughts:

I DO believe that skills are transferable, from one area of a person's life, to another. And because I tend to be smart with money, it is easy for me to draw analogies across the two disciplines, to get ideas on how to do this eating thing even better.

The analogy that occurs to me, is that hunger is in many ways a finite resource, just like your paycheck is. So, just as we would not squander our paycheck, or blow massive portions of your weekly income on stuff that isn't very important or valuable to us, we can look at hunger in the same way.

Thus, I am starting to be the kind of person who does not squander her hunger, but rather spends it carefully and wisely -- often on foods that are "inexpensive" (i.e. calorie dilute) and help me to make the most of my "hunger budget".

This is a really interesting thought to me! Basically, I'm starting to believe that hunger is a hard-won commodity, which represents a substantial input of activity and/or patience.

If you're working at a sedentary job, then your bodily hunger represents many hours of abstaining from sloppy eating (while your body faithfully pumps your heart, operates your brain and guides the activities of your organs). This is really so much like getting a small paycheck from a low-paying job -- there's not a ton of money to spend, and it doesn't represent any hard or intensive work, but it DOES represent many many hours of time that you can't get back.

Or, by contrast, if you do a lot of hard physical labor all day (not many people, but perhaps SOMEONE fits this category), then it's like have a high-paying job, then you have a little bit more in your budget, but that "money" is representative of some actual WORK you've done to earn that right to eat.

So, I am seeing hunger as a commodity that I am learning to use carefully, just as I use my money carefully.

Of course, this metaphor extends well to the idea that eating when not hungry is a form of biological debt -- you are spending money from next week's paycheck, if you are digging into a nice pot of beans and rice that you have no biological hunger for. And wow, I am SOOOO averse to debt, whether financial or biological.

Isn't that a helpful belief system? Well, it's only helpful if you are good with money!

If not, then you would probably do well to come up with an analogy of something that you ARE good at. Like, if you are good with animals or children, then maybe a metaphor of raising a child or caring for a dog, would tap into your inner resources. Me, I suck with animals and children, so we are sticking with the metaphor of money for now!

[roundcoconut]

Side note, but I never knew until I got a garmin watch, how little activity is involved in non-sedentary jobs. For example, I wait tables, but really all that means is that I stand around a lot. I stand at the computer while putting in an order, I walk ten steps to get to a table, and then walk fifteen more steps to go back to the kitchen. The numbers do not add up to much at all. I never break a sweat. The illusion of "walking around all day" is true in only the most minimal sense. So, really, working in restaurants is not like being a ballet dancer who is in class for a few hours, and then in rehearsal for several hours. Being a server is more like working at a standing desk -- little expenditure of energy, when measured by a GPS watch. My calorie needs are very low!

And just because the proof is often in the pudding, I can tell you that I work with many, many servers and cooks who are heavy. I have one co-worker (who I worked with today), who is visibly lean, who totally agreed with me when I told her that I have to coach myself against gobbling food when the restaurant is slow and I have some down-time.

She said that she has to do the same thing -- set boundaries for herself against eating more food after putting the kids to bed.

So basically, all the people I work with, who do NOT guard against boredom eating, mindless eating, entertainment eating, and emotional eating, are heavy, just like most of America. Of course, many people in restaurants who ARE thin, are people who use cigarettes as their crutch for the above situations, which is definitely no improvement. Or, they are people who can't (and sometimes don't) wait to get off shift so they can soothe themselves, entertain themselves and fill their time with alcohol. Also no improvement over using & abusing food!

[roundcoconut]

To recap a bit:

I'm beginning to believe that biological human wealth (also known as health) is something that begins to happen only after a person's biological debt (a.k.a. excess stored body fat) has been paid down. You can't have biological human wealth (health) if you are carrying biological debt. (And "carry" is such a good word here.)

To extend the metaphor a little bit further, it seems true to me that as I try to wean myself off of non-hunger eating, a couple of strategies apply:

1. If I'm going to "spend" outside of my budget, then I should choose low-cost items. (So, if I have no hunger, but nevertheless choose to eat or drink something), then it would be good to choose smallish amounts of calorie-dilute foods and drinks. (i.e. If I'm going to go into biological debt, make it a small one that won't take too long to pay back.).

2. Also, if I'm going to spend outside of my budget, then it makes sense not to make that too delightful or stimulating an experience for myself. So, if I am not hungry or thirsty, then treating myself to relatively rich or pleasurable foods, seems ill advised. Steamed greens might be good to eat when not hungry, but going to a cafe for a soy latte might be too much of a reward. Brown rice (which I don't enjoy too terribly) might be a better choice than a potato (which I DO enjoy) for non-hunger eating, but I'm not even sure that I personally will be steering myself to starches at all when I have no hunger in the fist place.

3. Finally, it would be smart to work the exercise back into my life, when my work schedule allows! Lately, I have been picking up too many shifts at work (and so have little daylight some days to go for a run), but as soon as I CAN get the exercise, I'll have more of "budget" to eat within!

[roundcoconut]

The trick, i think, is to see this whole escapade (of learning to understand hunger and use it in your favor) as one of the great secrets of the ridiculously wealthy.

(Of course, I mean wealthy metaphorically.)

Just -- choosing to see this perspective on eating as a HUGE opportunity to step into eliteness and gain tremendously.

Because what happens when you are no longer saddled with biological debt, or paying off biological debt? You can BUILD from there, by becoming an excellent runner, or an excellent dancer, or whatever. Would you be able to run 9-minute miles, or feel hot in a ballet leotard before your biological debt is paid off? Maybe not.

I think it's only once the biological debt is paid off, that a person can start adding to the bank account of their good health. I can see myself DOING things with this biological wealth -- maybe signing up for a road race in the summer, or maybe having the bandwidth to do some cooking this spring. I don't know -- I just like the idea of allowing excellent stores of health to gather around me, and to multiply in my life.

It's a wonderful idea, and the idea of biological wealth is a positive thing, rather than to just run away fom excess poundage, and "deny" yourself additional meals because you're making up for past indiscretions.

So yes -- accummulating true wealth with the food behaviors I'm practicing now! Nice idea, isn't it?