Experimenting With Hunger

In her book, The Complete Beck Diet For Life, Dr. Beck writes that you shouldn't eat unless you're experiencing true hunger pangs, and she feels that most Americans don't know what true hunger feels like.  I know I don't - I've always had trouble with this skill.  For example, last night I planned out all my food for today and have eaten everything according to plan.  I had a healthy breakfast and lunch, and just finished a very satisfying 650-calorie dinner about 45 minutes ago.  But I still feel kinda hungry, like I need to eat something else.  Sitting here, I'm mentally reviewing what's in the fridge, trying to decide how many calories I can eat to make the hungry feeling go away without doing too much damage to my daily total.  The urge to make the hunger go away is so automatic that my brain keeps returning to the thought "you're hungry, go get something to eat" about every 90 seconds.  I just can't stomach the thought of being hungry - it makes me feel uncomfortable emotionally as well as physically.  And I do NOT like being uncomfortable!

In Dr. Beck's words, "Being hungry is not an emergency."  And my logical thinking brain knows that it's not, that I'm obviously in no danger of starving.  Hell, I have 451,535* calories stored on my body as fat - that's got to be enough to get me through at least one evening without food, right?  So why do I feel a bit panicky at the thought of not eating and feeling hungry all night?  Do I need to run a marathon tonight?  No.  Am I Scarlett O'Hara (as God is my witness...), rebuilding my plantation after it was destroyed by the Yankees?  No.  But deep down inside...and I really think this is the root of the issue...I equate hunger with being unfulfilled.  And rather than take the time to find out what I really need, I take the easy way out and stuff the feelings down with food, rather than experience and deal with them. 

I could always drink a glass of water to make the hungry feeling go away, but I think this evening I'm going to feel the hunger, and prove to myself that the world won't end if I'm not fed.  I've never been one to just sit with a feeling, physical or emotional, and just experience it.  Not try to change it, fix it, make it better or worse - just experience it.  So tonight I'm going to do just that - I have a quiet evening planned at home, by myself.  I'm just going to putter around the house, maybe read, maybe do some housework, and just be hungry.

FYI - Jen at PriorFatGirl.com has a great discussion going today on this very topic - check out the action here.

*The reason I know the exact number?  I had my body fat checked yesterday.  Ouch.  But that's another post entirely.