Provision #151: Am I Hungry?
LifeTrek Provision
My son,
now age 16, has been skinny all his life. He's one of those people who can eat
anything he wants and never get fat. He's one of those people that the rest of
us love to hate. But should we? Having lived with this guy for more than 16
years, I've come to notice a thing or two about his eating habits. And guess
what? He eats "anything he wants," but only when he is hungry. In other
words, he's skinny as a rail for more reasons than his metabolism.
This
tendency to eat only when hungry is generally shared by most "naturally thin"
people. It can be an extremely disconcerting and disorienting trait. One can
work for an hour on a gourmet meal. If my son is not hungry, he'll come to the
table, take a few bites, and then think nothing about throwing the food away
(unless we move quick to either eat it ourselves or store it).
Imagine
that. Throwing away perfectly good food just because you don't feel hungry.
What about all the starving people in the world? They would give anything to
have food like that. Shouldn't we eat the food whether we're hungry or not? The
answer, in a word, is "No."
By the
time the food gets to our plate, whether or not we eat it has absolutely no
impact on the starving people of the world. But it does have a tremendous
impact on our weight, health, and overall well-being. (Now if everyone in North
America would start buying less food that would eventually have a
tremendous impact on world hunger.)
The
next time you reach for a snack or sit down at a meal, I want you to ask
yourself a simple question: "Am I hungry?" That is a simple yet powerful
question. If the answer is no, then don't eat. Wait till you feel hungry. If the
answer is yes, then eat -- slowly, moderately, and healthy.
Many
people don't know true hunger when they feel it. Many, in fact, will say they
are always hungry. They have lost the ability to distinguish between physical
hunger and heart hunger. So they eat, thinking they're hungry, because it makes
them feel good. But, like a drug, this kind of eating -- to fill the heart
rather than the stomach -- is but a quick and temporary fix. The heart hunger
comes back in no time and we find ourselves eating again. In the end, the
tendency to fill our heart hunger with food leads to disease and premature
death.
So how
do we figure out if we're truly hungry? By asking ourselves the simple
question, "Am I hungry?" Ask it every time, before we put food in our mouths.
Become a mindful, rather than mindless, eater.
Judy
Wardell in her book Thin Within: How To Eat and Live Like a Thin Person
(Simon & Schuster • New York, 1985) suggests that we learn to rank our
hunger on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being empty, 5 being comfortable, and 10
being stuffed. Wardell teaches people to eat only when they're empty and to
stop before they're comfortable. That's partly because it takes a while after
eating for the feeling of satiety to set in. Regular small meals, or what
Wardell calls "0-to-5 eating," is the way to go.
To
become mindful of our hunger may take real effort. It certainly takes slowing
down. If it proves difficult, Wardell advises that we literally touch our
abdomen with our hands and ask ourselves the question, "Am I hungry? Am I
empty?" You'll be amazed what a difference it makes. Her bottom line is good
advice, "When in doubt, don't eat." If you're not sure whether you're truly,
physically hungry then don't eat (even if you're sitting down at the dinner
table). Don't worry, if you wait long enough the feeling of true hunger will
come -- of that you can be sure.
Keep in
mind that simple carbohydrates (sugar, white flour, white potatoes, etc.)
stimulate hunger pangs and may fool your body into thinking its truly hungry
when its not. A high-fiber, low-sugar, healthy diet will assist you greatly to
stay and live with that simple yet powerful question, "Am I hungry?"
May you
be filled with goodness, peace, and joy.
Bob
Tschannen-Moran
LifeTrek Coaching International
121 Will Scarlet Lane
Williamsburg, VA 23185-5043
U.S.A.
Telephone: 757-345-3452
Fax: 772-382-3258
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