ObesityHelp

You were born knowing exactly how much to eat. Hunger is your body's way of telling you that you need fuel. Reconnecting with your instinctive signals can help you reach and maintain a healthier weight without restrictive dieting and obsessing over every bite of food you put in your mouth.     

Perhaps you've ignored hunger for so long that you've forgotten how to recognize it. Maybe you even blame it for your weight problem so you see hunger as the enemy. Perhaps you confuse hunger with all the other reasons you eat, like mealtime, boredom, stress or tasty food.

At the same time, you may have learned to ignore the feeling of satisfaction so you eat until you're stuffed and uncomfortable. Perhaps you "clean your plate," "never waste food," and "eat all your dinner if you want dessert," instead of stopping when you've had enough. And you'll perpetuate this cycle if you teach your children the same things.  

Hunger is Your Instinctive Guide to Effortless (well almost) Weight Management  

Reconnecting with your hunger signals helps you lose weight. Here's how:  

• If you eat food your body didn’t tell you it needed, it has no choice but to store it until later. 
   
• You'll eat less food when you're eating to satisfy physical hunger than if you eat to satisfy other needs. Think about it. If you aren't hungry when you start eating, how do you know when to stop? When the food is gone of course! 
   
• You’re more likely to choose foods that nourish you. If you aren't hungry but you're eating because you are sad, mad or glad, what kinds of foods do you want? That's when I want chocolate, cookies and salty snacks. 
   
• Food actually tastes better when you're truly hungry. Hunger really is the best seasoning so you eat less but enjoy it more. 
   
• You’ll feel more satisfied because food is great for reducing hunger but not so great for reducing boredom, stress or other triggers.  

Trust Your Gut Instincts  

To break out of the pattern of eating on autopilot, get in the habit of asking yourself, "Am I hungry?" every time you feel like eating. This simple but powerful question will help you recognize the difference between an urge to eat caused by the physical need for food from an urge to eat caused by head hunger.

I know from personal experience that it's not as easy as it sounds. The first step is to recognize that hunger is physical. It's not a craving, a thought or a temptation. In fact, if you’re not sure you’re hungry, you’re probably not. By focusing on hunger as your guide, you can become your own internal expert about when, what and how much to eat.  

Food for Thought  

·         What specific signs of hunger do you usually have?  

·         What other thoughts and feelings do you confuse with hunger at times?  

·         Do you know what to do when you feel like eating even though you’re not hungry?  

Don’t live to eat—love to eat. Use hunger to let you know when food will be most enjoyable and satisfying.

Michelle

Michelle May, M.D.
http://amihungry.com/

Have you ever finished a candy bar and wished you had just one more bite? Are you surprised when your hand hits the bottom of the popcorn bucket at the movies? Do you ever felt miserably stuffed after you eat?  
 

These are all symptoms of unconscious eating or mindless eating.  
 

People eat while they watch TV, drive, work—even while talking on the telephone. And many people eat too fast, so busy filling the next forkful that they don’t notice the bite in their mouth. Since your brain can only really focus on one thing at a time, you miss the subtle signs of fullness so you don’t stop until you feel uncomfortable—or you run out of food. Most importantly, you won’t enjoy your food as much so you have to eat more to feel satisfied.

The solution is to pay attention while you’re eating. Mindful eating provides more enjoyment with less food. Practice these four key steps:

1. Start by recognizing whether you’re hungry before you begin eating. If you aren’t hungry, you won’t be as interested so it will be harder to stay focused. Besides, if a craving doesn’t come from hunger, eating will never satisfy it.

2. Next, decide how full you want to be when you’re finished eating. When you eat with intention, you’re less likely to keep eating until the food is gone.

3. Surprisingly, one of the most important steps is eating what you really want. Our society is so obsessed with eating right that we sometimes eat things we don’t even like. However, satisfaction comes not just from fullness but from enjoying the taste of your food--without guilt. Feeling guilty about eating certain foods actually causes more overeating, not less.

4. The last step is to give food and eating your full attention. Pretend you are writing an article for a gourmet magazine. As you experience your meal, imagine what you would say about the ambience, the aromas, and the flavors. Notice when you are approaching the level of fullness you decided you wanted to be.

Admittedly it’s not easy to change a habit like multitasking while you eat but the results are well worth it. You’ll find that you can eat what you really want and truly enjoy every bite. Managing your weight isn’t just about what you eat but how you eat.

Michelle
Michelle May, M.D.
http://amihungry.com/

There's a popular myth floating around that you HAVE to eat every three hours or your metabolism will take a nose dive. I wonder what cave-people did before the clock was invented?

This rule is based on the observation that many thin people tend to eat frequent small meals. I doubt they check their watch to tell them it’s time to eat – they just eat when their body tells them to. They eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re satisfied (even if there is food left on their plate). Since that tends to be a small meal, they get hungry again in a few hours.

Instead of watching the clock, try tuning in to the physical symptoms of hunger to tell you when to eat. If you tend to forget to eat until you are starving, check in every three hours or so to see if you're hungry - but don't automatically eat unless you are.

If you start thinking like a cave-person, I bet you'll follow a frequent small meal pattern naturally without checking your watch.

Eat Mindfully, Live Vibrantly!
Michelle May, M.D.
http://www.amihungry.com/

Do you ever just get sick of talking about food, weight and diets? Seems that a lot of people have the misguided belief that in order to manage their weight, they must think and talk about it all of the time. But thinking and talking about food (especially not eating food) and weight (especially needing to lose weight) usually only makes you want to eat more, doesn’t it?

It wasn't always like this.

From the beginning of time people could trust their bodies to let them know exactly when, how much, and even what to eat. It was a matter of survival. Nowadays our survival depends on our ability to negotiate our complex, fast-paced, stressful environment—an environment that also happens to have an abundance of delicious, readily available food. 

Naturally, many of us learned that food could provide needed stress relief, self-nurturing and pleasure—things we often don’t make time for or believe that we deserve. 

And naturally, when we consume food our body didn’t ask for, it has no choice but to store the extra fuel. Since our society is also consumed with thinness, that becomes a source of shame, which can lead to even more overeating. 

People think that food is their problem so they relegate the important responsibility of deciding when, what, and how much to eat to the latest diet guru. But the “experts” make rules that normal people can’t follow forever. And the “experts” can’t even agree on what the rules should be! No wonder people are exasperated. 

Face it. It’s not about the food. Eating when you’re hungry doesn’t cause weight gain; it's eating for all those other reasons that causes problems.

What if all that energy you consume trying to stick to a diet was focused on understanding why you eat and learning better ways to relieve stress, nurture yourself, and have some fun? That way food could serve its true purpose of nourishing your full life.

Eat Mindfully, Live Vibrantly!
Michelle
http://www.amihungry.com/

My husband Owen walked in the door limping and smiling from ear to ear after completing his first half-marathon.

I, on the other hand, had signed up to walk it and didn’t even go.

As a teenager in New Zealand, Owen played rugby and ran about 10 miles a night delivering milk in glass bottles (so that tells you he’s in his late 40’s).  In the last couple of decades, his exercise has consisted of walking the dog and intermittently working out at the Y, so I was surprised when he announced that he had signed up to train and raise money for Team Chances.

He enjoyed the structure of the training schedule, the commaraderie of running with his friends twice a week, the challenge of training for a long-distance event, and the opportunity to earn money for Chances for Children. During his five months of training, he progressed from walking and jogging a mile or two at a time to running all 13.1 miles at a pace of 9+ minutes a mile today. I am proud of him - but more importantly, he’s proud of himself!

As for me, I’ve never liked to run and never had the slightest interest in training for an event like that. For the last eight years or so, I’ve loved yoga and hiking - and I’m actually disappointed if I can’t fit one or the other in most days of the week.

Why then, when a friend asked me to walk the half with her, did I say yes? Because I knew I could and I thought I should. 

It turns out that those reasons weren’t good enough because my “exercise personality” is a poor fit for training for a long distance event. My travel schedule can be crazy so I didn’t like the pressure of having to train. I hated missing my yoga class when I needed to walk instead. I resented the thought of carving out long periods of time for distance training. 

Then, just weeks before the marathon, I was sick and couldn’t exercise for nearly two weeks. When I finally recovered, I bought a new pair of shoes and developed a deep blister that wouldn’t heal.  As the event drew near, I found myself dreading getting up early and dealing with the crowds and the traffic.

Hate? Pain? Resentment? Dread? Enough already!!! Clearly this was not my thing. I had nothing to prove and it was ruining the joy I find in moving my body for the sake of moving my body. So I backed out. No guilt, no shame, just an important lesson learned.

Owen reached his goal and rediscovered his love of running. I’m back to my hiking and yoga and realized how much I love the flexibility of exercising on my own terms.

So whatever your exercise personality is, get out there and try different things until you find something you enjoy. When you do physical activity you love, you’ll never exercise a day in your life. 

For more articles and resources, please visit http://www.amihungry.com/