Are you really hungry?

Before I begin this week’s topic I would like to take a moment to thank all of you for the amazing and humbling support from last week’s post. It was something I never planned to talk about on my blog but in the moment felt that it was absolutely necessary. It was very difficult to be so vulnerable and raw in my emotions and I am so thankful to have such supportive people in my life. I hope it is an ongoing topic for all of you so that we can change society’s perspective on body image and eating disorder culture. If you have been had an eating disorder or been effected by one you know how incredibly difficult it can be to build up the courage and strength to battle it and create a healthy relationship with food. If you are currently dealing with an issue regarding food or body image I hope you will find the strength within yourself to get help. Let’s speak up and change our world.

Now for a much lighter subject….

Have you ever found yourself grabbing for the ice cream when you’re devastated, or chomping on chips and salsa when you’re bored out of your mind? How about getting extremely grumpy when you haven’t eaten in hours? Physical hunger and emotional hunger are two very different things that we get confused all of the time.

An easy way to put it is that physical hunger is based in the stomach, and emotional hunger is not… but sometimes we aren’t very good at noticing where our hunger comes from.

Physical hunger, like I said, is based out of the stomach. You can feel the cramping and gurgling in your stomach, yet you start to get grumpy in your mind (see how this is confusing, physical hunger actually effects our emotions!). When you’re physically hungry (if you allow yourself to get REALLY hungry) you’ll pretty much eat anything that’s available to satiate yourself. Furthermore, after you’ve eaten physical hunger goes away leaving you satisfied and able to go on with your day.

Emotional hunger on the other hand is all above the neck. It’s your mind constantly focusing on a particular food, sometimes multiple different foods, your tongue seeking out a particular taste, and your hands doing everything they can to get a hold of that food. Emotional hunger aids us in avoiding emotions—if we eat then we can distract ourselves from what is really going on. It’s Elle Woods eating chocolates in her sorority room after Warner dumped her. It’s White Goodman (Ben Stiller’s character) at the end of Dodgeball gorging himself in a ridiculous amount of food in order to cope with the fact that he lost the tournament and Globo-Gym was probably (in my interpretation) going to go out of business as the Average Joe’s took over. Emotional hunger is even eating when you’re bored because you have nothing better to do. At first you want chips and salsa, then you move on to the cherries, then the pretzels, maybe a few yogurts and before you know it you’ve eaten 1-2 meals worth of food.. all because you were bored!

Emotional hunger is not solved when you eat food—as shown in the boredom example, you’re not going to stop just because you’ve eaten a decent amount of food. Emotional hunger is satisfied when you process the emotion? What am I feeling? Bored. Why am I feeling it? Because my friends bailed on our plans today. What can I do to solve this? Come up with a different activity to do… start crafting, pick up that half-read book that’s been lounging on your shelf for a few months, clean your house… SOMETHING. Food is not the answer.

I’m not saying that all emotional eating is bad—we eat when we’re happy and celebrating (Thanksgiving, birthday parties, etc.), we eat when we’re sad (ice cream, cake, comfort food), and these things are very normal and okay. However, it is important to not let it become a habit and to ensure that you’re still getting balance and moderation in the bigger picture.

So how can you accomplish this? Eat mindfully! When you think you’re hungry but it’s not a normal meal time ask yourself where the hunger is based out of. Ask yourself what you’re feeling emotionally. If you’re actually hungry, honor that hunger cue and eat a snack. If the hunger is emotionally driven, process the emotion. You may chose to eat the food, you may choose not to—but no matter what, you need to process the emotion or else the hunger will continue on and cause more problems. Eat slowly, listen to your hunger and fullness cues. Be insightful and in tuned with yourself.  Most of all, enjoy the food you’re eating.