I'm at it again

Ok, so once again the vicious diet and binge cycle has gotten to me. I'm giving intuitive eating another go. I have dieted my way to about 30 lbs heavier than I was just a year and a half ago. At this rate, I'll be back to where I started in no time. So, here I go again.

I'm working on accepting that maybe I'm not meant to be a size 6 and that maybe finding peace with who I am today is more important. I don't like being fat but I don't like the process of binging, beating myself up, dieting, binging and then beating myself up even more. Quite frankly, it sucks.

So, I'm trying to learn more about what it really means to be hungry. I know that physical hunger is a physical sensation rather than my brain telling me that chocolate cake would taste so good. But what I don't really know is at what point on the hunger scale is it really time to eat. Does that little nudge of hunger really mean it is time to eat? Does hunger really ebb and flow as I have read in the past? I have always associated that knawing feeling in my stomach with pain. I have never liked it. Make it go away has always been my motto. Well, what I am discovering is that it really isn't that bad. I am learning that the signals to eat aren't signals of a crisis. They are telling me that I should eat soon, it doesn't have to be RIGHT NOW. Who would have thought, hunger is not a crisis.

So, I've been kind of playing with my hunger signals. Learning what the points are when it does actually become a RIGHT NOW signal rather than a sometime in the near future signal. It seems to me that my body ideally likes to eat every 4 to 5 hours as long as I eat a well balanced meal. I really don't have to have a snack at 10 if lunch is at 11. I don't have to panic if dinner takes 45 minutes to prepare. I don't have to tear through whatever I can find just to stave off hunger for 30 more minutes. This feels good to me.

I'm not at the point where I feel ready to skip lunch entirely just to test the theory that hunger is not a crisis as suggested in the Beck Diet Solution. But, I'm starting to understand the concept. It is becoming very real to me that going through life feeling like I MUST EAT NOW has gotten me to where I am. So, here's to paying attention and learning that it really doesn't have to be that way.