Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Hunger? Yes! Hunger!!

You hear it in diet ads everywhere :
"Lose weight without feeling hungry!" 
"NEVER feel hungry again!" 
"Eat all you want and never go hungry!!" 
It's like it's being brainwashed into us that hunger is a BAD thing!

But it's not.
Those of us that our obese don't realize one important thing.
Our stomachs - the organ, not the belly - have been stretched out of shape by our overeating. When we overeat, our stomachs stretch past capacity, thus the bloated uncomfortable feeling.
Most of us have eaten that way every meal, every day, for years.
This is one of the reasons we become obese in the first place. Since we continually stretch our stomachs, they stay that way, so we get hungry quicker and need more to feel satisfied.

But, most of us don't stop there.
Satisfaction isn't enough - we have trained our bodies to think that "full" = "sick to our stomachs" "bloated" or "uncomfortable".
When we decided to make the conscious effort to change our eating habits (for the better) and eat less, our bodies tend to respond almost cruelly to that.
We get hungry. REALLY hungry.
Sick to the stomach-I-have-to-eat-right-now-hungry.
Blood sugar dropping hungry.
HUNGRY.

But is hunger REALLY a bad thing?
Well, if you feel like you're going to faint or throw up because you're so hungry, yes, you should probably eat something.
But if it's just a "nagging rumbly feeling" in your tummy, you should ignore it for a bit and allow yourself to REALLY feel that rumble. Why? That is a sign of your stomach shrinking to normal size!
(Just google "shrink stomach pouch" and you will find a myriad of articles and answer forums that will confirm that.)
As our stomachs get used to eating less food, yes, we will feel hunger less often.
We have to re-train our bodies to fight against what society is trying to force into our minds.
HUNGER is not the enemy.
OVEREATING and OBESITY is.

Here's to being a loser in 2011!!!

6 comments:

sexy grandma said...

After having lap-band I learned that the stomach can hold 3 quarts of food!! Think about how many times at restaurants they bring out Quart size glasses of tea before the meal, fill during the meal sometimes twice and then you eat a full meal and may be desert!!! 3 Quarts Folks!!! Not only have we not visualized the amount take time and measure, you will then start backing away from the table quicker!! I do not drink during meals or after for 2 hours. I try to eat a child's portion and not eat in a hurry. Figure "Fast" food is eaten in less that 15 minutes. We should all take 25 to 30 minutes to eat, relax you will fill fuller quicker.

SuperMom Blues said...

Thanks for the reminder Mom!! (I love that my mom posts on my blog . . .)

Michelle said...

So true. When I was in college, I would often have one day juice fasts for the purpose of shrinking my stomach. Once you go awhile without anything in your stomach, you start feeling full on less. I need to start that again, but it is hard when you have kids that have to eat...lol.

Karen said...

I remember Oprah once talking about that little feeling of hunger before you go to bed at night. How right that we need to feel hunger sometime to ever lose weight! I too often kept snacking so that I never felt physical hunger. Emotional - yes. But that is another story.

Laura said...

Good article, but I have the opposite problem. I have gastroparesis (my stomach is paralyzed & won't digest solid foods), so I never fill hungry. If I eat a small bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, I don't get hungry until late in the evening, but my doc wants me to eat anyways, so I don't lose too much weight, but if I eat when I not hungry, I get major stomach pains. Malnutrition is a problem I have to watch for. But it sounds like you are on the right track. Keep it up!

Thanks for the follow!

O. said...

just stumbled upon your blog, great post!