I mean, hungry all the time. When I was awake, I was basically ready to eat.
I would mindlessly choose what is available.
I would walk through the kitchen all the time and feel "nibbling".
From the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, I would be completely preoccupied with what I would eat next. And behind all the desires to eat there were always arguments – what I wanted to eat compared to what I thought I should "eat".
No matter how much I had just eaten, I could literally still eat. I lived in a constant state of fear of gaining more weight and felt guilty and terrible for all of this.
"No, thanks, I'm not hungry" was not a sentence that appeared in my vocabulary.
When there was something to eat, I ate it. If there was no food, I would get it.
(An interesting point that you should address here and that you should think about in your own food and diet story is that I was never like that until my diet. The more I tried to limit certain foods, the more it seemed to be getting worse, but I'm digressing…)
Diet and nutrition rules were a big part of the cause, but they weren't the only cause.
For many years I thought I was a pig. I thought I was just someone who loves food. I thought I was a pig without self-control. For a while I even thought I was addicted to food (and especially sugar).
That was the problem, I thought. The solution, of course, was to just keep trying to "be good". I had to want it more, be more ashamed, and try harder to stop eating what I shouldn't be eating.
I thought the way I felt about my body (hatred of course) was my fault because I was too piggy to stop eating and I was getting fatter ( I thought).
I knew there were things in my past that could be considered "problems" that I had never dealt with, but for me they were in the past. I was over it. I was also strong and nothing bothered me (I thought).
I honestly believed that.
But wow, was I wrong?
I have learned the following in the years since I "awakened" to the truth (as they say).
First, our thoughts are not our truth, but if we repeat them long enough for ourselves, we believe they are true.
What stories do you tell every day on Autoplay in your head about yourself, about food, about your body, about food?
Second, our thoughts are just the chatter at the surface level of a very complex computer, and that computer is constantly (mostly) running unconscious programs in the background, all day, every day.
Which unconscious beliefs persist under these thoughts and drive them?
These programs not only store our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us, they also determine many of our decisions based on these beliefs.
Our thoughts, feelings and beliefs determine many of our decisions – how many of them.
I thought I was going to share some of the subconscious beliefs that I had under the surface because I'm also beginning to notice that many of us have many of the same; and if any of it gets to you, you can recognize some of them or there may be some things to think about in your own story.
Belief: In my core I am bad.
I am darkness. I am worthless. I am a loser. I suppose this is more of a general issue of beliefs, and luckily it has changed a lot in recent years. However, it still has some roots that I'm working on.
This came from childhood, an alcoholic parent, but also from a number of other things; Weight gain and food struggles contributed to this. What surprised me when I looked at it was how many other things contributed to it, things that seem pretty silly and innocent as an adult.
For example, money was always an issue when I was growing up. This is a fairly common problem for most families that I never thought would have caused so much pain in my adult years – and yet. It contributed to the "not good enough" and "loser" stories that I believed about myself. Also something that I would never have guessed in a million years.
The key point is that no large, obvious childhood trauma is required to create these destructive "not good enough" beliefs.
Belief: I am unsure. The world is insecure. People are insecure.
This is still there for me. It's one of the newer ones I've discovered, so I haven't completely deleted it yet. I still often feel it as a severe pain in the middle of my chest. It came mainly from an abusive, alcoholic parent, although other things also contributed.
Belief: Nobody cares what I have to say, and even if someone does, I am not saying the right thing anyway.
This is one that I recently discovered and another that comes from the place that now appears to be the stupidest. I always heard: "Shhh, don't say that! Little girls shouldn't say that" and "Girls should be seen and not heard by the adults around me all the time" when I was growing up. I mean, I probably said that to my own child when she was little. It seems so normal and grown up, but it's a message that has affected me most of my life.
Belief: If I gain weight, I am worth less, I am a failure.
This is incredibly common because fat = bad is a message with which we have been programmed since childhood.
These are some examples to help you think about some of you.
I have lived with and from these beliefs all my life and had no idea that they were there at all.
What do I mean by living from them? I mean, they made the decisions that I made for myself.
Because it works that way.
Any belief that resulted from the underlying theme "I am not worthy, I am not good enough, I am bad", prompted me to treat myself and my body accordingly.
These beliefs led to overly restrictive diets, hunger and overexertion, including physical punishment, but also to an uninterrupted feeling of hunger. They fueled emotional eating, overeating and bingeing.
The more weight I gained, the more it would fuel those beliefs and the more I would try to limit myself to being "good" and "doing it again", which would cause more harassment would lead. It was an endless cycle.
The other beliefs created uncomfortable feelings in my body that I not only wanted to avoid, but learned to confuse them with physical hunger. That's why I was always hungry. I've always tried to numb everything I felt – and I didn't even know it.
This gnawing, uninterrupted feeling of hunger was never physical hunger. It was a painful hole in my chest that had to be filled with feelings of security and my own love and acceptance, but I tried to fill myself with food instead just because I didn't know it. I have not recognized my own unwillingness to simply let emotions exist.
And all the time I thought I was just someone who didn't have self-control with potato chips.
Ha. Nah. That's not it. And that's the good news, because once you realize that, you can do something about it.
Anesthetize and calm food. It just does it. Constant hunger or "snacking" comes from a program in your brain that runs in the background and is usually associated with the need to relieve or numb something unpleasant – fear, pain, boredom, anger, etc.
It is also reward and punishment. It took me years to realize that I sometimes felt compelled to eat, not because I was physically hungry, but because I felt so worthless that I was actively trying to punish myself.
And the side effects of trying to control food intake tend to lead to self-destructive habits such as overeating and binge eating (also known as feeling "constantly hungry").
Constant hunger, the feeling that there is a hole that simply can never be filled is not a physical hunger. Therefore, it seems to be a need that is never met. It is simply a matter of misinterpreting signals and reacting with the wrong correction.
I learned something else: Our bodies are incredibly smart. They don't want to eat so much that they are uncomfortably full. We just haven't learned how to connect and listen to them.
If you can relate to the feelings of always wanting to eat, take a break before you eat to ask yourself if I'm physically hungry. Take a quick inventory of how you feel. What sensations do you feel in your body? Where do you feel it How do you feel emotional What were you thinking about? What did you just do?
Just pause for a second and get in touch with you. What do you really need now? Is eating the answer? (Since I know that it can sometimes be difficult to stop for a second when you feel the urge to eat something, alternatively you can start practicing while you eat.)
Consciousness and body connection are the starting point. From there, learning to recognize, manage, accept, and allow emotions makes a big difference.
You don't have to uncover and change all of your subconscious beliefs before you stop feeling hungry all the time.
As soon as you realize when your thoughts, beliefs and emotions rather than physical hunger are driving you and can better determine how to deal with these emotions or when you simply accept and allow them, the constant hunger begins to fade and things are beginning to shift.
About Roni Davis
Roni Davis is a coach, author, speaker, and podcaster who helps women rebuild trust, compassion, and connection so that they can relate to food, themselves, and their Body and heal can live the healthy, peaceful, joyful life they deserve. Find them at RoniDavis.com, on their podcast at It & # 39; s All In Your Head and don't miss their free eBook with information: ronidavis.com/whydieat to help you overcome your weight loss, healthy eating barriers and why the hell to uncover that sometimes you eat so self-defeating.
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