Am I actually hungry?

For so many years I've eaten when I wanted to, not when I NEEDED to.  Meaning that I think I've forgotten how to tell if I'm actually hungry.

When I first came out of the hospital I wasn't very hungry at all.  The diabetes medication killed my appetite and made me sick as a dog whether I ate or not.  I had learned the importance of steady blood sugar though so I knew that I had to eat at meal times and I had a piece of fruit mid morning and something else mid afternoon.  Easy enough, but I had to force myself to eat (BOY was that a new phenomina).  Thank goodness Mom was still there because I would have lived on peanut butter and mini bagels.  She would give me that dissaproving look and say "You have to eat something other than that"...

I coasted along that way for almost two months with no problems and then my 'appetite' reared it's ugly head.  When I would sit down on the couch to watch TV suddenly my stomach would growl.  Well, I know I'm not hungry.  I just ate 30 minutes ago....what do you want?  Then I noticed as soon as I sat down to game (WoW, Rift, whatever) that my stomach would start grumbling.  Seriously, it's not a meal time?  Why are you bugging me?

Then it hit me.  Just like any other addict, I have triggers!  TV is a major trigger. I would sit for hours and watch TV while I ate junk.  I would grab a bag(or two) of chips, a soda(or 3), and game for hours (or days).

I'm also a major stress eater, a big trigger for me is when work gets busy.  I immediately start thinking about the vending machine.  It just happens to be right NEXT to my lab.

The key for coping without food is find another outlet.  A dear friend of mine and I were recently talking of this and he's going through something similar.  He's started going to the gym and working out to relieve stress.  That may be a great possibility for me in the future, but right now it's not that practical.  I DO find myself crafting like a fiend.  I've gotten a few long talked about and planned projects started and have 3 or 4 new ones on the drawing board. This won't be a great long term solution, eventually I'll run out of projects (or places to put projects) but by then hopefully the gym/excercise will be an option. The other problem was with association.  I associated junk food with TV.  I wasn't going to just stop watching TV but instead of eating I would again turn to crafting.

The final important step was realizing that the craving WOULD go away.  I always used to laugh when I'd read dieting tips, they would inevitably say something stupid like "wait half an hour and if you're still hungry then eat something healthy"  I would always think to myself "Trust me, I'll be hungry in half an hour".  Now I think of it differently, if the cats bugged me and I fed them they would learn fast and bug me constantly. I would have conditioned them to perform a specific action to get their desired result.  My body was no different.  If my stomach growled, I fed it without question.  So now it gets fed at a specific time and specific amounts, just like my cats.  Does it complain?  Heck yeah, so would my cats if I were breaking them of a bad habit.  I know that the growling will stop though and if it doesn't then the next meal or snack is only a few hours away.

Unlike other addictions such as drugs, alcohol or even sex (I guess) food is different.  You can't just quit and try to avoid contact.  You have to eat in order to live and face it a million different ways every day. In my opinion drug recovery would have a significantly higher relapse rate if the addicts had to see constant reminders a million times a day on the television, billboards, or hear it on the radio.  Not to mention the agony of watching people enjoying their addiction of choice right in front of them.

Here are a few tips that I've found work for me in this process.

• Distraction is huge, if I don't focus on SOMETHING then I focus on how hungry I think I am or how badly I want an item.  As I said, I found that my crafting is great for keeping me busy and helping to absorb my attention.  Otherwise I wind up hotgluing my fingers together (seriously, did that). I also picked up a couple of puzzles for TV time.  I can sit at the dining room table with a puzzle spread out and watch TV while I work on it.  There have also been some random calls to friends and family who probably wondered what the heck I wanted. I was using them to get past a craving.
• I'm not a dog, I can't 'reward' myself with food.  Just because I cleaned the apartment, took out the trash, walked for a mile, or my nails grew I can't reward myself with food for all the silly things I used to as an excuse to eat.  That mentality was the first that had to change.
• I have to have 'fun' stuff sometimes.  I can't just coast along and NEVER have the things I want.  It's going to make me angry and resentful.  No one who has to deal with me wants that.  I've found that Winco is my hero in that respect.  Their bulk food section has candy, chips, crackers, and even chocolate (although granted not great quality chocolate).  I can buy one or two items in single servings and know that I don't have a box or bag of junk food in the house.  In true addict fashion I can't have it in the house because I *WILL* eat it.  At least I would have before the stroke.  My motivation may be better now, but I see no sense in pushing my fledgling willpower.  Instead of sugar free pudding for dessert last week I had a chocolate coconut cluster one day.  It was pleasant, if not a bit TOO sweet for my new tastes.  I recently learned that a McDonald's ice cream cone (child size) is about the same carbs as an apple or my pudding.  That will be a nice treat every few weeks this summer when it's hot.
• A 'cheat' night.  I talked to my Dr about this and he agreed that on a once a month basis (any woman can guess when) I can take one night and have a plate of pasta and maybe some chocolate.  I'm still restricted by the sodium content.  Eating more carbs will spike my BS yes, but that scares me a LOT less than the sodium spiking my BP.  When I take in too much sodium my BP goes up for days and frightens me.  So, once a month I go super easy on the sodium all day and have a dinner of lasagna, ziti, or something else cheesy and noodly.  It's my biggest craving.  Then a bit later I'll airpop some popcorn, put butter on it and/or have a few homemade chocolate covered strawberries.

FInally, it's not as good as I remember it.  One of my cheat nights consisted of chicken Nuggets and JoJos.  They weren't as amazing as I remember.  The JoJOs seemed..grainy.. to me.  I asked the pizza place to send over ONE cheese stick (I loved them so) and a few of their homemade nacho chips.  The cheese stick seemed greasy and bland.  The chips were too salty and tasted stale.  The ranch was SO salty I had to toss theirs and use my own homemade.   Another example, at the grocery store one day I picked up a Lindsor truffle (single serving) at the checkout counter and had it one night instead of my pudding.  I always thought they were so decadent and delicious.  The first bite was decadent...the second seemed overly sweet and cloying.  It's so much easier to get over cravings when I can tell myself that it truly WON'T be as good as I used to think it was.  I'd rather have that big juicy strawberry with a tiny dip of chocolate on it.  Or a bowl of berries with a splash of cream.

I guess I've learned in the past few months that hunger (for me) is all in my head, NOT in my stomach.