Fear of Hunger

I never realised until recently that I have a fear of getting hungry.  In the past, being hungry has led me to losing control and bingeing.  To combat this, I always made sure I ate every couple of hours to stop myself getting hungry and to also therefore, hopefully, help me stop bingeing.  It didn’t work.  I still binged.  I could eat and eat and eat even until I was fit to explode because bingeing is not related to hunger.  It’s a psychological problem and though feeling hungry can make me want to eat whatever I can get my hands on first, it’s not the cause of my binge eating.

I only realised this recently when I read a post by my inspiration, Sheryl aka Ms Bitch Cakes, who wrote a blog post that really struck a chord with me.

As a result of eating every couple of hours, I have actually forgotten what real, true, physical hunger feels like.  I rarely feel those gnawing feelings in my stomach telling me I need to eat and as a result of this, I do not know how to eat intuitively – to give my body what it needs, when it needs it.

I’m not sure if this is related to my binge eating, I’m still struggling to understand why I do it.  I know I feel a certain comfort when I give in and let go and eat whatever I want so obviously food is being used to comfort me but the puzzling thing is that when I eat like that, I’m not feeling sad or depressed or in need of comfort.  I’ve never really been an emotional eater – if I get sad or angry, I don’t automatically reach for the junk food, I’m probably more likely to indulge in a glass of wine so I am still in the dark about what the connection is.

I bought several books about binge eating, comfort eating and breaking the cycle and I’m really annoyed at myself as I’ve not really started to read any of them so I’m starting to work my way through one today.

And for the first time, I have not eaten lunch because it is lunch time.  It’s 2.24pm as I write this and I’ve not yet eaten lunch because I have only just started to feel hungry.  I’m going to sign off now and make myself something healthy, filling and satisfying for lunch without grabbing at the first thing I can put my hands on, which 99% of the time happens to be something crap.

This is my first step to eating intuitively – wish me luck blog friends!

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