"How do you deal with the HUNGER?! I could never do that, I'd be so hungry."
That is the comment I get most often when I tell people that I'm competing in figure.
I used to be afraid of hunger, in a way. Even when I was following a LeanGains protocol, I would down liters of water and cup after cup of coffee to prevent my stomach from growling. I would eat my last meal as late as possible so that maybe I'd be less hungry in the morning. (Aside: that never worked. I get hungry for the first time at 10am no matter what.)
Even when I was anorexic in high school I dreaded hunger: I drank 6 to 10 bottles of zero-calorie carbonated water a day. (Oh, and four cups of green tea and 2-4 cans of diet soda.)
Since starting prep, I have, of course, been hungry occasionally. I've had cravings in which I can't indulge; I've been jealous of Max's giant bagels and peanut butter. Surprisingly (?), the hunger and cravings have not killed me.
I think hunger is such an unpleasant emotion for me because I associate it with other things: loneliness, disappointment in myself, anxiety, sadness.
I don't know how to fix those associations, but I do know that every single time I refuse to give into emotional eating, I become stronger. I know that every time I force myself to deal with those hidden emotions head-on, I bring myself a little closer to becoming the person I want to be one day.
AHH I can relate SO much!!! Sometimes if I'm sitting in class and the hunger beast strikes when I don't have a snack, weird old thoughts/emotions swirl up. Hunger causes unpleasantness for me too-- it just reminds me of bad times from the ED depths. Battling those emotions is hard, but I think in the long run it makes us stronger and shuts down the ED voice before it can sink it's claws back in.
ReplyDeleteThat ED has nothin on ya girl, and one day, you WILL be that person you want to be!! :)
It DOES!! You have to go through the hunger and experience it and trust yourself not to starve your body again... You know what doesn't work??? What I did. Which was: stuff yourself before you have a chance to fear the hunger! Sigh.
DeleteIt is so great you are fighting emotional eating head on! I can totally relate to fearing hunger. I often do everything possible to avoid it, but when it does strike I start getting really anxious and jittery and over obsessive about planning everything!
ReplyDeleteYup, me too - I start to think, well if I eat this meal a little early then the next one's going to be at X time and then the next one will be at X... Sometimes I exhaust myself. ;-)
DeleteYou're so strong! I used to be scared of hunger too. I didn't want to feel hungry, because I thought that meant I was depriving myself of food again. I think bodybuilding has taught me a lot about respecting hunger and listening to what it means. I basically know how hungry I should feel after a certain amount of time, and if it's any more or less than that, I know my diet is off.
ReplyDeletehaha thanks Tara =0) It really helps me to sit and realize that hunger is mostly hormonal...it doesn't mean I'm going to keel over!!
DeleteI think (from personal experience) that associations can only be fixed by building new associations over them, as it were. So you're going about fixing it in exactly the right way, in my view!
ReplyDeleteI still get quite anxious about getting hungry, but these days it bothers me less, because I know now, from experience, that I'll cope just fine. But it took me years to get to that stage.
It's definitely reassuring to hear I'm going after this issue the right way!! =) And it's great to hear that you've been successful in getting over these issues!
DeleteI fear hunger too - it might be because I think I probably spent most of my teenage life walking around hungry without realising it and I'm overcompensating now, but also I associate hunger with the emotions you describe. Even when I was at my thinnest I would down huge plates of veggies and masses of diet soft drinks though...I wish I could find a way of not giving a damn whether I am hungry or not again as you have!
ReplyDeletexxx
I wish I didn't care!! I still do, but I've merely found a new method of preventing it from affecting me SO much :/ Someday I hope I won't care at all!
Delete"I think hunger is such an unpleasant emotion for me because I associate it with other things: loneliness, disappointment in myself, anxiety, sadness. "
ReplyDeleteWow, this sure struck home. You put it in words; I've never been able to...
Thank you so much - that's a wonderful compliment =)
DeleteI can totally relate! I think one of the reasons I overeat and/or binge, emotional eating, etc is because I am scared of being hungry or being without food. I need to let that go!!!
ReplyDeleteI get scared of that feeling of hunger in my stomach... growling tummy!!!
Keep it up you are a strong lady!!!
It's so silly isn't it?!?! We live in HOUSES with KITCHENS and 90% of the time we already have food prepped, portioned & packed! We are not going to starve. haha
DeleteI fear hunger too, it can be SO distracting! I wish I could do a better job of ignoring it. Unfortunately I have figured I have to accept the fact that I really DO need to wait long enough that I am hungry heading into my next meal.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting that sometimes if I wait out my hunger and can focus on something else it will dissipate some.
It's quite a balancing act to wait for the hunger and then eat appropriately (not overeat). You'd think as much as we all train that we wouldn't even have to think about this sort of thing but especially at my age (45) there is much less room for error!!
Yep!! Right now my hunger tends to get worse if I wait, probably because I'm cutting pretty hard, but I have noticed that if I'm on a slow cut or at maintenance cals, waiting to eat for just a bit after the first hunger signals helps me feel less OMG-RAVENOUS. haha.
DeleteI can totally relate to this. I used to be so worried about getting hungry. Anytime we'd go anywhere I was either packing snacks with me or asking, "Well, when are we going to eat?" Once I tinkered with Intermittent Fasting and did a 24 hour fast, it flipped the switch in my brain. I realized that I won't actually drop dead once hunger strikes! Even though I don't follow an IF protocol now (unless I'm traveling) I found it extremely helpful to re-engineer the way I feel about hunger.
ReplyDeleteNow if I get hungry, wippty doo. I'll eat sooner or later ;)
I *definitely* appreciate that IF taught me not to PANIC over missing a meal time by 30 or 60 mins. It's nice to know that if by chance I am caught without my tupperware army ;-) I probably will not pass out, die, cry, etc. ;-)
DeleteI think this is cultural too -- we live in the land o' plenty and all, so I think we've been taught that we should never go without. Hunger isn't really "American."
ReplyDeleteBinge eating actually taught me a lot about hunger signals -- and now I love feeling hungry. It reminds that I am feeding myself regularly and letting my body use what I give it, rather than stuffing it so full of bread and peanut butter that I don't get hungry for 9-12 hours.
You are so right. I never thought about it that way before but you nailed it - denying yourself anything, having to be patient & wait for a reward/treat/food, etc. - that's not really the American way these days.
DeleteI can't really relate, I've never experienced any disordered eating, but I really, really love this post. I love your mindset - being hungry isn't the end of the world. It seems so simple and logical from the outside.
ReplyDeleteIt DOES seem simple...but then you get hungry and you can't see how absolutely NON-crucial it is. =/ Oh well. Awareness helps.
DeleteI have the opposite, feeling really full triggers thoughts of self-loathing and want to purge. To combat this I am experimenting with IF and clean eating (guidelines for me being no sugar, no grains and no processed food) so I'm learning to be full without feeling full (but in a healthy way if that makes sense!)
ReplyDeleteI love that all these healthy living blogs are being honest with the fact disordered eating is so common and prevalent. Until we acknowledge it we can't do anything to stop the next generation from doing it.
I definitely understand what you're saying. I've never actually purged, but having been a binge eater in the past.....yeah, I get that. Definitely.
DeleteI hope IF helps you!!!
VERY strong message Sable. Very. it is hard to face the fear of being hungry and getting past hunger healthily.
ReplyDeleteThank you S! =)
DeleteI think its important to feel a little hunger and to be okay with it. It shows us that our bodies are working properly and that we need food! haha
ReplyDeleteDefinitely!! If we can't survive a little hunger, what on earth can we get through? =)
Deletei think you know that i TOTALLY relate to this! for me, hunger strikes when i'm anxious or bored. it's like a switch goes on as soon as i'm stressed, i get "hungry." i use the quotation marks because i'm learning to recognize that this isn't hunger but a coping mechanism. i also think that it has something to do with the ED - i'm so internally scared of starving even when, physically, i know i'm not going to.
ReplyDeleteYEP!!! Stress=hunger to me too. Or, psuedo-hunger I guess =)
DeleteI DEFINITELY think it has to do with the ED. Our bodies have to learn to trust us again =)
Like you, I was used to drinking a cup of coffee, a liter of water, and then chewing gum to stave off hunger. Once I started getting healthy hunger scared the hell out of me because I thought the second I felt it my body was starving, feeding on muscle and I had done something wrong to even feel hunger at all. Now I know that being hungry for a while isn't going to hurt me at all. My body is healthy and does not start eating itself alive every four hours, lol. But seriously, this a great topic and I'm glad your contest diet is going well!
ReplyDeleteUgh yup I used to go through like pack of gum a DAY!!! Oh man. No wonder my intestines hated me.
DeleteI have DEFINITELY been through a period of freaking out about losing muscle if more than 3 hours elapsed between meals. IF helped me get over that.....and time, of course =)
i SO can relate to this and used to be scared of hunger as well...mostly at night....even when I was with others...I always sort of kept food with me just in case. I think that it is SO important to be intune with your body so you can define the difference between 'scared hunger' and acutal hunger. Training for any sort of competition takes some SERIOUS focus...when I come close to a show, sure there are times I am hungry...but I can control that and simpy listen to myself. I never let myself get to that point of awful. Eat something! thats all!
ReplyDeleteI can't let myself go beyond HANGRY either. I become a raging biotch. It's ugly.
DeleteOh I can totally relate about fearing hunger. For a long time, I used to eat whether i was hungry or not just to avoid hunger creeping up later on! I finally reached a point where I realized that so what if I get hungry- I can always eat something then. We live in a generation where food is almost always available! Also I think my fear of hunger stemmed from going over my daily points (ex-Weight Watcher) limit. Ultimately I realized that I was only under-eating and doing more harm to my body than good. It's funny how this thought process has completed a total 180: in a way, I now welcome signs of hunger as it means that my metabolism is working. However I like that you pointed out that it's important to distinguish between real hunger & emotional hunger--> eating when you're hungry is fine but not so much if you're sad/bored/lonely.
ReplyDeleteI never did WW but I do get the mentality - I used to set myself a calorie limit that was too low (1100 a day, every day) and I'd panic throughout the day about how I was going to maximize it. I think that's stuck with me and is still making me crazy!
DeleteI will be competing in my first (bikini) competition next march, and i have never dieted a day in my life..
ReplyDeleteRight now i'm working on gaining some much needed muscle, so i eat a lot, and for the last 4 years or so i've been reverse dieting - always eating more then i need to gain weight/not lose weight.
So i'm slightly scared about prep, it's complete new territory! (though i'm hoping with my fast metabolism it won't be complete hell - i lose weight pretty easily)
Erik Ledin from LBC wrote this great piece about it actually
'Similarly, hunger isn't a bad thing - unless you think it's a bad thing. If you always associate hunger with bad feelings, whining, moaning, whoa-is-me complaining, than yes, you're not going to be so happy are you? However, what if you shift your thinking? What if you decide to welcome the hunger? What if you decide to associate hunger with good things - like perhaps the fact that eating in a deficit is necessary for fat loss and clearly eating less than your body wants is going to make you hungry.'
The article continues but i thought this was really interesting!
Congrats on deciding to compete and taking the time to build muscle first!!
DeleteI bet if you're close to your stage weight (within ~10 lb or so depending on how tall you are), your prep will be reeeeally mild. Are you going to have a coach?
Erik Ledin is seriously a freaking genius. I love him. I've never talked to him...hahaha!!...but I am forever reading his stuff on siouxcounty.com.
I'm absolutely within that range, hoping to gain at least 6 pounds or so before i start prep - muscle baby!
DeleteI'm working with Joe Klemczewski and Kori Propst from Perfect Peaking!
Never heard of Joe but I like the last name! haha! Of Eastern European descent I gather =) I'm off to check out Perfect Peaking!!
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