A few days ago, I had a day where my hunger was just ravenous, and I didn't understand why.
I normally have a pretty consistent eating pattern and am very much in tune with how much food my body needs to feel good, satisfied and energized.
If my hunger gets throw off, I typically know why. Perhaps my meal was smaller than usual, or lacking carbs, and needed more protein.
However, on this particular day, I couldn't understand why, no matter how much I ate, I still felt hungry. Real, physical hunger. Not emotional hunger.
In the past when I was struggling with my relationship with food, this would have been met with judgement, criticism and shame. I would have said things to myself like "you can't possibly be hungry AGAIN, you did ate!"
However, I now handle these weird eating days completely differently now, and I know how to honour my hunger is a way that feels good, free from guilt or anxiety.
And that's exactly what we're talking about in today's episode.
Honouring your hunger is key to healing your relationship with food, but it can be challenging if you're used to avoiding it (like distracting yourself by going for a walk), pushing it off (like drinking a black coffee instead of eating), or tricking it (like eating popcorn instead of more substancial food).
In this episode, you'll hear;
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
A few days ago, I had a day where my hunger was just ravenous, and I didn't understand why.
I normally have a pretty consistent eating pattern and am very much in tune with how much food my body needs to feel good, satisfied and energized.
If my hunger gets throw off, I typically know why. Perhaps my meal was smaller than usual, or lacking carbs, and needed more protein.
However, on this particular day, I couldn't understand why, no matter how much I ate, I still felt hungry. Real, physical hunger. Not emotional hunger.
In the past when I was struggling with my relationship with food, this would have been met with judgement, criticism and shame. I would have said things to myself like "you can't possibly be hungry AGAIN, you did ate!"
However, I now handle these weird eating days completely differently now, and I know how to honour my hunger is a way that feels good, free from guilt or anxiety.
And that's exactly what we're talking about in today's episode.
Honouring your hunger is key to healing your relationship with food, but it can be challenging if you're used to avoiding it (like distracting yourself by going for a walk), pushing it off (like drinking a black coffee instead of eating), or tricking it (like eating popcorn instead of more substancial food).
In this episode, you'll hear;
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
How do I handle weird eating days as an intuitive eater, meaning those days where I seem to just crave everything. I'm craving sweet, I'm craving salty, or those days where I'm just hungrier than usual and I can't necessarily have an explanation why. In the past that would have been met with so much judgment and self-criticism and I probably would not have satisfied my hunger because I quote, unquote, shouldn't, and now I handle that completely differently. So this episode is all about how can you better handle those weird eating days where things just feel off. Your body might be communicating with you messages that you don't necessarily understand. Let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the live unrestricted podcast, a show where you'll learn how to heal your relationship with food and your body so that you can focus your time and energy on more important things like your personal growth. I'm your host, sabrina Magna, food freedom coach, and my mission is to help make your life happier and healthier, without stress, overwhelm or guilt about food. If you love the show, please do go out and share it, and if you're looking for support with your relationship with food, details about my programs are in the show notes. Thanks for spending time with me today. Now let's jump in. I'm coming in to record a very quick episode. I don't even know if you could call this an episode. This was not on my schedule today, but I was having a kind of weird day with my eating and I was like, uh, in the past I would have handled this situation so differently and my mindset would have been different and the way I would have felt about myself would have been so different when I was struggling with my eating disorder. And now I handle days like this weird off eating days like today, completely different, with, with grace, with peace, with calm, with compassion, with kindness, and, uh, I wanted to come and sit down at the mic and just share with you what this new mindset is. And so, a little bit background about today.
Speaker 1:So today is a regular Monday and, uh, I had my regular breakfast, regular lunch, you know, not bigger, not smaller than I normally have. I'm usually pretty consistent in terms of the size of my breakfast and my lunch. Uh, sometimes it'll be a little bit bigger than others, just because I enjoy consistency with my eating, because I like taking decisions out, which means not just in terms of food, but in all areas of my life, because I am a business owner, I'm constantly making decisions. Every single day, I'm making thousands of decisions, and so if I can reduce decision making which what I call decision fatigue if I can reduce the amount of decisions I have to make, then everything becomes easier and eating becomes easier. So that's why every morning, I um, I eat the same breakfast, because I don't have to get up and make a decision about what I want to eat. This is not for everyone. If you're someone who enjoys diversity, then go ahead and eat something different for breakfast. Um, just for me personally, this is what works. I don't regularly need diversity in my breakfast. I do, however, need diversity in my lunch and especially in my dinner. So right now I'm in a little phase of. My breakfast is a banana with peanut butter and then oatmeal with protein powder and milk, and it's a really nice filling breakfast, and so I have that breakfast.
Speaker 1:This morning I didn't work out because I was feeling particularly sore from the weekend and my pain, uh, from my back for my scoliosis is a little bit higher this Monday. So I decided you know what, I'm just going to go for a nice easy walk by the water. In the past, even when I was sore, I would still push myself to work out. In the past, even though, um, my back was in a lot of pain, I would still force myself to do like this high intensity workout and weights. And when I say in the past, I obviously mean when my relationship with exercise and my relationship with food was definitely disordered and exercise was used as a mean of burning calories and looking a certain way instead of. Is this what I want to do right now? Is this what's going to make me feel better? And because I knew this morning that if I push myself through a workout, you're not going to enjoy it and you're going to regret it and you're going to be more tired for the rest of the day, and that's not my goal If I'm exercising. I wanted to boost my day, I wanted to give me energy, and I knew that it wouldn't do that because I know how to listen to my body now, something that I'm so thankful that I can do when it comes to taking rest days and knowing what to do with exercise.
Speaker 1:So I go for my walk and I have my breakfast and I have my lunch, like I was saying before, and about like an hour after lunch, I was starving again, but like to the point that it almost felt like I didn't eat a lunch, even though I did eat like a very substantial lunch. I had a full chicken breast, I had potato wedges, so my cars were in there. I had a lot of protein in my chicken. I got my veggies in my. I had some veggies on my plate and then I was still hungry, so I had some Greek yogurt and some cereal as a dessert.
Speaker 1:And that's something that I always am mindful about when I'm trying to understand, like, why am I so hungry? Like so recently, after I look back on my meal and that's going to give me information like maybe there was some carbs missing or maybe I just didn't eat enough, like those are the kind of questions that I'm always asking myself and I'm always encouraging my clients to ask themselves. Right, instead of feeling hungry an hour later and thinking what is there something wrong with me? Or why am I hungry again? And having all of that negative self-talk which I'm sure that you've experienced this before, we get curious. All right, I'm hungry again, which means that my body is trying to tell me something. Right, my body is really trying to communicate because I'm feeling true physical hunger and that's a big piece as well is being able to differentiate between physical hunger and emotional hunger. When your body might not actually be needing food, but on a emotional side, you're being compelled to turn to food, which means that maybe there's an emotional need that is going unmet right now, maybe you're stressed or bored or emotional or lonely, and so in this situation I knew that I was feeling true physical hunger and I looked back and, like I said, it was a balanced meal and I had definitely eaten enough, like enough by my standards, which is a lot.
Speaker 1:I am someone who just naturally eats a lot. I eat big lunches and I don't beat myself up over it anymore because I now know that that is what my body needs. Like, my body just needs a larger quantity of food. And I know that I used to compare the way that I ate to my friends and I would think, like, why do I eat so much? And I wish that I could eat as little as them, and I would berate myself and be so angry with myself about why I needed so much food and I just I have so much sadness and compassion for that past version of myself, because that's simply who I am Like. I just have a larger frame. I just need more food.
Speaker 1:I am never going to look like that stick thin model or the kind of girls that I saw growing up as a synchronized swimmer, and that was the body that I was so used to comparing myself to, and I was given this message from society that if you just have enough willpower or self-control, you can look like this too. Right, like we are convinced this notion that we have full control over what our body looks like. And we hear things like spot training right, like if you spot train, you're going to be able to have six pack abs or a booty. Like that's not actually how it works. Of course, if you squat more over time, your booty is going to grow, but so are your thighs right, because in order to hold the muscle that you're going to get in your bum, your thighs also need to hold some of that muscle. And that's another thing that I never really understood is like I wanted to want it to work on my bum and I wanted to get strong and this was majority because my back, my scoliosis if I have a strong lower body, if I have a strong lower back, then that helps with my pain, and so I've always wanted to work on that. But as you're working on that, your legs grow as well.
Speaker 1:And because I have always especially when I was younger and as a synchronized swimmer, I was always really self conscious about the fact that my thighs were bigger than the girls I was swimming with and I was always convinced to believe that I could just make my thighs smaller. And I will say that when I developed my eating disorder, I did get to a point where I had a thigh gap, and I just think back on the fact that that is so sad because with my body type, I should not have a thigh gap. Like my healthy body is far from being capable of doing that and in fact, most bodies are not going to have that. Most bodies are not going to look like maybe the girls who you see on your Instagram. But to come back to what I was saying, I, after having noticed that I was hungry, like very closely after lunch, I just asked myself those questions and because I knew that I had eaten enough, like I really I guess I just need more food today, like that was my response right away was I guess I just need more food today and that's it. So, even an hour after lunch I got up and I grabbed a snack.
Speaker 1:Another rule that I had back in the day was there's no way you can eat like an hour after eating your meal. I had these rules that you have to at least wait three hours between your meals and your snacks. All of these rules that were not determined by what my body was telling me. They were determined by arbitrary rules set by other people, set by diet culture. And imagine that someone you really loved your daughter, your sister, your friend had come to you and was like hey, I ate an hour ago but I'm hungry again.
Speaker 1:What should I do? You would say well, if you're hungry and you physically need it, give your body some food, like it is super common sense. But we don't do that for ourselves. We start to make it mean something wrong about us, something weak about us. I used to see hunger as a weakness instead of honoring it as a sign of self love for my body, and so I did honor it. You know I grabbed.
Speaker 1:I actually had a pretty big snack, so that's another thing is usually I'll have my snack around like two, 33 o'clock and it's often going to be like a protein bar, an apple, some nuts, like something that has a good mix of fats, protein and carbs. Just because I know personally that's what works for me and I know that if I have my snack kind of like pre-determined, it helps me as well. Because, like I said, I'm constantly making decisions in my business, and especially in the afternoon. Like I don't want to have to worry about making a new snack, I don't want to rack my brain about what I want to eat, like it's just made that decision for me. And that's what's really important to understand about intuitive eating, too, is that you're going to still be able to maybe have patterns of your eating that work for you. And the concept of like planning ahead and meal planning if that's something that you enjoy, and having meals ready for you ahead of time and knowing what you're going to eat all of those things are possible with intuitive eating. Like it doesn't become this free for all and you have to be chaotic with your eating. Like that's really the side of intuitive eating that you might see on Instagram, which is just not the case.
Speaker 1:Like you're still allowed to take these actions from a place of self care, and that's what's really important is that the decisions that you make around food. Where are they coming from? What's the intention behind it? Is it from a place of self care, of making your life easier, or is it coming from a place of punishment, of external rules, of external pressure? And that's going to give you a really good idea of what relationship you have with food, what relationship you have with your body. You can have a shake in the morning because that's what you like drinking and it fuels you and it's easy for you and it's coming from that place of genuine desire and self care. Or you could have a shake in the morning because you think it's a low calorie option, or because it's a diet food that you're drinking at the moment, or because you think it's going to make you lose weight. If you take the action from that intention, then of course it's not going to feel good. Of course that means that your relationship with food and with yourself is something to address.
Speaker 1:But coming back to what I was saying about my afternoon snack, so today I kind of switched it up. I had crackers and cheese and charcuterie meats that we had in our fridge from leftover from Luke's birthday over the weekend and we had I made a baked brie with honey and homemade crackers with croutons and it was just so delicious and we had a bunch left over. So I had a bunch of crackers with cheese and meat and then I had a carrot on the side and it was a pretty large snack. I have it and I was still hungry afterwards. So I went back, had some more and then, after having some more, I was still really hungry, like really hungry to a point that I couldn't concentrate on work. So I knew I need to have more food because that wasn't enough. And again in the past my brain would have said yes, that was enough. Right, that was X amount of calories, which should be enough food for you. So don't go back for more because you had your snack. That would have been my past mindset, but now, of course, it was not the case.
Speaker 1:I recognize you know what your body is still telling you you need more food. So today is probably just going to be a day where you need more food. You don't need a reason for it. Maybe for some reason, yesterday you ate less and so today you need to make up for that. Like your body is sensing that, or maybe because I had two really hard workouts over the weekend and today my body is needing those extra calories to recover. Maybe I'm about to get my period, or maybe there's no reason at all and I don't have to question it, because if that's what my body is telling me, then I'm going to respect it.
Speaker 1:So I went back and I grabbed more of the chicken that I had in the fridge, and after the chicken I was still hungry. So I got a little bit of chicken sausage and you might be listening to this right now and saying, oh my God, you're having all of that as a snack, like that's a snack for you, because maybe you're someone who just eats a piece of fruit as your snack, or maybe you've been told that 10 almonds is enough as a snack, and so for me to have crackers and brea cheese and charcuterie meat and more crackers and cheese and chicken and chicken sausage like you. Oh, sorry, I forgot. I also had two of those like appetizer, like Boucher appetizers that we had over the weekend. So they were plant based, like potato samosas and stuff like that that we had just thrown in the oven. So I had two of those left over, so I had that as well, and you might be thinking like that is so much food and that's what the past version of myself would have thought Like that is such a big snack and you had a big breakfast, you had a big lunch and those would have been all of my thoughts.
Speaker 1:And now, when this happens, I'm like, yeah, it was a bigger snack than usual and that's what my body needed. Why would I question the signals that I get from my body? And I'm able to know without a doubt that I know that my body needed more food. I know how my body communicates with me. I know what my signs of hunger are. I know what my signs of being full are, and for me personally, like a sign of hunger is that I have a hard time concentrating on anything else, or my head is hurting or my focus is low. I don't really get stomach growls personally. For me, I really start to feel it in my head, and that was all happening even after having my snack. So I knew yeah, sabrina, you're hungry and grab yourself some more food.
Speaker 1:And so I just finished having my big snack today and I was thinking about how different those two scenarios would have been and in the past. How that would have played out is I would have not eaten more food, and then I would have been hungry and thinking about food for the next two hours while trying to concentrate on work and waiting until I thought it was appropriate again to eat, which would have been, I don't know, maybe like 4 pm, 4 30, also in an arbitrary time created by my mind at the time, and then I would have more food and that still would not have been enough, because I had been accumulating the hunger since earlier on in the day, and so that still would have been enough, and I probably would have just kept snacking and eating for the rest of the evening on low calorie foods, because I felt bad about eating too much during the day. So if you can relate to that scenario one, then I totally understand how that feels, because that used to be me. And now scenario two, where I choose to honor my body and, given enough food, I am now full, I now feel good, I'm now able to concentrate on work and record this lovely podcast for you guys, and I'm going to have a regular dinner and maybe maybe not I will be a little less hungry, because maybe, since I ate more during the day, I'll be a little bit less hungry at night, but I might just have a regular dinner and I might still even have my snack at the end of the day if that's what I am needing and that's what I'm feeling, and I'm going to let my body decide on that. I'm going to trust my body to tell me how I need to feed myself for the rest of the day.
Speaker 1:And we've got some carrot cake in the fridge right now from Luke's birthday, because that is his absolutely favorite cake and I wish that I could show you all how massive this cake is. I'll maybe post a picture on my Instagram today. His mom got him this like industrial size cake, which is I wish that you could see what I'm doing with my hands right now. It's just like this massive rectangle and it's enough cake for like a month worth of eating. If we had one piece each every day for the next month and Luke is someone he does love his sweets, he does love his cake, and so I know that he could eat that very quickly, but at the same time, he knows that it wouldn't feel good and that we're better off freezing part of it. But now we have a bunch in the fridge and I am going to absolutely be having a piece later Again.
Speaker 1:Another thing I would have never done in the past is if I judge that I had eaten too much quote unquote too much during the day, that I don't deserve a treat, I don't deserve something that I enjoy the rest of the day, and of course, that is not how I feel anymore. So I'm going to be enjoying the heck out of that carrot cake later If I feel like it, and if I don't, I won't Again. My body can decide on that and I'm just going to go on with the rest of my day feeling good, feeling energized and having fed my body. So I hope that hearing how I handle certain food days and how my mindset has shifted. I hope that that is helpful for you, because I and if it is, I want to record more podcasts like this, because I know that a lot of you have asked me to talk more about my story and what's going on inside my head, to help you see the contrast and help you see the transition and the transformation that has happened in the way that I speak to myself in the context of food.
Speaker 1:And if it was helpful, let me know. On Instagram, tag me by sharing this episode and don't forget to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to your podcast Apple Podcast, spotify, stitcher or any other platforms so that you don't miss any new episodes when they get released. I am so thankful for you and I'm going to go and get back to work Now. You have an amazing day and I'll see you next week.