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We are certified Intuitive Eating Counselors, health professionals, and moms—and we've struggled, too. We're here for the real talk so you can find freedom from diet culture and start living. Guilt and shame about food and your body are not on our menu! Grab your favorite cuppa and join us!
Self-Care Cafe
Episode 28. Breaking Up With Dieting Part II—Honor Your Hunger
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CW: Mention of eating disorders and specific calorie numbers
We're back for part two of the Breaking Up With Dieting phase of Intuitive Eating.
Let's chat all about hunger! We cover what it may feel like for you, different types of hunger, how to start honoring your hunger, and more.
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-Ashley & Carrie
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice.
[Music]
hey it's Carrie and Ashley we welcome you to the self-care Cafe we are both
health professionals and moms and nature lovers and food lovers and love helping
women get over dieting and just start living we think that talking about
bodies and perfect bodies and dieting is just
boring did we put you to sleep there Carrie yes so if you are ready to ditch
dieting and get to living and talk about more important things then you are in the right place we don't put shame and
guilt on the menu here you don't even have to tip us nope come hang with us the advice is
free we want to have a bunch of girlfriends to just hang out with and get real with and it's time to start
living
ladies hey all together now that's right how
are you I'm great how are you I'm good awesome so what is on the menu for today
so today is our second part of our little series that we're doing
and remember we've broken down kind of the intuitive eating framework into um
what Carrie and I like to look at into like three phases so the first phase is breaking up with
dieting and last time so episode 27 we talked about the first principle of
intuitive eating which is rejecting the diet mentality So today we're tackling
the second principle of intuitive eating which is honoring your hunger H this is
really important um what does that mean what does that
mean I like that question because I feel like hunger has gotten
this really complicated story with it and a bad rap yes like we're almost like
feel uh guilty that we feel hungry like I'm not supposed to feel hungry yeah
exactly so silly like yeah yeah so I guess
honoring your hunger to me is kind of like learning what hunger feels like in
your body and it might feel a bunch of different ways and then responding to
it in a way that is helping your body I guess does that make sense yes so
responding to it like in an appropriate manner depending on depending on all the factors we're going
to talk about today yes because all hungers not all hungers created equal exactly right there's
different kinds of hunger um but so okay but before we get into that
so why why should I honor my Hunger So Hunger is super important like you said
a few minutes ago because it's our body's way of telling us that it needs something and we have a lot of different
signals that our body tells us when it needs us to do something like going to the bathroom for example and I really
like comparing hunger to using the restroom because it's very similar it's like we
everyone does it right and also it's like this
basic need for our body and with going to the bathroom we might have to put it
off for a little bit if we're like in the middle of a meeting or task or
whatever but we're yeah we're GNA do it like we can't ignore it too long but
with Hunger I feel like we've all gotten that complicated story like we mentioned
earlier hunger's got that bad rap and we do try to ignore it and avoid it and
that just leads us down this path of so
many different variables but when we ignore it and avoid it our body is not
getting the things it needs and it does a lot of stuff to our body so ignoring hunger or restricting food they're kind
of very similar um we're going against our bodies like biological needs and
survival cues and mechanisms and almost always it leads to like overeating or
binge eating at some point and I don't really love the word overeating but maybe a better one is like eating past
comfortable fullness we'll talk about fullness in a different one yep
um or you know like binge eating like I mentioned or feeling like that out of
control feeling around food like if I start eating this food I know I won't be
able to stop and like it goes along with your mindset too it's not just the
physical pieces at that point right right is it true so I just when you were
as you were talking it triggered um something that so if we put off eating
when our body is telling us that we need it right so you're you're feeling hungry
but you're not going to eat is it true um and I don't mean to put you on
the spot that's okay we this guess Sor I know um is it true that then so if you
could do that consistently enough enough you know where you push the hunger away and you don't give your body what it
needs at the time over time it starts holding on to more like kind of um and
and you so that you build up more of like a fat Reserve because your body's like well I'm not getting what I need
when I need it so I need a reserve to pull off from when I need it for energy
does that make sense yeah I think I think mostly yes and again I haven't dealt
super far into like the research a lot lately to be able to answer like super
confidently but and I feel like people's bodies act differently too so people with different eating um stuff
like some people if they're ignoring hunger and they're restricting a lot some people do just lose a ton of weight
um some people experience a lot of weight loss up front and then we hit that Plateau right and I feel like
that's where that piece that Carrie's just talking about comes in like um our
body's like hey wait a second what is happening because our body also doesn't really know the difference between hey
we're doing this on purpose and oh my gosh we're starving to death and so it has so many things in place to prevent
us from starving um and I think that's where the piece that car's talking about
sort of fits in like our metabolis slows down at that point too and so yes we
need less food and calories or energy or however you want to talk about it to
handle our daily body functions and at some point yeah things are going to slow
down we're probably gonna try to hold on to everything we can so we do have that Reserve that so
ironically the body does the opposite of what you actually yes trying to
accomplish and think that you're doing because the other part of that too like when you said um if you even if you lose
weight a lot of that is muscle mass it's not even you know fat loss it's um
muscle and so really that's not even what you're trying to accomplish is
right so it it kind of works um is doing the opposite than what it really is and
remember that muscles living tissue and part of that metabolism that we were just talking about and so if we're not
eating enough to support holding on to our muscles then our whole body is
taking a hit kind of with like how much it can handle as far as food energy exercise and all of that
right right and not to forget too that our organs a lot of them are muscles too
um so like our bowels tend to slow down when we're losing losing a lot of muscle
mass so constipation a really um big symptom I guess of weight loss and
muscle muscle loss yeah there's all kinds of things
that come along with it when we're not um nourishing our bodies and
nurturing our bodies um and providing what they need to run efficiently and
run their best right um which is why we're doing this yeah yeah and I think a
lot of us and I feel like I just mentioned this in one of our other episodes but I'm gonna say it again
because it's worth saying a 100 million times but I feel like a lot of things that a lot of us experience on a regular
basis like chronic fatigue or just low energy um brain fog sometimes it's like
all of that tends to also be signs of
under nourishing and I feel like a lot of times we don't take into
consideration the food aspect of it yes and so it's like okay well if you have
low energy all the time let's look at everything like Carrie and I always say like what does everything look like for
you like your sleep your stress your social connections your activity your nutrition all of it um but I feel like
food often goes underlooked or maybe it gets flipped into the opposite like oh
what foods should we take away if you're eating like higher sugar higher processed
foods we feel like those might contribute to this low energy so let's just take those away which tanks your
intake even what can we add to help right and that's what that's the lens
yeah that's the lens I come from with all of my clients that I work with is instead of taking things away because
that just triggers this restriction mindset that we're talking about what can we add in to help you meet your
goals whatever they may be right yeah right yeah totally agree and and even
like um if you're not eating enough and getting enough nutrients sometimes like
I it'll show up like your hair will fall out more uh maybe your nails aren't as healthy your Skin's not as healthy
there's there's different signs um and like you said so often you
don't consider your nourishment and what you're giving your body right um or
maybe not like the full picture like not just what am I eating or maybe people
are thinking it must be what I'm eating or what I'm not eating instead of am I eating
enough I think those are two different mindsets around food because I
feel like we're all or most of us are striving to just eat less all the time because somehow that has gotten into to
this like self-worth situation where if I'm quote
unquote good and I eat less then I'm a better person like it's
just got into this weird oh I had yeah and I had that when
I you know was anorexic right actually when I was in higho I worked at a
restaurant and you know the owners they knew something was going on they're like let me let us make you you we're going
to make you a sandwich or whatever I'm like no no no don't and I always or even like like um serving the food to people
in my mind at the time I'm like I am stronger and better than you because I
can resist this I don't need it right um while I was withering away and and in a
horrible place um but you get into that Twisted mindset it's very easy you don't
have to have an eating disorder to get into that mindset that for sure um it it can just be you know you're out with
girlfriends and it's like h i don't need a burger I'm just gonna have a side salad thanks you know and a diet soda um
until you get home and are starving right and I feel like again a lot of
these and we talked about this in the last one um episode 27 about rejecting the diet mentality we talked a lot about
a lot of these behaviors that Carrie was just mentioning have become very normal ized so many people do this and at the
same time it's not necessarily healthy for our bodies right which is so
backwards like trying to eat less we feel like is better but at the same time
it's actually not good for our bodies right like if you if you don't have the
energy that you need to do the activities that you want you got to take
a look like and yes it's everything you know are but also if you're going to bed really hungry you might not sleep as
well yeah right like it's all connected um or if you eat too much too soon to
bed you know close to bedtime you also might not sleep as well it's figuring out where are you at and this is going
to be different for everyone but taking that honest assessment so what what are some signs
you talked about different um you know signs of hunger um what did those include I mean
obviously people think hunger that grumbling stomach right right I I always
think of Pooh Bear the rumbly tumbly that's so funny that's so funny I
love it that's a great great one so yeah definitely that can be one um but I'd
also like to add too the more we ignore or avoid or misconstrue or whatever our
hunger signals the quieter they become over time
so somebody might never feel anything in their stomach about Hunger or anything
over time right so that's where a lot of these other ones come in and again like Carrie said it's very personalized and
sometimes we also don't notice them and so we're going to talk a little bit more
about that too but other signs of hunger so different stomach feelings that's
definitely one um my go-to in my body is
irritability the hangry feeling hry hangry oh man um yep and then fatigue or
the low energy um poor Focus so like foggy brain
fog poor concentration um headaches is another one that I've seen a lot of people that
I've worked with um figure out is a hunger signal for them um anxiety anxiety yep poor mood is
all attached to this um shakiness like that low blood sugar feeling if you've ever had that and again sometimes you
might pick up on the fact that oh man I haven't eaten in a while and I'm starting to feel that shaky Li
headedness um so I know I need to eat but other people might not get there or another piece of it is
we might have like a spectrum of feelings over time like it might start with a stomach grumbling but you're busy
in a meeting and so you can't get to it and then it gets worse sometimes people actually feel more nauseous when they're
really hungry um if they've ignored the stomach grumbling and then they progress
into like the headache the LI headedness the shakiness other people if we've been ignoring hunger signals for a long time
they tend to not be able to hear those quieter signals or maybe the signals aren't there anymore and they tend to
jump to these more extreme ones like a really bad headache or that low energy all the time or that
like brain fog we tend to kind of skip those lower level ones and go to more
like extreme in my eyes I guess hunger signals and then we might not relate it to hunger it's just oh I have a headache
and I don't know why right yeah um sometimes I get bloated when I'm if I've
gone too long without eating yeah that's a big one actually yep I forgot about that so a
lot of times if we're skipping meals if you tend to be on the spectrum of where
you tend to bloat more than maybe other people um bloating does get worse if we skip meals
yeah yeah awesome well what there's um all of this reminds me of that
study was it World War Two I think yes I think it was in the
fifth was it if it was World War II it was in the 40s but I feel like it was in the 50s I don't know it was somewhere
around the 40s or 50s it's this um during war time yeah Infamous I guess um
starvation study right the one that's one you're talking about yes this is super interesting it's it's so
interesting so I haven't looked at it actually in a while so we'll give you
the gist um they took a bunch of men that were not able to be drafted into
the war for whatever reason and they put them into this research study instead I guess
and and they were all young fit healthy men yes good good to know for sure um so
they put them into this research study and they um put them on a restricted food plan
basically but 1500 calories yes thank you for mentioning that which it's not
like it was 900 calories or anything fact like 1500 calories which is to be honest for a lot of
people that might be listening or have done dieting in the past you guys probably have a better idea of what
1500 calories looks like in a day than I do but that's on the higher end I feel
like for a lot of like restrictive type diet plans yeah I feel like a lot of
them are like 1,200 calories yeah yeah and we're not suggesting that just keeping note we don't really like to
talk about calorie numbers on here but for the sake of talking about the research study um it's just interesting
to put it into perspective so they restricted this group of young healthy men to, 1500
calories a day yeah and what happened what happened oh my gosh it was wild but
oh this is gonna be a funny I apologize in advance but I can't help myself what happened what happened to
them is wild but we also see it out in the wild
today um explain yourself Ashley I can't help it I'm sorry so so what happened
you guys are all like on the edge of your seats in suspense um what they found was when they restricted these
guys they had these obsessive thoughts about food all the time people that
never really like especially men I feel like in that time period they didn't
necessarily probably have to rely on themselves a lot for food they probably
were getting it from if they were married or their families or you know
like most men around that time probably didn't have to rely on themselves for food most of the time just based on
gender roles and all that but anyways some of them could not stop talking about food thinking about food
they would like write about food in their journals some of them even started like collecting recipes from magazines
and whatnot or um talking about like cooking and things like that guys that had never been interested in doing any
of that before um a couple of them actually got kicked out because they were found to be binge
eating um and yeah some of them were hoarding foods and they wouldn't Shing food yep yep and yeah it it's so I mean
like you said 1500 calories is too low for especially for
you know young healthy active men um
but we do it when you know when you're restricting yourself it's still it's the
same idea that we see yep that the food Obsession the constant thinking about
food the or talking about your diet yes yeah or your weight loss or the
scale or whatever facet you're coming up with it's just part of
our brain survival mechanism because what it's trying to do is get you to
think about food and their hunger signals were probably heightened for a little bit and then lost over time a
little bit but in the beginning your body ramps up your hunger signals
because it's telling you to go find food yes it says please feed me and then
we're like no no we're not going to do that or in the case of it's like a notification you get a a notification on
your phone right it's notifying you like hey you got a message you need to read it that's
that is those constant thoughts about food is your brain's way of
saying um you're not giving you're not giving us what we need so you know this
here's your notification right and then when we ignore it or avoid it it's like leaving it on red and never doing
anything about it and so what we're talking about more today is like that honoring piece of it which means that
you're going to respond to it yes and do something about it or like reflect in
the moment about I can't eat right this minute so what's my plan going to be or something
like that yeah noticing it um like Ashley
said responding to it instead of just ignoring it or pushing it away because even if you're not in a position where
you could eat right then um you know what is what is your plan when can you right and knowing that
yes it will because that also helps calm the brain right because the brain wants to feel um you want to feel safe so if
there's like this oh my gosh I am freaking starving and I don't know what I'm going to get to eat again that kind
of triggers this anxious response and then you're GNA think about it more right if you have your backup plan right
and you get yeah or even like what car's mentioning is like responding to your
hunger in the moment but also if we're going even A Step Above
which we might not talk a lot about today but we have talked about it in the past is planning ahead for your hunger
and I think we'll talk about that a little bit towards the end when we give you some more like concrete advice but
stay tuned I guess all right so there are different types of hunger oh there's so many and
you might not think about it right like I I say this to clients all the time because
we end up talking about Hunger a lot and one of my questions to them is always like so this is a little
bit kind of um putting the last conversation together with this new
question but it's like well what does hunger feel like in your body and who
has ever asked anybody that before it's such an interesting thing to think about
um but it shows up in a lot of different places like like the signs and symptoms of
hunger like we just talked about but other things can sort of trigger that hunger also so um we talk about nose
hunger so um if you're anywhere and somebody walks by with something that
smells really good um french fries are a big one because they are very strong
smelling and they smell really good or like a a a steak grilling yeah anything
the grill if you drive by a restaurant and you could smell the grill smell or something like that's all nose hunger it
smells good to you and it kind of triggers that oh that that sounds good to me now
or yeah I know we're doing this around lunchtime today um and then there's also eye
hunger which is similar it's kind of using a different sense so seeing something so seeing advertisements or
you know if you're trying to figure out what you want on the menu all the pictures if you're out are on the menu or somebody else's place walks by or
slowly strolling through the bakery section at the grocery yes and that puts together a couple different of them too
right the nose and the eye yeah if they're baking oh yeah yeah you guys I
hope you're all hungry now and go and then there's also um the next two
are sort of similar um there's stomach hunger which is sort of what we were just talking about like feeling hunger
in your belly so the grumbling tummy um which is one of the signals telling you
that your body needs some fuel but there's also what's called cellular hunger which is kind of
interesting to think about it's like your body's basic
layer sending signals that you need something um whether it's fuel in
general or you know sometimes we're craving certain things we don't know why and maybe it's your body telling you you
need the nutrition from that food um so the stomach and the cellular are similar
because they're both signals from your body and the cellular so and if you
didn't know already like your cells require energy every one of them so
there's all these little energy um processes
huh yes going on in every cell in your body and um it's where the all the chemicals
are produced and used at the cellular level level so it's really like this
deeper you have to you have to nourish your body for it to work properly and we
don't think I think what's really cool about the cell I I have a really hard time saying that word cellular good
cellular level is that um and you see more and more of this too of with
different um techniques with you know energy stuff um at the cellular
level um but it's cool because it's that at that very basic the foundation of
your body um and it it you have to nourish that and give the cells what they need
to work properly y um so yeah yeah and I
feel like we don't think of that like I feel like when we think about food we think about calories immediately and how
they're going to affect our weight and it's so much more than that but that's
what it has sort of like gotten down to and our body needs so much to run
appropriately because our bodies are so cool they do so much like under the
surface right like we can't even we're still learning about it all which is so cool yeah so yeah anyways we talk about
that another whole time time but we won't um then um what type of hunger
we're on heart I think um so heart hunger is like um well I'll let Carrie
do this one actually because we I know that Carrie has a a very special heart hunger
example so heart hunger is more of that it's not well let's explain emotional
hunger first so emotional hunger is you're eating due to an emotion like you
feel stressed or ticked off so you eat to try to feel better right basically
right of sort of try to numb that feeling um versus heart hunger is more
you have an emotional connection to a food so for me like for instance at the
holidays there are there are certain dishes well really throughout the year but like at the holidays I make my
grandmother's cutout cookies um there's a couple other um recipes like
throughout the year whether if we're cooking out I make her Calico beans like there's there's that connection or even
like um well it can happen with the smell too like oh that smells like my grams like right and you get that um so
there can be some overlap with some of these types of hunger also yeah um so it's that um you have an emotional
connection to a recipe or a certain dish or even um like a certain smell you know
if if you know like my grandmother's always she was always baking and cooking they were farmers and they always had
that going so certain smells trigger that memory it's like oh now I want that
right yeah because then I feel more connected to my grandmother exactly and family and yep and those memories and so
yeah they certainly overlap but they are a little bit different because we're thinking more about how how those dishes
um remind you of your family members or whomever um as oppos to like using food
as a coping mechanism with the emotional eating right right yeah all right and
then we have um mind hunger which is really interesting I feel like this one
is what a lot of us deal with a lot it's sort of those food
rules or the things that think about in your head when you're trying to make a food Choice like should I eat this and
then all those things that you think pop up like no because of XYZ or I read that
this is a bad food or um it's not allowed on my diet plan or
whatever whatever rule you've made up for yourself yep yeah yeah and also
there's mouth hunger yes I skipped that one thank you Carrie when you want um um
either a certain taste or a certain texture so maybe you really want
something that's crunchy right and all you have is pudding right it's not gonna cut it
you're not gonna feel satisfied right um so that kind of thing either the taste or the texture um would be also the
mouth hunger yes yeah and then the last one we have is my personal
favorite practical h and this I alluded to this a little bit
earlier but it's kind of like we can't follow every hunger signal
that we might get all day long right probably because we all have other stuff
going on we are very busy in our lives most of us right now and um practical
hunger allows us to still honor our hunger most of the time it just is going
to fit into our day a little better so for example if you typically eat lunch
at noon and you get scheduled a work meeting at noon maybe we'll have a snack a little
bit earlier or maybe we'll move our lunch to 11:30 so we can go into our meeting more
wellfed or if we're allowed to eat lunch in the meeting we could ask about that
or maybe if we have the snack before the meeting we can move our lunch to after the meeting so it's all about realizing
when you're typically hungry I guess and making accommodations to still sort of
fit that in even if it might not look quote unquote like perfect for your body um every
time right because and that's the point there is no one perfect way right to eat it and we do live in the real world so
while it would be awesome if you could just oh every you know you figured out
all your hunger cues and you could you know nourish your body when you know you
feel that and it's all but that's not how the real world always works and you
might have days where you could do that or certain times but um yeah the
Practical hunger I can see why that's your your favorite because yeah that's like the daytoday like figuring figuring
this out and um and getting it done and making it work with your life right because I feel like a lot of times too
people are like especially with intuitive eating we might misconstrue it as eating when
you're hungry and stopping when you're full or even just some people have that belief in their mind and it's like well
what happens when I can't eat when I'm hungry then I just won't or we get a little anxiety about it or don't know
how to handle it and this is how we handle it with that practical hunger like if we normally eat dinner at 5: but
we have sports all night till 8 or something how the heck and so instead of
just not having a plan and everyone getting hangry especially your athletes
like that's it's not a fun time to be nourished right to have the
energy and the strength exactly sport yep so if you say oh well one of the
kids gonna eat because they needy because the game you have to include yourself in there too like right right
if you're skipping dinner at 5 too so is it eating dinner earlier and having a bedtime snack or snack on the ride home
if they're hungry or is it having a bigger snack before the sporting event
or activity or whatever it might be and then dinner later or you know that's totally up to everyone to figure out
what works best for you and your families yeah and that's where meal planning comes in too right it's all
connected um yeah so if you know you've got a game that night and you know
either eating out not in the budget or just you just don't want to do it um you know is there a Crockpot meal that you
can put together or um something simple that's going to go together real quick and easy when you get home um so the
planning out just takes a lot of the stress out of
it yes it does and that might be why it's my favorite too because then I can talk about the meal plan
[Laughter] part Miss meal planner I know
it so well if you haven't heard yet we have
hunger blueprints yes and yes and that's really helpful because it's tying in all
the things that we're talking about there's a download link for it in the show notes and basically what it is is
what we're going to talk about right now talking about how to figure out we're
kind of Shifting Gears a little bit we're going to talk about emotional hunger a little bit more and how we can
figure out whether we feel like eating because of emotional um signals or cues or feelings
or whether it's more of that physical hunger or any of the other types of hunger that we mentioned right so the
hunger blueprint is kind of like a little road map to help you figure all that out right and if you have been
pushing hunger away and not paying attention for a long time it's going to
take some time to figure this out yes show yourself some
compassion give yourself some slack and some Grace and know that um just know
it's going to take some time right because if you've been ignoring these they probably show up but you you pushed
them away so much that you you don't notice them anymore um so once you start
paying attention to them again um and it is going to be confusing
like well I don't know is this like you right like it's going to take time so
just um like I said show yourself some Grace and give yourself the time to
figure it out um it's not a perfect system or one way to do it or anything
like that um so but you got to slow down enough to do
it exactly and I think that what we're talking about now with like how to
figure this out it's sort of flowing into the second phase of the intuitive eating that we talk about the um getting to
know your body so honoring your hunger a kind of two different things almost it's
like letting go of some of the things like we talked about in rejecting the diet mentality about why you might be
avoiding your hunger or ignoring your hunger like letting go of some of that and then also learning your body again
like getting to know your body so slow going down paying attention figuring out what does hunger feel like in your body
when does it usually happen like figuring out your patterns I think that is probably the biggest takeaway from
this one is figuring out your patterns of hunger so that you can
then respond yes because patterns is huge and
not just for eating but it's like we all have patterns and everything that we do
yes so when you can figure out your patterns and see how you are either reacting or responding to them or not
you know right um then that that's like a a really key that's key to a lot of
things yeah and I feel like a lot of times we don't put them together so like
I'll give a couple examples I've had clients who report to me that they have
headaches like mid to late morning every day and they have no idea why and after
we talk about it for a while we figure out oh we're skipping breakfast so I wonder right just
curiosity that's all it is I wonder if those are actually your H hunger signals
so maybe let's try adding something in to your morning and see how that goes
and for a few people that was definitely what was happening um other people have
experienced like this really high level of food cravings um and eating past
comfortable fullness kind of Cycles in the evening and we have to remember
that what's happening during one part of the day is likely coming from what's happening in
the other part of the day so if we're not eating a lot during the day our body's going to figure that out
because it's pretty smart unfortunately sometimes it kind of makes us crazy um but we have
to say oh well if I'm feeling this strong of an urge to eat so much at
night maybe I'm not eating enough during the day like that happens very common right very common
people and and you know if you work like in an office setting for example I've seen this before um that it's almost
like this competition to see who can eat the least amount of food during the day at work right or we skip lunch or
because you're a stronger better person if you do that Y and we have to work through our lunch so why bother eating
like there's so many different pieces different scenarios um and and then when
you get home you're starving BEC and of course you're going to be and it has nothing to do with
willpower or you being a bad person or anything it's just your body's way it's your biology be like hello um you know
we're running on fumes here here so feed feed me exactly yeah
it's yeah so what are some practical
ways that someone could start um tapping
into that their body wisdom and figuring out those feelings of hunger so figuring
out your hunger signals and like your patterns that's a great question so like Carrie said a few minutes ago slow
down a little bit and check back into your body like I feel like most of us
just live in our brain and that's about it we often don't check in with our
bodies or pay attention to them that much unless it's like a really strong signal of pain or other things um so
tuning back into your body a little bit and we can do that by doing like little mindfulness
exercises or giving yourself like one or two minutes to just sit and be in your
body um a great way to do that is what um is called a body scan so you kind of
just sit down quietly close your eyes if you want to um and kind of just check in
with all the parts of your body and see what's going on there yeah yeah just
kind of start I like to start at the top of my head and I just slowly go down
you know how how and you can do it combine it like total relaxation too just kind of release your muscles as
you're doing it and um see how your body is really feeling
because you can't it's hard like when you're just go go go go right and and you don't stop long enough to pay
attention to what is actually going on all of a sudden you know you kind of hit that wall and it's like oh I don't have
any energy and oh I just want to lay down and take a nap or oh I can't focus and oh I got a headache
or whatever um but sitting down and just taking a few minutes to breathe and
Chuck in with your body and figure out what it needs maybe yeah
sometimes I like like put one hand on your heart and one on your belly and just kind of like sit for a minute with
it like hey you know I got you yeah and that
doing this in the it might take a little longer to like just get the lay of the
land and get more familiar with how to do you might feel uncomfortable and
weird yep and you're not to doing this yeah and also I feel like it's gonna end
up preventing a lot of the stuff Carrie was just saying like we're checking in with our body more we might not get to
that burnout Point as much hopefully yeah and also once you get
used to doing it and you start noticing the signals it comes
easier yep or you know even um so
another way to kind of think about Hunger signals is like maybe even set a little mental reminder for yourself like
every hour check in like do I have a headache how's my belly
um or if you know what some of your typical hunger signals are if they're some of the more extreme ones that we talked
about trying to be a little bit more quiet about other things to see if you can pick up on does my stomach Rumble
and I just miss it or is being you know a little bit or
having a little bit less concentration happened before a headache or you know like figuring that out and does it
happen at a certain time of day and if that's the case well we definitely need to eat before then not at that time but
before then also making sure that you're staying well hydrated um um because I think that that
also just kind of helps smooth things out some um also when
you're and and it's one of the top reasons for a headache too yeah and also
remembering that fluids are not a replacement for food right so if you are
feeling hungry drinking water definitely fills up the stomach and might curb the
signals for a little bit but our bodies are smarter than that and they're going to realize that you actually didn't give
them any fuel right so keep that in mind yes very good
point um what else like consistently practice it right like yeah like already
said show yourself some Grace give yourself time to sort of relearn your
body yeah get to know it I want to break out in song right now getting to know
you getting to know all about you sorry I wanted to do that before when you said
getting to know your body I'm like oh hold back Carrie hold back but I couldn't that time okay and remember and
like we talked about this the principle number two the honoring your hunger is a little bit of two different phases like
we talked about like it's letting go of the things that are keeping you stuck in
the diet mentality and it's getting like so like
like the Mind hunger we talked about yeah getting off social media accounts
that make you feel bad about yourself and just realizing yeah realizing that hunger is here for a
reason yeah it's not just to like torture you or something right and I think and you're not weak for feeling
hungry no so if that's the place you need if that's the place you need to start like with an affirmation or
something like my Hunger is trying to just keep me
nourished or however you want to think about that in a more positive way right
and if you go deeper and learn that it's actually emotional hunger that you're
experiencing that's another animal Al together right like um
because that you don't necessarily want to nourish with food right um that's
other types of nourishment so and we'll talk way more about that I think we are going to do another whole episode at
some point so stay tuned for that also and Carrie mentioned doing like an honest
assessment of things and how you're dealing with hunger and um checking in
with your feelings and stuff and seeing am I like am I using food this way as a
coping tool and then moving through that again we'll talk way more about that in
another episode but just figuring it out for this part yes yeah start noticing it
yeah yep for sure awesome anything else I think that's a
lot did you get all that I don't know if you want to listen to it twice please do
it's a lot of information or if you have questions like I don't get what you're saying here or what about this please
please feel free to contact us yes and you can find our Social Links in our show notes we're on Instagram and
Facebook and we have a fun Facebook group um we have emails also join the
pod squad great place to come and get um get
you know one-on-one attention with us yep yep so that meets uh the first Tuesday of every month at noon via zoom
and I believe the link to learn more about that is our show notes also but yeah like Carrie said basically how the
group runs is we talk about the podcast episodes that we just covered in the
last couple weeks um but also we tend to take listener questions and run with
those too so like here said it's a good place for like a little bit more one-on-one it's very small group setting
um and they don't air on the podcast so it's a private than yes yes awesome this
is awesome as usual chat with you next time yes ma'am love you latte love you
[Music]
[Music]
hey it's Carrie and Ashley we welcome you to the self-care Cafe we are both
health professionals and moms and nature lovers and food lovers and love helping
women get over dieting and just start living we think that talking about
bodies and perfect bodies and dieting is just
boring did we put you to sleep there Carrie yes so if you are ready to ditch
dieting and get to living and talk about more important things then you are in the right place we don't put shame and
guilt on the menu here you don't even have to tip us nope come hang with us the advice is
free we want to have a bunch of girlfriends to just hang out with and get real with and it's time to start
living
ladies hey all together now that's right how
are you I'm great how are you I'm good awesome so what is on the menu for today
so today is our second part of our little series that we're doing
and remember we've broken down kind of the intuitive eating framework into um
what Carrie and I like to look at into like three phases so the first phase is breaking up with
dieting and last time so episode 27 we talked about the first principle of
intuitive eating which is rejecting the diet mentality So today we're tackling
the second principle of intuitive eating which is honoring your hunger H this is
really important um what does that mean what does that
mean I like that question because I feel like hunger has gotten
this really complicated story with it and a bad rap yes like we're almost like
feel uh guilty that we feel hungry like I'm not supposed to feel hungry yeah
exactly so silly like yeah yeah so I guess
honoring your hunger to me is kind of like learning what hunger feels like in
your body and it might feel a bunch of different ways and then responding to
it in a way that is helping your body I guess does that make sense yes so
responding to it like in an appropriate manner depending on depending on all the factors we're going
to talk about today yes because all hungers not all hungers created equal exactly right there's
different kinds of hunger um but so okay but before we get into that
so why why should I honor my Hunger So Hunger is super important like you said
a few minutes ago because it's our body's way of telling us that it needs something and we have a lot of different
signals that our body tells us when it needs us to do something like going to the bathroom for example and I really
like comparing hunger to using the restroom because it's very similar it's like we
everyone does it right and also it's like this
basic need for our body and with going to the bathroom we might have to put it
off for a little bit if we're like in the middle of a meeting or task or
whatever but we're yeah we're GNA do it like we can't ignore it too long but
with Hunger I feel like we've all gotten that complicated story like we mentioned
earlier hunger's got that bad rap and we do try to ignore it and avoid it and
that just leads us down this path of so
many different variables but when we ignore it and avoid it our body is not
getting the things it needs and it does a lot of stuff to our body so ignoring hunger or restricting food they're kind
of very similar um we're going against our bodies like biological needs and
survival cues and mechanisms and almost always it leads to like overeating or
binge eating at some point and I don't really love the word overeating but maybe a better one is like eating past
comfortable fullness we'll talk about fullness in a different one yep
um or you know like binge eating like I mentioned or feeling like that out of
control feeling around food like if I start eating this food I know I won't be
able to stop and like it goes along with your mindset too it's not just the
physical pieces at that point right right is it true so I just when you were
as you were talking it triggered um something that so if we put off eating
when our body is telling us that we need it right so you're you're feeling hungry
but you're not going to eat is it true um and I don't mean to put you on
the spot that's okay we this guess Sor I know um is it true that then so if you
could do that consistently enough enough you know where you push the hunger away and you don't give your body what it
needs at the time over time it starts holding on to more like kind of um and
and you so that you build up more of like a fat Reserve because your body's like well I'm not getting what I need
when I need it so I need a reserve to pull off from when I need it for energy
does that make sense yeah I think I think mostly yes and again I haven't dealt
super far into like the research a lot lately to be able to answer like super
confidently but and I feel like people's bodies act differently too so people with different eating um stuff
like some people if they're ignoring hunger and they're restricting a lot some people do just lose a ton of weight
um some people experience a lot of weight loss up front and then we hit that Plateau right and I feel like
that's where that piece that Carrie's just talking about comes in like um our
body's like hey wait a second what is happening because our body also doesn't really know the difference between hey
we're doing this on purpose and oh my gosh we're starving to death and so it has so many things in place to prevent
us from starving um and I think that's where the piece that car's talking about
sort of fits in like our metabolis slows down at that point too and so yes we
need less food and calories or energy or however you want to talk about it to
handle our daily body functions and at some point yeah things are going to slow
down we're probably gonna try to hold on to everything we can so we do have that Reserve that so
ironically the body does the opposite of what you actually yes trying to
accomplish and think that you're doing because the other part of that too like when you said um if you even if you lose
weight a lot of that is muscle mass it's not even you know fat loss it's um
muscle and so really that's not even what you're trying to accomplish is
right so it it kind of works um is doing the opposite than what it really is and
remember that muscles living tissue and part of that metabolism that we were just talking about and so if we're not
eating enough to support holding on to our muscles then our whole body is
taking a hit kind of with like how much it can handle as far as food energy exercise and all of that
right right and not to forget too that our organs a lot of them are muscles too
um so like our bowels tend to slow down when we're losing losing a lot of muscle
mass so constipation a really um big symptom I guess of weight loss and
muscle muscle loss yeah there's all kinds of things
that come along with it when we're not um nourishing our bodies and
nurturing our bodies um and providing what they need to run efficiently and
run their best right um which is why we're doing this yeah yeah and I think a
lot of us and I feel like I just mentioned this in one of our other episodes but I'm gonna say it again
because it's worth saying a 100 million times but I feel like a lot of things that a lot of us experience on a regular
basis like chronic fatigue or just low energy um brain fog sometimes it's like
all of that tends to also be signs of
under nourishing and I feel like a lot of times we don't take into
consideration the food aspect of it yes and so it's like okay well if you have
low energy all the time let's look at everything like Carrie and I always say like what does everything look like for
you like your sleep your stress your social connections your activity your nutrition all of it um but I feel like
food often goes underlooked or maybe it gets flipped into the opposite like oh
what foods should we take away if you're eating like higher sugar higher processed
foods we feel like those might contribute to this low energy so let's just take those away which tanks your
intake even what can we add to help right and that's what that's the lens
yeah that's the lens I come from with all of my clients that I work with is instead of taking things away because
that just triggers this restriction mindset that we're talking about what can we add in to help you meet your
goals whatever they may be right yeah right yeah totally agree and and even
like um if you're not eating enough and getting enough nutrients sometimes like
I it'll show up like your hair will fall out more uh maybe your nails aren't as healthy your Skin's not as healthy
there's there's different signs um and like you said so often you
don't consider your nourishment and what you're giving your body right um or
maybe not like the full picture like not just what am I eating or maybe people
are thinking it must be what I'm eating or what I'm not eating instead of am I eating
enough I think those are two different mindsets around food because I
feel like we're all or most of us are striving to just eat less all the time because somehow that has gotten into to
this like self-worth situation where if I'm quote
unquote good and I eat less then I'm a better person like it's
just got into this weird oh I had yeah and I had that when
I you know was anorexic right actually when I was in higho I worked at a
restaurant and you know the owners they knew something was going on they're like let me let us make you you we're going
to make you a sandwich or whatever I'm like no no no don't and I always or even like like um serving the food to people
in my mind at the time I'm like I am stronger and better than you because I
can resist this I don't need it right um while I was withering away and and in a
horrible place um but you get into that Twisted mindset it's very easy you don't
have to have an eating disorder to get into that mindset that for sure um it it can just be you know you're out with
girlfriends and it's like h i don't need a burger I'm just gonna have a side salad thanks you know and a diet soda um
until you get home and are starving right and I feel like again a lot of
these and we talked about this in the last one um episode 27 about rejecting the diet mentality we talked a lot about
a lot of these behaviors that Carrie was just mentioning have become very normal ized so many people do this and at the
same time it's not necessarily healthy for our bodies right which is so
backwards like trying to eat less we feel like is better but at the same time
it's actually not good for our bodies right like if you if you don't have the
energy that you need to do the activities that you want you got to take
a look like and yes it's everything you know are but also if you're going to bed really hungry you might not sleep as
well yeah right like it's all connected um or if you eat too much too soon to
bed you know close to bedtime you also might not sleep as well it's figuring out where are you at and this is going
to be different for everyone but taking that honest assessment so what what are some signs
you talked about different um you know signs of hunger um what did those include I mean
obviously people think hunger that grumbling stomach right right I I always
think of Pooh Bear the rumbly tumbly that's so funny that's so funny I
love it that's a great great one so yeah definitely that can be one um but I'd
also like to add too the more we ignore or avoid or misconstrue or whatever our
hunger signals the quieter they become over time
so somebody might never feel anything in their stomach about Hunger or anything
over time right so that's where a lot of these other ones come in and again like Carrie said it's very personalized and
sometimes we also don't notice them and so we're going to talk a little bit more
about that too but other signs of hunger so different stomach feelings that's
definitely one um my go-to in my body is
irritability the hangry feeling hry hangry oh man um yep and then fatigue or
the low energy um poor Focus so like foggy brain
fog poor concentration um headaches is another one that I've seen a lot of people that
I've worked with um figure out is a hunger signal for them um anxiety anxiety yep poor mood is
all attached to this um shakiness like that low blood sugar feeling if you've ever had that and again sometimes you
might pick up on the fact that oh man I haven't eaten in a while and I'm starting to feel that shaky Li
headedness um so I know I need to eat but other people might not get there or another piece of it is
we might have like a spectrum of feelings over time like it might start with a stomach grumbling but you're busy
in a meeting and so you can't get to it and then it gets worse sometimes people actually feel more nauseous when they're
really hungry um if they've ignored the stomach grumbling and then they progress
into like the headache the LI headedness the shakiness other people if we've been ignoring hunger signals for a long time
they tend to not be able to hear those quieter signals or maybe the signals aren't there anymore and they tend to
jump to these more extreme ones like a really bad headache or that low energy all the time or that
like brain fog we tend to kind of skip those lower level ones and go to more
like extreme in my eyes I guess hunger signals and then we might not relate it to hunger it's just oh I have a headache
and I don't know why right yeah um sometimes I get bloated when I'm if I've
gone too long without eating yeah that's a big one actually yep I forgot about that so a
lot of times if we're skipping meals if you tend to be on the spectrum of where
you tend to bloat more than maybe other people um bloating does get worse if we skip meals
yeah yeah awesome well what there's um all of this reminds me of that
study was it World War Two I think yes I think it was in the
fifth was it if it was World War II it was in the 40s but I feel like it was in the 50s I don't know it was somewhere
around the 40s or 50s it's this um during war time yeah Infamous I guess um
starvation study right the one that's one you're talking about yes this is super interesting it's it's so
interesting so I haven't looked at it actually in a while so we'll give you
the gist um they took a bunch of men that were not able to be drafted into
the war for whatever reason and they put them into this research study instead I guess
and and they were all young fit healthy men yes good good to know for sure um so
they put them into this research study and they um put them on a restricted food plan
basically but 1500 calories yes thank you for mentioning that which it's not
like it was 900 calories or anything fact like 1500 calories which is to be honest for a lot of
people that might be listening or have done dieting in the past you guys probably have a better idea of what
1500 calories looks like in a day than I do but that's on the higher end I feel
like for a lot of like restrictive type diet plans yeah I feel like a lot of
them are like 1,200 calories yeah yeah and we're not suggesting that just keeping note we don't really like to
talk about calorie numbers on here but for the sake of talking about the research study um it's just interesting
to put it into perspective so they restricted this group of young healthy men to, 1500
calories a day yeah and what happened what happened oh my gosh it was wild but
oh this is gonna be a funny I apologize in advance but I can't help myself what happened what happened to
them is wild but we also see it out in the wild
today um explain yourself Ashley I can't help it I'm sorry so so what happened
you guys are all like on the edge of your seats in suspense um what they found was when they restricted these
guys they had these obsessive thoughts about food all the time people that
never really like especially men I feel like in that time period they didn't
necessarily probably have to rely on themselves a lot for food they probably
were getting it from if they were married or their families or you know
like most men around that time probably didn't have to rely on themselves for food most of the time just based on
gender roles and all that but anyways some of them could not stop talking about food thinking about food
they would like write about food in their journals some of them even started like collecting recipes from magazines
and whatnot or um talking about like cooking and things like that guys that had never been interested in doing any
of that before um a couple of them actually got kicked out because they were found to be binge
eating um and yeah some of them were hoarding foods and they wouldn't Shing food yep yep and yeah it it's so I mean
like you said 1500 calories is too low for especially for
you know young healthy active men um
but we do it when you know when you're restricting yourself it's still it's the
same idea that we see yep that the food Obsession the constant thinking about
food the or talking about your diet yes yeah or your weight loss or the
scale or whatever facet you're coming up with it's just part of
our brain survival mechanism because what it's trying to do is get you to
think about food and their hunger signals were probably heightened for a little bit and then lost over time a
little bit but in the beginning your body ramps up your hunger signals
because it's telling you to go find food yes it says please feed me and then
we're like no no we're not going to do that or in the case of it's like a notification you get a a notification on
your phone right it's notifying you like hey you got a message you need to read it that's
that is those constant thoughts about food is your brain's way of
saying um you're not giving you're not giving us what we need so you know this
here's your notification right and then when we ignore it or avoid it it's like leaving it on red and never doing
anything about it and so what we're talking about more today is like that honoring piece of it which means that
you're going to respond to it yes and do something about it or like reflect in
the moment about I can't eat right this minute so what's my plan going to be or something
like that yeah noticing it um like Ashley
said responding to it instead of just ignoring it or pushing it away because even if you're not in a position where
you could eat right then um you know what is what is your plan when can you right and knowing that
yes it will because that also helps calm the brain right because the brain wants to feel um you want to feel safe so if
there's like this oh my gosh I am freaking starving and I don't know what I'm going to get to eat again that kind
of triggers this anxious response and then you're GNA think about it more right if you have your backup plan right
and you get yeah or even like what car's mentioning is like responding to your
hunger in the moment but also if we're going even A Step Above
which we might not talk a lot about today but we have talked about it in the past is planning ahead for your hunger
and I think we'll talk about that a little bit towards the end when we give you some more like concrete advice but
stay tuned I guess all right so there are different types of hunger oh there's so many and
you might not think about it right like I I say this to clients all the time because
we end up talking about Hunger a lot and one of my questions to them is always like so this is a little
bit kind of um putting the last conversation together with this new
question but it's like well what does hunger feel like in your body and who
has ever asked anybody that before it's such an interesting thing to think about
um but it shows up in a lot of different places like like the signs and symptoms of
hunger like we just talked about but other things can sort of trigger that hunger also so um we talk about nose
hunger so um if you're anywhere and somebody walks by with something that
smells really good um french fries are a big one because they are very strong
smelling and they smell really good or like a a a steak grilling yeah anything
the grill if you drive by a restaurant and you could smell the grill smell or something like that's all nose hunger it
smells good to you and it kind of triggers that oh that that sounds good to me now
or yeah I know we're doing this around lunchtime today um and then there's also eye
hunger which is similar it's kind of using a different sense so seeing something so seeing advertisements or
you know if you're trying to figure out what you want on the menu all the pictures if you're out are on the menu or somebody else's place walks by or
slowly strolling through the bakery section at the grocery yes and that puts together a couple different of them too
right the nose and the eye yeah if they're baking oh yeah yeah you guys I
hope you're all hungry now and go and then there's also um the next two
are sort of similar um there's stomach hunger which is sort of what we were just talking about like feeling hunger
in your belly so the grumbling tummy um which is one of the signals telling you
that your body needs some fuel but there's also what's called cellular hunger which is kind of
interesting to think about it's like your body's basic
layer sending signals that you need something um whether it's fuel in
general or you know sometimes we're craving certain things we don't know why and maybe it's your body telling you you
need the nutrition from that food um so the stomach and the cellular are similar
because they're both signals from your body and the cellular so and if you
didn't know already like your cells require energy every one of them so
there's all these little energy um processes
huh yes going on in every cell in your body and um it's where the all the chemicals
are produced and used at the cellular level level so it's really like this
deeper you have to you have to nourish your body for it to work properly and we
don't think I think what's really cool about the cell I I have a really hard time saying that word cellular good
cellular level is that um and you see more and more of this too of with
different um techniques with you know energy stuff um at the cellular
level um but it's cool because it's that at that very basic the foundation of
your body um and it it you have to nourish that and give the cells what they need
to work properly y um so yeah yeah and I
feel like we don't think of that like I feel like when we think about food we think about calories immediately and how
they're going to affect our weight and it's so much more than that but that's
what it has sort of like gotten down to and our body needs so much to run
appropriately because our bodies are so cool they do so much like under the
surface right like we can't even we're still learning about it all which is so cool yeah so yeah anyways we talk about
that another whole time time but we won't um then um what type of hunger
we're on heart I think um so heart hunger is like um well I'll let Carrie
do this one actually because we I know that Carrie has a a very special heart hunger
example so heart hunger is more of that it's not well let's explain emotional
hunger first so emotional hunger is you're eating due to an emotion like you
feel stressed or ticked off so you eat to try to feel better right basically
right of sort of try to numb that feeling um versus heart hunger is more
you have an emotional connection to a food so for me like for instance at the
holidays there are there are certain dishes well really throughout the year but like at the holidays I make my
grandmother's cutout cookies um there's a couple other um recipes like
throughout the year whether if we're cooking out I make her Calico beans like there's there's that connection or even
like um well it can happen with the smell too like oh that smells like my grams like right and you get that um so
there can be some overlap with some of these types of hunger also yeah um so it's that um you have an emotional
connection to a recipe or a certain dish or even um like a certain smell you know
if if you know like my grandmother's always she was always baking and cooking they were farmers and they always had
that going so certain smells trigger that memory it's like oh now I want that
right yeah because then I feel more connected to my grandmother exactly and family and yep and those memories and so
yeah they certainly overlap but they are a little bit different because we're thinking more about how how those dishes
um remind you of your family members or whomever um as oppos to like using food
as a coping mechanism with the emotional eating right right yeah all right and
then we have um mind hunger which is really interesting I feel like this one
is what a lot of us deal with a lot it's sort of those food
rules or the things that think about in your head when you're trying to make a food Choice like should I eat this and
then all those things that you think pop up like no because of XYZ or I read that
this is a bad food or um it's not allowed on my diet plan or
whatever whatever rule you've made up for yourself yep yeah yeah and also
there's mouth hunger yes I skipped that one thank you Carrie when you want um um
either a certain taste or a certain texture so maybe you really want
something that's crunchy right and all you have is pudding right it's not gonna cut it
you're not gonna feel satisfied right um so that kind of thing either the taste or the texture um would be also the
mouth hunger yes yeah and then the last one we have is my personal
favorite practical h and this I alluded to this a little bit
earlier but it's kind of like we can't follow every hunger signal
that we might get all day long right probably because we all have other stuff
going on we are very busy in our lives most of us right now and um practical
hunger allows us to still honor our hunger most of the time it just is going
to fit into our day a little better so for example if you typically eat lunch
at noon and you get scheduled a work meeting at noon maybe we'll have a snack a little
bit earlier or maybe we'll move our lunch to 11:30 so we can go into our meeting more
wellfed or if we're allowed to eat lunch in the meeting we could ask about that
or maybe if we have the snack before the meeting we can move our lunch to after the meeting so it's all about realizing
when you're typically hungry I guess and making accommodations to still sort of
fit that in even if it might not look quote unquote like perfect for your body um every
time right because and that's the point there is no one perfect way right to eat it and we do live in the real world so
while it would be awesome if you could just oh every you know you figured out
all your hunger cues and you could you know nourish your body when you know you
feel that and it's all but that's not how the real world always works and you
might have days where you could do that or certain times but um yeah the
Practical hunger I can see why that's your your favorite because yeah that's like the daytoday like figuring figuring
this out and um and getting it done and making it work with your life right because I feel like a lot of times too
people are like especially with intuitive eating we might misconstrue it as eating when
you're hungry and stopping when you're full or even just some people have that belief in their mind and it's like well
what happens when I can't eat when I'm hungry then I just won't or we get a little anxiety about it or don't know
how to handle it and this is how we handle it with that practical hunger like if we normally eat dinner at 5: but
we have sports all night till 8 or something how the heck and so instead of
just not having a plan and everyone getting hangry especially your athletes
like that's it's not a fun time to be nourished right to have the
energy and the strength exactly sport yep so if you say oh well one of the
kids gonna eat because they needy because the game you have to include yourself in there too like right right
if you're skipping dinner at 5 too so is it eating dinner earlier and having a bedtime snack or snack on the ride home
if they're hungry or is it having a bigger snack before the sporting event
or activity or whatever it might be and then dinner later or you know that's totally up to everyone to figure out
what works best for you and your families yeah and that's where meal planning comes in too right it's all
connected um yeah so if you know you've got a game that night and you know
either eating out not in the budget or just you just don't want to do it um you know is there a Crockpot meal that you
can put together or um something simple that's going to go together real quick and easy when you get home um so the
planning out just takes a lot of the stress out of
it yes it does and that might be why it's my favorite too because then I can talk about the meal plan
[Laughter] part Miss meal planner I know
it so well if you haven't heard yet we have
hunger blueprints yes and yes and that's really helpful because it's tying in all
the things that we're talking about there's a download link for it in the show notes and basically what it is is
what we're going to talk about right now talking about how to figure out we're
kind of Shifting Gears a little bit we're going to talk about emotional hunger a little bit more and how we can
figure out whether we feel like eating because of emotional um signals or cues or feelings
or whether it's more of that physical hunger or any of the other types of hunger that we mentioned right so the
hunger blueprint is kind of like a little road map to help you figure all that out right and if you have been
pushing hunger away and not paying attention for a long time it's going to
take some time to figure this out yes show yourself some
compassion give yourself some slack and some Grace and know that um just know
it's going to take some time right because if you've been ignoring these they probably show up but you you pushed
them away so much that you you don't notice them anymore um so once you start
paying attention to them again um and it is going to be confusing
like well I don't know is this like you right like it's going to take time so
just um like I said show yourself some Grace and give yourself the time to
figure it out um it's not a perfect system or one way to do it or anything
like that um so but you got to slow down enough to do
it exactly and I think that what we're talking about now with like how to
figure this out it's sort of flowing into the second phase of the intuitive eating that we talk about the um getting to
know your body so honoring your hunger a kind of two different things almost it's
like letting go of some of the things like we talked about in rejecting the diet mentality about why you might be
avoiding your hunger or ignoring your hunger like letting go of some of that and then also learning your body again
like getting to know your body so slow going down paying attention figuring out what does hunger feel like in your body
when does it usually happen like figuring out your patterns I think that is probably the biggest takeaway from
this one is figuring out your patterns of hunger so that you can
then respond yes because patterns is huge and
not just for eating but it's like we all have patterns and everything that we do
yes so when you can figure out your patterns and see how you are either reacting or responding to them or not
you know right um then that that's like a a really key that's key to a lot of
things yeah and I feel like a lot of times we don't put them together so like
I'll give a couple examples I've had clients who report to me that they have
headaches like mid to late morning every day and they have no idea why and after
we talk about it for a while we figure out oh we're skipping breakfast so I wonder right just
curiosity that's all it is I wonder if those are actually your H hunger signals
so maybe let's try adding something in to your morning and see how that goes
and for a few people that was definitely what was happening um other people have
experienced like this really high level of food cravings um and eating past
comfortable fullness kind of Cycles in the evening and we have to remember
that what's happening during one part of the day is likely coming from what's happening in
the other part of the day so if we're not eating a lot during the day our body's going to figure that out
because it's pretty smart unfortunately sometimes it kind of makes us crazy um but we have
to say oh well if I'm feeling this strong of an urge to eat so much at
night maybe I'm not eating enough during the day like that happens very common right very common
people and and you know if you work like in an office setting for example I've seen this before um that it's almost
like this competition to see who can eat the least amount of food during the day at work right or we skip lunch or
because you're a stronger better person if you do that Y and we have to work through our lunch so why bother eating
like there's so many different pieces different scenarios um and and then when
you get home you're starving BEC and of course you're going to be and it has nothing to do with
willpower or you being a bad person or anything it's just your body's way it's your biology be like hello um you know
we're running on fumes here here so feed feed me exactly yeah
it's yeah so what are some practical
ways that someone could start um tapping
into that their body wisdom and figuring out those feelings of hunger so figuring
out your hunger signals and like your patterns that's a great question so like Carrie said a few minutes ago slow
down a little bit and check back into your body like I feel like most of us
just live in our brain and that's about it we often don't check in with our
bodies or pay attention to them that much unless it's like a really strong signal of pain or other things um so
tuning back into your body a little bit and we can do that by doing like little mindfulness
exercises or giving yourself like one or two minutes to just sit and be in your
body um a great way to do that is what um is called a body scan so you kind of
just sit down quietly close your eyes if you want to um and kind of just check in
with all the parts of your body and see what's going on there yeah yeah just
kind of start I like to start at the top of my head and I just slowly go down
you know how how and you can do it combine it like total relaxation too just kind of release your muscles as
you're doing it and um see how your body is really feeling
because you can't it's hard like when you're just go go go go right and and you don't stop long enough to pay
attention to what is actually going on all of a sudden you know you kind of hit that wall and it's like oh I don't have
any energy and oh I just want to lay down and take a nap or oh I can't focus and oh I got a headache
or whatever um but sitting down and just taking a few minutes to breathe and
Chuck in with your body and figure out what it needs maybe yeah
sometimes I like like put one hand on your heart and one on your belly and just kind of like sit for a minute with
it like hey you know I got you yeah and that
doing this in the it might take a little longer to like just get the lay of the
land and get more familiar with how to do you might feel uncomfortable and
weird yep and you're not to doing this yeah and also I feel like it's gonna end
up preventing a lot of the stuff Carrie was just saying like we're checking in with our body more we might not get to
that burnout Point as much hopefully yeah and also once you get
used to doing it and you start noticing the signals it comes
easier yep or you know even um so
another way to kind of think about Hunger signals is like maybe even set a little mental reminder for yourself like
every hour check in like do I have a headache how's my belly
um or if you know what some of your typical hunger signals are if they're some of the more extreme ones that we talked
about trying to be a little bit more quiet about other things to see if you can pick up on does my stomach Rumble
and I just miss it or is being you know a little bit or
having a little bit less concentration happened before a headache or you know like figuring that out and does it
happen at a certain time of day and if that's the case well we definitely need to eat before then not at that time but
before then also making sure that you're staying well hydrated um um because I think that that
also just kind of helps smooth things out some um also when
you're and and it's one of the top reasons for a headache too yeah and also
remembering that fluids are not a replacement for food right so if you are
feeling hungry drinking water definitely fills up the stomach and might curb the
signals for a little bit but our bodies are smarter than that and they're going to realize that you actually didn't give
them any fuel right so keep that in mind yes very good
point um what else like consistently practice it right like yeah like already
said show yourself some Grace give yourself time to sort of relearn your
body yeah get to know it I want to break out in song right now getting to know
you getting to know all about you sorry I wanted to do that before when you said
getting to know your body I'm like oh hold back Carrie hold back but I couldn't that time okay and remember and
like we talked about this the principle number two the honoring your hunger is a little bit of two different phases like
we talked about like it's letting go of the things that are keeping you stuck in
the diet mentality and it's getting like so like
like the Mind hunger we talked about yeah getting off social media accounts
that make you feel bad about yourself and just realizing yeah realizing that hunger is here for a
reason yeah it's not just to like torture you or something right and I think and you're not weak for feeling
hungry no so if that's the place you need if that's the place you need to start like with an affirmation or
something like my Hunger is trying to just keep me
nourished or however you want to think about that in a more positive way right
and if you go deeper and learn that it's actually emotional hunger that you're
experiencing that's another animal Al together right like um
because that you don't necessarily want to nourish with food right um that's
other types of nourishment so and we'll talk way more about that I think we are going to do another whole episode at
some point so stay tuned for that also and Carrie mentioned doing like an honest
assessment of things and how you're dealing with hunger and um checking in
with your feelings and stuff and seeing am I like am I using food this way as a
coping tool and then moving through that again we'll talk way more about that in
another episode but just figuring it out for this part yes yeah start noticing it
yeah yep for sure awesome anything else I think that's a
lot did you get all that I don't know if you want to listen to it twice please do
it's a lot of information or if you have questions like I don't get what you're saying here or what about this please
please feel free to contact us yes and you can find our Social Links in our show notes we're on Instagram and
Facebook and we have a fun Facebook group um we have emails also join the
pod squad great place to come and get um get
you know one-on-one attention with us yep yep so that meets uh the first Tuesday of every month at noon via zoom
and I believe the link to learn more about that is our show notes also but yeah like Carrie said basically how the
group runs is we talk about the podcast episodes that we just covered in the
last couple weeks um but also we tend to take listener questions and run with
those too so like here said it's a good place for like a little bit more one-on-one it's very small group setting
um and they don't air on the podcast so it's a private than yes yes awesome this
is awesome as usual chat with you next time yes ma'am love you latte love you
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