Hunger Pangs

Hunger Pangs

I am hungry. I am hungry a lot lately. It seems as soon as I admitted it in public that I am fat, the hunger began.

As a matter of fact, as soon as I admitted my new healthy plan for eating, my journey into starvation began. Prior to my confession into blog world, I found I was doing really well, better than well. I was learning to control my snacking, I had left over points every day and the weight was falling off. However, now, I am hungry.
Diets can do that to people. We focus on food constantly, thinking, planning, counting and preparing. Our every thought seems to be on food, the very thing we are trying not to think about because that is how we got fat.

So the battle has begun. As hard as I try not to be hungry, not to think of food, it seems I am way too obsessed. Don’t get me wrong, I am still losing, anywhere from a pound to two pounds a week and the fat clothes that were bursting at the seams have begun to loosen and feel good to wear.

Now I need to figure out how to become un-obsessed with food. After all, we need food to survive, but why do I think I need to have more than I need? Why does anyone feel they need an excess to survive.

I can link my problem back to the childhood thing. Not only did I think I was fat back then and went on a starvation diet where I survived on a few meager bites each day, but there was a time in my childhood, we just didn’t have food. I felt I had to “store up food” when we had it to survive. Then there is the comfort food theory, we eat when we feel bad, we hunger for something and fill ourselves up with food. Everyone has a reason they are over-weight and it isn’t because we desire to be that way, most of the time it depresses us to no end.

Now, I have to focus on other things besides food in order to succeed. How does one do this when I need to also pay attention to what goes into my mouth? How do you calculate calories, points, good healthy food instead of bad food and not become obsessed?

I often wonder about naturally thin people who don’t seem to have this same obsession I do. How do you all stay so thin? Are you ever ravenously hungry and out of control?

Control is the key to success. I need to find the control to let the hunger pass, the focus to adjust to other things and move towards being healthy. Part of the problem with food is the mindless eating we do at our desks or on the run. We act upon what we think is hungry when what really is happening is we are not paying attention to our bodies. Like the smoker who lights up during a certain time or certain event it becomes a habit, but not a good one. I know because I was that smoker.

Getting healthy is work, hard work. I must trade my bad habits for good habits. Food is needed to survive, but too much of anything is bad for you. So I continue I ignore the hunger more often that I did a few months ago, I have started walking more, moving more and the weight loss is my reward.

As I continue down my “hunger for good health” road, I will need to pay attention to the world around me and realize God is providing for me. I don’t need more, I need only “just enough.” God provided for the Israelites in the desert the manna to sustain them and instructed them to take only what they needed for the day and no more. Exodus 16:4-5. God tested his people and he tests me. I want to pass the test with flying colors and readjust my stinking thinking about food. I am turning my hunger for food into a hunger for life. God is walking beside me and I am starting to feel good.

Teresa Gale