hungry/full

They say in north American culture we don't know if we are hungry or full, thirsty or not.  I do sort of agree with this - but not completely.

I know when I am thirsty.  I have felt thirst, the kind that needs water to fix.  Absence of this feeling, to me, is not thirsty.  That being said, the meds I take give me a dry mouth.  So, even though im not thirsty, I drink a ton of water trying to correct this.  Note: it never works, and chewing gum is more effective but not my fav habit. My mouth gets tired of chewing.  It doesn't get tired of sipping water, and since water is free and easily available, I usually just keep a big bottle of it nearby. That being said, I know a lot of people who likely are dehydrated - they don't drink as much water in a day as they lose.  And yes, I know we get water from our foods as well.

Hungry though is a different story for me.  Physical hunger I don't know that I have ever felt - at least not in the way other people describe.  The growling stomach? For me that normally means i'm feeling nauseous.  Putting food in sometimes helps, sometimes makes it worse, but I usually try food anyways.  The gnawing pit?  I've never felt that.

For me, hunger is when I think of food and it sounds tasty.  The more kinds of food that sound tasty, the hungrier I must be.  Chocolate cake sound good? well that's normal, so I must not be hungry.  Bread, peanut butter, eggs, apples, etc etc all sound amazing?  I must be pretty hungry.  Unfortunately, this usually means I eat everything on the 'sounds good' list, plus whatever else I see next to these items in the kitchen that also strikes my fancy.

The downside to this system is that doing things like browsing pinterest can convince me im hungry.  Look at 25 pictures of tasty looking food, recipes you would be interested in trying.  All these things sound noms?  Must be hungry, lets go eat something.

On the flip side of the coin I also know that I don't listen to 'full'.  It takes us 20 mins to know when we are full and in that time, most of us, myself included, just keep eating.  So full becomes uncomfortable, feeling ill and painful because we have eaten too much before the signal arrives to stop eating.

One of the things I am learning is to think before hand how much food is enough and eat till that point.  It usually coincides with full - not with ill.  Im also learning to put food on a schedule, eat a certain number of times a day and that doesn't seem to coincide with hungry but it does mean I never get food ideation - which usually avoids eating ALL THE THINGS.

That being said, there is another kind of hungry.  It is not helped by any system out there that I have found yet.  Emotional hungry.  I feel, therefore I will put food on top of it to not feel.  That is the one I struggle with more often.

But I am looking at the new food system and wondering - could I do this for stress?  could I do this for fibro?  could I use this for something else to manage my life better.  Can I make a plan to avoid the two extremes in any situation (too busy/bored, stressed/bored, etc) and teach myself balance?

It sounds like a great idea.  I just don't know what the action plan would be.  I need someone to teach me balance.  I need a life coach ;)

Ill end with more good news.  I'm down another 2 lbs total this week.  I am also close to saying goodbye to the 170's.  Squee!