Today I want to talk about how the extreme hunger is intuitive eating. Because people who are in recovery often ask me “I hate this extreme hunger, I just want to eat normally! WHEN can I start practicing intuitive eating?”
And my answer is – you can start practicing it RIGHT NOW. Just respond to your extreme hunger and you ARE actually eating intuitively!
They might have a wrong idea that intuitive eating is only “eating your little perfect portions of food in perfect combinations, in perfect times”. But intuitive eating is more about getting in tune with your body and learning to respond to your body’s needs.
Too many times we overcomplicate such a natural process that is eating. We carefully analyze, apply rules, we are often stopped by fear, we associate eating with calories, weight, “good/bad”…but all this is doing is leading us further and further from trusting our body and its signals. I make it super simple for you – whenever you feel physical hunger, emotional hunger, mental hunger, crave something, have food thoughts, no matter if you just ate, if you have gained weight, if you feel guilty, if you have fear…none of those things matter because the basic instinct for you was to EAT, right? So JUST EAT!
Stop overcomplicating and analyzing, and judging your own eating. You don’t need a reason or an excuse to eat, you can just eat! I followed that principle in my recovery and now I’m fully recovered! My eating is also very normal, my hunger cues are normal. Nothing bad happened – just eat!
So in recovery, even the extreme hunger actually IS your body’s INTUITIVE and natural signal to ask for food because it simply needs it, extreme hunger IS intuitive eating! And if you really want to start practicing intuitive eating then practice firstly responding to your hunger no matter what, also the extreme hunger.
What is extreme hunger? “Extreme Hunger and Bingeing In Recovery”
Thanks for the video!!!!
You say that you could not stop thinking about food when you were in recovery until you were fysically very stuffed. Even when i am VERY full and stuffed and listened to my mental honger the whole day (eat around 7000 calories), i never stop thinking about food and I am so afraid that that never goes away and that i am going to gain so much weight. And that makes me so scared! it discourages me that while in recovery I still think about food all day long. Do you think the mental hunger is ever gonna stop?
yes it will stop. its part of the process. but keep on following recovery steps. and give it time. but of course if in any doubt talk to a professional, you dont have to go through this alone.