Episode 28. Breaking Up With Dieting Part II—Honor Your Hunger Artwork

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Hang with us as we spill the tea about breaking up with dieting and making up with your body through self-care (because self-care is more than massages and bubble baths!).

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!

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Self-Care Cafe

Episode 28. Breaking Up With Dieting Part II—Honor Your Hunger

February 27, 2024

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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.

Thank you for listening! We love you latte!

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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