Hunger

Yesterday was the epitome of how much hunger is a mental game.  The body needs fuel, and appropriate fuel, especially with the things I am doing to mine these days.  However, a bag of chips, box of pastries or half gallon of ice cream is not that fuel.  These are all things that can be succumbed to on a "hunger binge."  You know?  One of those moments where you say, "I'm so hungry" and off you go to the pantry or the fridge without really deciding if you are indeed hungry.  The next thing you know, the entire container of food of your choice is gone because you were so engrossed in the TV.  Then the impact of regret hits.

On my days off hunger and I battle.  I stay as busy as I can, which helps to force the feeling of "hunger" out of my mind.  Now, why am I putting hunger in quotations?  Because so often it isn't actually hunger, its boredom.  For instance, on a rainy day, having a 300 calorie protein packed breakfast, cleaning up and sitting down to read a book and within the hour thinking, "hmmm, I'm hungry."  No, I'm not!  Hunger is a mental game, so often it is thirst, or an improperly balanced diet (too many carbs, not enough protein), or many many time, it is simply boredom.  It is the fact that when I was growing up, I watched my mother, and father for that matter.  They were both going constantly, but when they had down time, no matter how much it was, they grabbed a snack, never healthy, and they ate.  This is that nature/nurture idea.  This is how I was raised, and they didn't shove a snack in my face, I had that choice, but I saw what they did and learned the behavior.  It is very hard to unlearn that!

Yesterday was an incredibly busy day in the office, certainly didn't feel like a Thursday, we ran non-stop the whole day.  All in all a good day, but by about 8pm (11 hours after my last meal) my stomach was voraciously growling.  I was actually hungry.  Thats the thing, I was indeed hungry.  I snuck a few bites of my yogurt, and got back to work, not eating a full dinner of chili until I got home around 1 am.  Now, was this the right solution?  No way, I had two balanced meals in an 18 hour day.  Not exactly acceptable or appropriate, but it proved a point to me.  When I am taking a chill moment/afternoon/day, I am not always hungry, and I need to do an assessment of that before I get up for the fridge.  I think a lot of us struggle with this, and hopefully my rambling thoughts helped someone today :)

On that note, off to the pool, perhaps a run as well?