Battle of the Bulge

I’ve been thinking a lot about the gnawing ‘hunger’ that lives inside me sometimes, and I’ve come to believe that there are actually three kinds of hunger - physical, emotional and spiritual - and it’s up to me to honestly assess which one is crying out to be fed.  Too often I feed the emotional and spiritual hunger with food, when food is not the real remedy for either one.

What I’m finding most beneficial about a structured eating plan comprised of three balanced meals a day is that I get physically hungry between meals.  This is not a bad thing - it’s a good thing - as the hunger alerts my body that it needs food.  Not only that, but I am reminded what real hunger feels like.  That may sound silly, but I’ve spent so much of my life eating out of an emotional response to something, that I have, at times, lost complete touch with what true hunger feels like.

A wise person once told me that the ‘hole’ we often feel inside ourselves is a God-shaped hole; one that only God can fill.   We can try to stuff it with food, alcohol, sex and shopping, but it will never work.  It’s only when we let God fill that space or void inside of us that we can feel truly satisfied.

In an effort to bring a stronger sense of connectedness to my life, I recently began meditating.  I got a copy of Wayne Dyer’s “Meditations for Manifesting” and I listen to it faithfully each day.  The morning meditation helps me to focus on what I want in my life; the evening helps me be grateful for all that I am and all that I have.   What’s amazing to me is that my temptation to stray from my Freshology food plan (which rears its ugly head from time to time) is really quieted by meditation.  I realize now it’s because I’m filling that God-shaped void with a spiritual remedy, rather than with food - or sugar, to be more exact.

So the lesson for me is to be present with and assess the true reasons for my ‘hunger.’  Is it because my stomach’s growling and it’s time to eat - is it because someone just made me angry or hurt my feelings or I’m afraid - or is that my soul is longing to feel connected to its Source?  When I stop, take a breath, pay attention and respond accordingly, I am in absolutely no danger of a jail-break (as my dear friend Flora calls binges), and my course along this path of weight loss is a direct and easy one.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 at 4:11 am and is filed under Weight Loss Journey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.