By getting to the root of why you overeat in the first place! "Why Weight," written by Geneen Roth, is a non-diet book that contains exercises designed to help compulsive eaters learn how to stop using food as a substitute for handling difficult emotions or situations. You'll also learn how to enjoy eating and still lose weight naturally. This program offers reassuring guidelines on:
-- kicking the scale-watching habit forever
-- learning to say no
-- discovering other pleasures besides food
-- learning the difference between physical and emotional hunger
-- listening to and trusting your body's hunger and fullness signals
Each week at least one exercise will be posted and you are encouraged to share your answers, thoughts, etc..
Please share any insight, ideas, articles or other information that you may have.
Exercise 29: Are you hungry now?
Close your eyes for a minute. Take some long deep breaths in, and let them out. Really let yourself relax. Keep your eyes closed. Roll your tongue around a few times in your mouth. Do you notice any sensations connected with hunger or fullness in your throat? And then, moving your awareness down to your stomach, move one of your hands down to your stomach. No matter what you’ve eaten or not eaten today, what is your stomach telling you about its need for food? Is it hungry? Put your hand on your abdomen. Whether you’ve eaten or not eaten, what is your abdomen telling you? Is it hungry?
Exercise 30: What is hunger, Anyway?
In what part of your body do you first experience hunger?
Throat Stomach Mouth Abdomen Head Legs
Is hunger different from:
Pain Yes or No
How?
Excitement Yes or No
How?
Loneliness Yes or No
How?
Sadness Yes or No
How?
What feeling follows yoru recognition that you are hungry?
Panic Relief Excitement Urgency Fear
Remember that your hunger is your ally. It is your body’s way of telling you that it needs nourishment.
Exercise 31: The Hunger Scale
On a scale of 0 to 10, 0 is famished, 10 is I can’t eat another bite because if I rolled over, my belly would stay on the other side of the bed.. And 5 is comfortable.
With your eyes closed, rate your physical hunger right now. (If you are at 4 or below, you are hungry; if you are at 5 or above, you are not.)
At this moment, my hunger is at #_______.
For one week, rate your hunger before and after you eat. Please to not judge your responses.
Exercise 29: Are you hungry now? Close your eyes for a minute. Take some long deep breaths in, and let them out. Really let yourself relax. Keep your eyes closed. Roll your tongue around a few times in your mouth. Do you notice any sensations connected with hunger or fullness in your throat? And then, moving your awareness down to your stomach, move one of your hands down to your stomach. No matter what you’ve eaten or not eaten today, what is your stomach telling you about its need for food? Is it hungry? Put your hand on your abdomen. Whether you’ve eaten or not eaten, what is your abdomen telling you? Is it hungry? Nope. I am definetely not hungry. In fact, I am very full from drinking an EAS Carb Control Shake. Throat hunger and stomach hunger are both satisfied. Throat is cold.
Exercise 30: What is hunger, Anyway? In what part of your body do you first experience hunger? Throat? Stomach? Mouth? Abdomen? Head? Legs? Always in the back of the throat, sometimes in stomach.
Is hunger different from: Pain? Yes? No? Yes and no. How? Acute chronic hunger such as experienced by people who do not have enough to eat IS painful both physically and mentally. Hunger felt by someone who simply hasn't eaten in awhile but has access to food CAN cause stomach pain, weakness, and other symptoms if carried too far. But simple day-to-day hunger when it is getting time to eat can be pleasant and anticipatory in nature.
Excitement? Yes or No? Yes and no. How? Anticipating something one likes to eat can be exciting. Eating just for fuel and ignoring the emotional, spiritual and psychological aspects of what we want to eat can be quite boring, in my opinion.
Loneliness? Yes or No? No. How? In my experience, hunger does not FEEL like loneliness, although I often use it to alleviate loneliness. I recognize lonely and never mistake it for hungry.
Sadness? Yes or No? No. How? Same as above.
What feeling follows your recognition that you are hungry? Panic? Relief? Excitement? Urgency? Fear? I've felt all of these at one time or other in relation to hunger.
Exercise 31: The Hunger Scale. On a scale of 0 to 10, 0 is famished, 10 is I can’t eat another bite because if I rolled over, my belly would stay on the other side of the bed ... and 5 is comfortable. With your eyes closed, rate your physical hunger right now. (If you are at 4 or below, you are hungry; if you are at 5 or above, you are not.)
If you find yourself reaching for something yet you're questioning whether or not you really do want it or should be eating it....maybe you don't really want it......wait 10 minutes. After that, if you still want it....then have it. The fact that you waited and thought about it is a sign of success, it's a step in the right direction and it's a behavior change....putting more thought into what you're eating and why is so important.
Congratulate youself for that and enjoy without guilt.
This rule is meant as a way of getting you to pay more attention to what you're putting into your body and why....not an excuse for overeating.
It’s not the wound that determines the quality of your life, it’s what you do with the wound – how you hold it, carry it, dance with it, or bury yourself under it.
Life is what happens as you live with the wounds. Life is not a matter of getting the wounds out of the way, so that you can finally live.
From: When Food is Love, Geneen Roth
This really resonated with me because for most of my life I have tried to get my wounds out of the way. It's only in the past few years I have realized, as Geneen writes, that they are a part of me.
What are we really hungry for? Feb 9th, 2002
Exercise 29, 30 31
