Monday morning, I go into work, I stock my treats in my desk, only to realize I still have stuff from last week. I NEED to have that food in my desk, even if I don't eat it. Heaven forbid I should run out...what if I don't have anything stashed and I get hungry - I'll DIE if I don't eat before 5:00pm hometime. My lunch isn't good enough, I need snack foods to tide me over so I don't die of starvation...
It's actually easier for me not to eat that stashed food, so long as I know it is there. I'm not as obsessed and focused on eating if I have a back up snack.
Why am I afraid of being hungry?
Can anyone relate? What should I do? The temptation is there all day,, and then when I get home, it's like the gloves are off, and I am doing full battle with my cupboards in an attempt to eat everything in sight.
I can't portion control, I don't resist temptation, and now I'm a hoarder.
Sick.
i understand the fear of being hungry, i've been sick for a few days, yesterday i couldn't eat anything and i started to panic this morning when i woke up really hungry, like i thought if i didnt eat something i would die. im sorry i dont have any advice for you, just know that you're not the only one feeling that way.
I keep a small stash in case I forgot my lunch. Usually single serving microwave popcorn, soups with the popoff lids. I can't keep much snack type foods because if I have it in a drawer I'll eat it.
I have the exact same problem. I always pack a huge lunch, it's easily 2x my dh's. I too have this weird fear of being hungry I guess. I sort of portion my lunch, I eat part of it as a mid morning snack, then lunch then an afternoon snack-shortly before I leave from work so when I get home I don't eat everything in site as I'm preparing dinner. It's like I eat 2 dinners.
Personally I've found foods that are high protein and/or fiber and very little sugar or white flour works keeps the cravings down.
Good luck and know that you are not alone feeling this way.
I can totally relate to your fear of being hungry. In the past, every time I thought I wanted to "start a diet" my first thought was OMG, I will have to be hungry. It almost made me feel panicky to think of being hungry.
Often, I would do well during the day, only to come home and eat non-stop until bed in a mindless craze.
I have been working on separating my feelings and emotions from food. I am trying not to eat in response to boredom, anxiety, etc. Since evenings are my worst time of day, I have been focusing on them. I have been trying to plan ahead what meal I am going to have so I am not standing in my kitchen at dinner time thinking "what now?"
I have taken up cross stitching. I love doing crafts - but I needed something that I could do anywhere and wouldn't take up a lot of space and could do while watching TV. Scrapbooking takes up too much room. Painting is too messy. Sewing is too involved. Knitting didn't interest me. But the cross stitching has been fun.
Exercise has been very helpful for me, too. It helps relieve some anxiety and keeps my moods leveled off. And any time spent exercising - I am not eating! So I go out and exercise a few evenings a week.
Baby steps. Praise yourself for each little accomplishment you make!
First of all, it is not sick! This is normal. Especially if you are just starting the weight loss journey. This is a huge change for most people and sometimes it takes a little time for the mental part to catch up. You have made the first crucial step...to start a weightloss journey. Now planning will be crucial. Get everything out of your house that is not on plan and shop for the good things you want in your house. If the snacks keep you sane, then keep them. Make sure they are healthy. After a while, you will find that it will get easier. Just keep going.
Having a stash in your drawers at work is insurance that you won't hit the vending machine when you do get hungry.
PS I find that sometimes when I think I am hungry I am bored or sometimes thirsty.
I completely understand. In January (the start of my diet) all of a sudden I realized that when I got hunger pangs, I went mini-insane. I can't believe I never noticed this behavior before...perhaps I was too temporarily insane to draw the link between a compelling urge to eat anything available and hunger pangs. My husband used to tease me and say that I got hungrier than any person he had ever known because when I got hungry, I got HUNGRY...I would demand that he pull the car over immediately or that we stop whatever we were doing to go in search of food. Hunger brought about an emergency state that required immediate remedy. After the hunger passed, I would feel almost victimized or something...I would wonder what just happened?? Hunger was a form of temporary insanity. I was this way for over 10 years without really noticing that nobody else around me got as crazed over food when hungry as I did. I honestly could not stand to be hungry. I didn't have the fear response you mention, but the feeling of hunger was irritating like nails on a chalkboard. Hunger made me crazy.
Oddly, once I realized this and began to laugh at it, I was cured. Now I'm hungry for hours at a time and OK with it. I don't like being hungry, but I can deal with it a million times better than before I recognized my nutty hunger behavior. Now when I'm hungry in the car, I imagine that my stomach is a furnace that is churning and burning fat cells for energy. I visualize these fat cells getting destroyed - and there is a part of me that likes that I can physically feel this happening.
For me, recognizing how crazy I got over hunger was the first step towards fixing the problem and being in control. I used to act like a rabid squirrel tearing the cupboard apart for food, but now I act like a mature, normal woman who happens to be hungry. In my case, I don't think it would be possible to successfully diet or make lasting lifestyle changes without having addressed this issue.
Good luck and congratulations of recognizing the problem.
One of my fears of dieting was feeling hunger because even the thought it scared me.
I now know that part of the issue was insulin resistance, which caused my blood sugar levels to crash creating an insane hunger that would have me be mean and *****y to everyone until I ate (anything, something, stat!).
Then one day, I was seriously ill with a stomach virus that lasted 5 days. In those 5 days, I didn't want to/couldn't eat. Everything that I ate went straight through me. Even when I was getting better, I still didn't eat because I was so afraid of what had happened earlier with the virus. I had to be hospitalized and they thought that I was having a gallbladder attack (I was not) and for another 3 days, I was eating liquids.
During that time, I discovered that I wasn't going to die if I didn't eat.
But it took something as severe as being sick with a virus and hospitalized and on a liquid diet to really make that a reality. I came to terms with my hunger, realized that so much of it was related to the sugar crashes I was experiencing and that in reality, even if I didn't eat for a whole week, the world wasn't going to come crashing on me.
I can't tell you how to come to that realization (the last thing I want for you is to get a virus and be hospitalized for dehydration!) but your fears are normal and I do hope that you realize that you can live without food constantly around you. You can live well with less food, you can live without having all your favorite foods at home, you can live with only one treat meal a week or a month.
It will be very liberating when you get to that point. Food can't be the boss of you.
I always have a stash of healthy snacks with me to avoid the 'other' snacks I can find if I get too hungry. I DON'T think you should have to get used to being hungry. A little hunger, OK, but no one should be living with just being hungry to lose weight. It's not necessary to do that. And we aren't robots so some days that soup for lunch just won't be enough. What's better, to have the healthy alternative in the desk, or to be fishing your wallet for coins to feed to the vending machine for a candy bar?
I LOVE food. I'm a gourmet cook, I'm a pretty good bread baker AND I am a decent cake maker/decorator. The kitchen is my kingdom and I love food - period. So I surround myself with healthier altneratives. I'm learning to make new foods (these past two weeks I've been making Indian), but I refuse to go hungry. WHy? I eat 1600 calories a day, exercise 6 days a week for an hour and I enjoy my meals.
I wouldn't call what you are doing as hoarding food. you are preparing for all possibilities and that's just smart.
Welcome to my world. It is completely understandable that you feel this way. I also have it, the security of food. For me it is because it is a coping mechanism of how i cope with my emotions so i find this comfort, safety, security and if it is not there i panic and this is normal. I just have to look at my fear and realise that it is only fear. Not the real thing.
Melissa is right. I should clarify that I also don't think anyone should be hungry as a strategy for losing weight or as a lifestyle. Being hungry is not pleasant. I should have explained that I can now deal with being hungry for several hours if I'm busy or healthy foods are not available. I don't let hunger my choices. That said, it's smarter to prevent hunger than trying to manage it.
I try to avoid being placed in the situation that I'd describe as being "on the prowl."
That is when I'm hungry & somewhat aimless, and looking around, letting myself range over all the things that I could eat.
In the past, this could lead to my making bad choices. When I'm at the office, it means the vending machines or the cafeteria which opens up in the afternoon with its ice cream sundae bar. When I'm working from home, it means opening the fridge or my cabinets & staring into them speculatively. Neither behavior usually ends well for me.
In my desk drawer at work, I have other things in case of emergency or need, like hand sanitizer, hand lotion, aspirin, tampons, anti-static spray, paper towels, a comfy sweater, a tiny bottle of mouthwash or sugarfree peppermint gum. So it makes sense for me to have food that serves the same purpose. Heck, I wouldn't go camping without certain stuff. When I'm at the office, I'm pretty much camping out for the day. (Only with a much nicer washroom.)
I used to feel guilty about my snacks. I started eating healthier last spring and was doing whole foods. I started taking snacks to work to avoid the cookies and doughnuts which were ever present for our clients. I would take cheese strings, hard boiled eggs, V-8, almonds, carrots, celery etc. If I found I had little control over a food ie almonds I stopped bringing them and stuck to foods I could eat without eating badly.
I found that these small meals helped me lose weight. Where grabbing a couple of unplanned cookies or candies multiple times per day put weight on. At first protein dense foods like a couple of eggs worked the best. Now I usually have a veggie snack or a piece of cheese or summer sausage. I guess the snacks got smaller.
I'm probably eating less calories as my unplanned snacks didn't count as I didn't like to add them up. My point is snacks are OK and help level out blood sugar and normalize insulin if they are the right snack. Being prepared helps keep me on plan.
Last edited by kittycarlson; 03-14-2011 at 04:07 PM.
I keep only healthy, low calorie stuff here in the office. Mostly fruit. I have certain times I try to stick to (no snack before 10 etc.). But sometimes I get desparate before that time and I made it a rule that I have to go and either walk the stairs to the lobby or take the elevator and walk around the lobby or something. Usually it is only being bored or being thirsty. Being thirsty sometimes only shows its true face after I walked around a bit. Takes me 5 minutes maximum and keeps me from eating!
OMG! I just realized I'm a food hoarder!
