When did you start to trust your body?

[22twelve]

Hi all!

 

This isn't exactly trouble that needs shooting, but more of a general question. ISWF says that, for quite a while, we aren't able to fully trust the signals our body is sending us because we've previously done such a thorough job of messing it up that it needs to find its balance first. This of course makes perfect sense, but I'm wondering how you knew when things were getting back on track. What happened that made you begin to listen to your hunger signals and desired meal portions that came from your body as opposed to the book?

 

I'm two weeks in and it's going great so far, but I find myself finishing servings that I would otherwise push aside because hey, meal template and unreliable body. Considering that overeating has been a bit of an issue previously, I'm quite excited about actually having this feeling, about being able to stop when not hungry anymore, and I don't want to keep on feeding (haha) that unhealthy habit. True, I might eat a hard-boiled egg between meals, but I somehow feel that a healthy and approved snack is a better psychological choice than eating something I don't need or want at the time. Sometimes lunch gets pushed back and when dinner time comes around I am not hungry at all. In that case, would you listen to your body and eat a smaller meal/wait for later, or just go through with the original plan anyway because the recommendations say so?

 

Then again, is that even a question I should be asking myself now? Should I just suck it up, do as I'm told and wait with my own thoughts on the subject until the 30 days are done? I want to get the most out of the program, so your experiences on the matter would be really helpful.

 

Thank you!

Ina

[Tom Denham]

A good rule is to never eat less than a template meal three times per day for the first 30 days because the benefits of not under eating are huge. I would expect your body to adjust to eating template-size meals within 30 days so that it is natural to keep eating that quantity going forward. You MAY need to eat more than the minimum and you should if you are hungry. 

 

After 30 days, you might make some adjustments if you feel they are important, but if you regularly eat less than a template-size meal, you should talk with someone because the minimum specified by the template is the amount of nutrition your body really needs. If you eat less, you are missing nourishment that you need. There are reasons you might make changes for a short-time, but not for long periods. 

[22twelve]

Thanks Tom, at the moment that's probably the best way to continue, at least for the duration of the program. But isn't the whole point to get your body back on track so it's sending the right signals? Why should I then continue by ignoring these signals?

[Tom Denham]

If your feelings tell you to eat less than the minimum prescribed in the meal template three times per day more than every once in a while, your feelings are disturbed and you would need some help with sorting things out. Hopefully, after 30 days, you will eat the recommended minimum or more without thinking about it. 

 

Problems that lead to eating too little can be psychological, social, or physical. I have occasionally prescribed going for a walk to people who don't feel like eating. Using the body in a natural way can stimulate appetite. And appetite is good. Healthy people get hungry and eat generously.

 

If I didn't say it clearly before, not feeling like eating and not eating much or at all is okay every once in a while. Sometimes not eating is a reasonable response. My concern around here, however, is people who chronically don't feel like eating and who live in an undernourished state when they eat what seems right to them. Hopefully, some people who have passed from not feeling like eating to eating generously will join the discussion with self-reports. I personally have always been a big eater. 

[AmyS]

I'll join in! Many women in our society undereat, and then we keep our flagging energy up with regular infusions of sugar and caffeine throughout the day. Then we have huge junk food feeding sessions which we call binges, but which are really our bodies' way of telling us we're extremely hungry.

 

For many of us, it is very different to eat as much as it takes to really nourish our bodies. It is also very different to live life without being driven by sugar and caffeine as energy sources.

 

I used to think it was good to feel hungry all the time, and morally virtuous to feel light-headed from hunger. And I don't have anything close to a diagnosable eating disorder, I was just going by all the messages we hear in our society every day.

 

Once I started eating, really eating, it shocked me how much I ate, and how my body accepted actual food as nutrition, fuel, energy, and even as a source of emotional stability.

 

As far as re-establishing (or establishing for the first time) a relationship with our bodies' hunger/satiety cues, one thing to keep in mind is that hunger, when we are eating well (eating generously, as Tom says), will feel different than it ever has before. What we used to call hunger was really a sugar crash. What we are learning to call hunger is that vague feeling that something's missing, or a sense that the brain isn't firing on all cylinders suddenly, or a sense of flagging energy. So part of what we have to do during our Whole30 is to redefine what we understand as hunger and satiety cues.

 

I have found that generally speaking, even today, a few years out from my first Whole30, I need to allow myself to eat more than I think is proper, in order to really be fed. This is not every woman's experience, of course, but it is not uncommon.

 

So for now, eat up, and listen to your body's subtle cues about what nutrition feels like.

[MeGA"gardener"]

Yes eat up

My signals were all off for 20 years trying to listen to everyone else other than my own body cues

Like I did when I was a young adult - ate like a bottomless pit was healthy and thin

Now I eat until I'm full

M1 is bigger than I'm used to but so worth it

I have 2 palms Protien 2fats 1veg 1carb veg

It holds me 5/6 hours but I need no snacks

If I'm really hungry I eat M2 earlier 4 hrs

M2 1 Palm Protien 2vegs 1 carb 2 fats

M3 1-2 palms Protien 2/4 vegs 1carb 2 fats

I'm doing fine for me

So far so good You'll find what works for you

I agree with both Tom and Amy

[22twelve]

Hi all!

 

Thanks so much for all your comments, and I clearly see where you're going with this. Of course you're absolutely right and I'd sign this right here and now, but I can't help but feeling that I'm looking at this from the other side. My problem has never, ever been that I'm not eating enough. I'm the one you have to drag away from the buffet, not the one that moves some salad from one side of her plate to the other. I'm not shocked about the portions I'm eating. In fact, they're smaller than a lot of the meals I've had before, and that's still a template meal on the generous side. 

 

In short - I have a habit to overeat, and technically, the recommendations and possible variations in template meals let me continue to do so. Trust me, I'm always eating at least the minimum and don't intend to go below that. But I can also eat far beyond this minimum template meal, which is where it becomes important for me to trust what my body is telling me. And while a zucchini binge won't have any negative effects on my weight and health, I can't help but feeling that this isn't exactly helping the underlying problem I'm having in my relationship with food. I'm simply trying to work around the fact that the program is not considering the necessity of brakes to the same extent than the necessity to not undereat (which is fair enough because that's where most problems are), and was hoping to get some help with that. But I guess I'll figure it out slowly in another two weeks time, step by step. 

 

Thanks again for your help!

[missmary]

I'm simply trying to work around the fact that the program is not considering the necessity of brakes to the same extent than the necessity to not undereat (which is fair enough because that's where most problems are), and was hoping to get some help with that. 

 

Why are you so sure you are overeating? When you start eating nutrient dense foods and stop eating refined carbohydrates and processed foods you CAN trust your body to start regulating. In fact, you said the original post that you were having trouble eating ENOUGH. So which is it? Try eating the template at a minimum, and honoring your body when you want to eat more. Seriously. Don't worry about your appetite being wrong. Consider the possibility that it is right.

[22twelve]

Why are you so sure you are overeating? When you start eating nutrient dense foods and stop eating refined carbohydrates and processed foods you CAN trust your body to start regulating. In fact, you said the original post that you were having trouble eating ENOUGH. So which is it? Try eating the template at a minimum, and honoring your body when you want to eat more. Seriously. Don't worry about your appetite being wrong. Consider the possibility that it is right.

 

You must have misunderstood, the original post stated not that I'm having trouble eating enough, it said that I'm eating food that I don't feel I need, wondering how to handle the situations where hunger just isn't quite there yet. Later I explain that I eat more than the template minimum anyway (because people suspected that I didn't), but fear that this is more out of unhealthy habit than actual need for nutrition. I don't say that I am 100% convinced that I am overeating, but I explain that I have a quite unhealthy history of it which I feel I'm not addressing at the moment - because the program is designed to make people eat. A lot. Basically, I can't say for sure if I'm eating because I need it or because I want it, because of physical or psychological reasons, thus wondering how I might know that I can begin to take my body's signals seriously and experiment accordingly.

 

I still feel like I am getting conflicting messages here in terms of body vs. rules, which just goes to show that there's not really a clear direction to take. People can only speak from their own experience, and if this isn't the background with which most people entered their Whole30, then I'll have to figure this balance out for myself once the 30 days are up. Which I will. I will report 

[missmary]

it said that I'm eating food that I don't feel I need, wondering how to handle the situations where hunger just isn't quite there yet.

 

To me, this means you are having trouble eating enough, as in, your appetite doesn't support eating the minimum amounts in the food template. I understand that you ARE eating it anyway, and I appreciate the effort to follow the minimum recommendations in the food template, but we want you to get to a place where your appetite supports eating as much as you need nutritionally. You are right to give it more time. Keep us posted.