Waiting Until You’re Hungry to Eat

There can be an iceberg of emotions under the tendency to not wait until we are hungry to eat.

Do you tend to overeat if you get hungry? Do you avoid getting very hungry so that you don't binge?

Being hungry, and then subsequently overeating (or binge eating, or wanting only junk food) are not inherently related.

There is nothing about being very hungry that automatically means you will eat urgently and eat too much.

Of course, when you get physically hungry, you should tend to that! You shouldn't force yourself to not eat when you're hungry.

That being said, hunger is also not dangerous. The human body is designed to get hungry and be fine when it is hungry. It is just a signal, not unlike a signal from your body that you need to drink water or use the bathroom or sleep.

There are deeper emotional reasons for the tendency to overeat when we get really hungry.

There can be an iceberg of emotions underneath the tendency to eat too much/too quickly when hungry. And trying to avoid getting hungry isn't the best solution.

Instead, we must ask ourselves,

"What bothers me emotionally about getting hungry?"

"What feelings come up for me when I am hungry?"

If you're not sure, the way to experiment is to allow yourself to get a bit hungrier, and then tune into yourself and ask.

There are many reasons that you might be uncomfortable with hunger.

Don't judge your fears of being hungry. Expect that they may be irrational.

Here are some examples: you might have fears that you won't get food, or fears that something bad will happen if you don't make the hunger go away urgently. This is common even for people who didn't grow up with food insecurity.

You may emotionally associate hunger with a lack of love, or a lack of care, comfort, attention.

It's also possible you don't like it because other emotions are closer to the surface when you're not full, and so you want to get full again as quickly as possible in order to numb out.

The point is, don't judge the emotions that you associate with hunger. Explore them, and then you must feel them to release and change them.

You need to feel your anger about the idea of getting hungry each time before you eat, or your fear and panic, or your feelings of a dearth of love, care, or attention.

Photo by Ana Khutsishvili via Unsplash