Being hungry makes me anxious….and so I eat….Why would I do Time Related Eating you have to get used to being hungry don’t you?

This is so important and the book Foodsane I talk about identifying the different levels of hunger.  Page 170.  The first type is real hunger where the body says feed me now.  This will arise when you have not eaten for a number hours – say a fourteen hour fast.     The second type is stomach noise and sensation and experience as it processes food and I would say now there is a third type of experience which is psychological hunger.  So this is a very big journey of discovery and you need to identify what is right for you.     If you are feeling shaky and can’t concentrate due to hunger then you probably need to feed yourself and it is inadvisable to be so hungry that you struggle or feel weak and ill or put yourself in distress.  There is no need to do that.  Psychological and emotional hunger can be a sense of needing to eat when you do not really need to do this.  As a child we always had our evening meal at 6.00 p.m. and even now…I will feel the need to eat at 6.00 p.m even though my eating frame is closed – it is such a big habit.  I can easily convince myself that I am hungry if I am anxious or worried – if I think enough thoughts about being hungry then my stomach will respond.  Don’t try to solve this all in one go.  Just give yourself a reasonable and comfortable fasting period – even if you start at 12 hours and then start to notice and even record what is right for you.  You will make mistakes but you will learn from them and you will be creating a strong conversation between your stomach and brain that will last the rest of your life.    Sometimes we can say to our stomach – you have to wait and the stomach is quite capable of waiting.  Remember those hormones kick in to support you if there is no food and soon that sensation of hunger will pass.  I usually find this takes about twenty minutes.  The most important thing is that you start to be more aware of the stomach brain connection. 

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