Hi there,
It is Oka Lucia from IKUNES here and during this short recording I would like to talk about our physical hunger and to share with you an exercise to learn to recognize when you are experiencing physical hunger.
Please keep paper and pencil at hand to do this exercise.
So it seems a little bit weird when I talk about physical hunger and recognize when we are hungry,
Right?
Because we might think that we know when we are hungry and that each time we eat it's because we are hungry.
But that is not always the case because constantly we are receiving signals from different parts of our body that we misinterpret as hunger.
So we end up overeating or eating when we don't need to eat.
For example,
When we see appetizing food,
It looks so delicious that we want to buy it.
Delicious cake,
Delicious dessert,
A delicious piece of savory food.
Or when we smell that barbecue or the fish and chips or fresh bread,
Right?
And we feel that we want to eat it.
So we end up buying these things and eating them without being really hungry.
These are some examples.
It also includes our emotional hunger when we have some pain in our heart,
When we are upset or when we are having stressful situations.
We might also try to comfort ourselves with some delicious food,
Normally fatty food,
Normally unhealthy food.
If you think about it,
Yeah,
We do eat sometimes when we are not really,
Really hungry.
But learning to recognize when we are feeling real physical hunger is very important if we want to modify our eating patterns.
Now why we might want to modify our eating patterns?
We might want to modify our eating patterns because we want to start eating healthier,
Not because we need to lose weight or anything,
But because it is nice to take care of my body and to give nice just the food it needs and to have a better connection with myself.
Or when I want to lose weight and then I need to learn to hear my body and to understand when it wants to eat and when it needs to eat.
So it is very important to learn to identify when our body is physically hungry.
Because when we know,
When we are able to identify clearly when it is hungry,
We will be able to attend our body needs at the right moment.
So the experience of hunger may be different for different people,
But in general we feel hungry when our brain is informed about a decrease of sugar in the blood.
The issue here is as we have seen,
We can mistake non-physical hunger signals for real ones,
And this leads us to eat when we are not really hungry.
But research has shown that we can learn to efficiently and correctly identify our physical hunger cues and that when we do so,
Our confidence regarding controlling our impulses to eat increases.
Let's explore our physical hunger with a paper and pencil exercise.
This practice can be done at any time and in place,
But of course it is good to train it first and then you can make a short version when you are about to eat.
Let's start.
Sit comfortably and close your eyes if you wish to do so.
Pay attention to your breath and follow it with your mind's eye.
Now take two deep and slow relaxing breaths.
And allow that these breaths help you find your center.
Continue breathing normally.
Allowing your awareness to your entire body.
Now I would like you to ask your body or to investigate how physically hungry you are with 10 being as physically hungry as possible and 0 not being hungry at all.
There is no right or wrong answer.
Once you have found your hunger level,
I would like you to investigate how do you know that?
How do you know that this is the right number?
What cues you found in your body that let you know that that was the hunger level?
Now come back to the breath.
Open your eyes and write down your hunger level and describe how did you get to that number in a few words.
If you need more time,
Feel free to pause the recording.
Let's explore this further.
Close your eyes again.
And I would like you to imagine that you are feeling very very very hungry.
That your feeling of hunger is 10.
Pay attention how this level of 10 feels in your body.
Observe the physical sensations.
Don't pay attention to emotions.
What we want to discover here is the physical experience.
How the body expresses this level 10 of hunger.
Not the emotional part of the experience.
Because this emotional part is our interpretation.
So we want to get the pure expression of the body.
Now open your eyes and write down in short phrases how does it feel like physically.
What does 10 mean for your body?
And when you finish,
Close your eyes again.
If you need more time,
Feel free to pause the recording.
Now with your eyes closed,
Imagine that you have a level of hunger that is moderate.
That is a round five in the middle.
Explore how does it feel.
What 5 means for your body?
Once you are ready to describe the experience,
Open your eyes and write this in a few words.
When you finish,
Close your eyes again.
And with your eyes closed,
I would like you to take one deep and slow breath.
Follow it with your mind's eye.
Continue breathing normally.
And now I would like you to reflect for a moment on how this exercise can be helpful for you in your daily eating.
Take two deep and slow relaxing breaths.
At the end of the exhalation,
Connect again with your body.
Feel the space around you.
And when you are ready,
Open your eyes.
You can use this exercise before starting every meal,
So you can adjust the amount of food each time you are going to eat.
One short note,
You don't need to wait until you are very hungry in order to eat because this may lead you to eat a lot more,
To overeat.
So it is better that you introduce some healthy snacks between meals.
All right,
This is all for now.
I hope this practice is helpful for you.
Thank you.
