космическая мышь

Coming across this hunger scale was a game-changer for me. I have struggled with hunger cues my whole life. I tend to eat a little bit constantly so that I never feel hungry, or eat so little that I always feel hungry. Finding balance has always been hard for me. I have always lived in a world of extremes when it comes to food--feast or famine, no in between.

One day it occurred to me that I wasn’t even sure when I should be eating. When I used to count calories, eating became just another math problem for me to solve. It had nothing to do with hunger, or nutrition, or my health. I realized I was missing the big picture, and started asking myself questions. How hungry should I be before I eat? When should I stop? I did some searching and came across this hunger scale. I keep it on my phone as a reminder.

I’m still learning that being overly hungry is not a good thing, just as being overly full is not a good thing. I’m learning how to keep balance, to eat when I’m hungry but before I get ravenous, and stop when I’m satisfied but not uncomfortable. I’m learning that it’s important to give yourself time to get hungry. I’m learning to be satisfied with just enough.

I am surprised by how much I want to succeed with this. It is so much more than wanting to see a number on the scale, or fit into a certain pair of jeans, or look a certain way. I want to develop a closer relationship with my body, to listen to what it needs, to protect it from the things it doesn’t. For so long, my body has been an obstacle to my weight loss goals, but now it is the shining objective.

This is what I have done in order to find foods that help me lose weight in a healthy, sustainable way. Every once in a while, when I feel like I need to shake things up a bit, I go back to these steps and re-evaluate what I’m eating. It also helps me to make sure bad “little” habits that aren’t “that bad” don’t creep up on me. The scariest part of gaining weight, to me, has always been how slowly these bad little habits add up and take over. When I reach my goal, I plan on continuing to do this so that that doesn’t happen again.

Make a list of all the foods you eat on a normal day-to-day basis. (Don’t include things that you have on rare occasions.)

Put a star next to the foods that stick out in your mind as being very enjoyable. It’s very unlikely that attempting to suddenly cut out these foods from your diet will be a lasting change. (However, once you start to change the rest of your diet, these foods might not taste as good as they once did and you will start to find other favorites. Example: my favorite food and biggest problem used to be fried food, especially fried chicken. Now, not only is it not my favorite, I don’t even like it anymore. I don’t like how it tastes and it makes my stomach feel awful. This took time with a lot of small changes, but it is possible!) If the foods you’ve starred are good for you, that’s great news! Try to focus on eating more of these things. If they are fattening however, figure out how often you really need them. Don’t try to cut them out completely, but perhaps you want to reserve them for a special treat. The long-term goal is for most or all of your starred foods to be healthy foods.

Of everything on the list that is left, cross out the foods that you didn’t enjoy at all, especially if it made you feel like crap physically. These might be things your friends or co-workers push onto you. It might be something you eat out of convenience. Or it might be something you eat just out of habit. You don’t need these foods in any way. Eliminating these foods will cut out a significant number of calories, and you will be unlikely to miss them after you cut them out of your diet. When you do, you will realize that it is better to eat nothing than something that you don’t enjoy.

The foods that are neither starred nor crossed out are what I call “meh foods.” These are the second easiest to change, because you don’t feel very strongly about them. If they are already healthy, great! If not, think of different things to could try to replace them with.

After you’ve finished your list, try to see if there’s anything missing from it. Try new things in order to fill in the nutritional gaps.

The whole point of this exercise is to take a step back and look objectively at what you’re eating. Having a candy bar every day after school (like I used to do) can seem not so bad in the moment--it’s only 250 calories! But when you’re going through this list, really think about each food you write down. Is it helping you get where you want to be? Is it helping your body thrive? If not, ask yourself why you habitually eat this particular thing. For me, the answer was almost always simply “because it tastes good.” When I got it through my head that other foods that are much better for me also taste good, it got easier to  eat those things less and less...and eventually hardly ever.

See my current list below the cut for an example. Hope this helps! ♡