The Relativity of Hunger

I’m hungry! Or I’m not. Have you ever noticed that you think you’re hungry, but when you eat, you are satisfied with so little that it makes you wonder if you were hungry at all?

What I’m finding out now is that hunger is very relative. Over the last few years, I cut portion sizes and always noticed that my hunger balances out to maatch up with the portion size. Now I’ve cut down to quite small portions and I get hungry, but it’s not really that bad a hunger. Often I find that I can just remind myself that I’m still eating plenty of food to sustain my body, so it’s not like I have to eat. Also I’m generally involved in doing something, so I occasionally find food to be a bit of an intrusion.

Now I see how people with anorexia manage to reduce portions to life-threatening levels. One bite at a time. A person decides, “I don’t really need to eat that last bit,” and the last bit becomes ever larger until the first bits are also last bits.

After 40 years of overeating, I don’t expect anorexia to ever be a problem for me, but I am paying attention to the compulsion. The compulsion that drove me to overeat is the same type of compulsion that drives others to undereat or overexercise.

Dangerous. That’s why the focus has to be on healing the compulsion, not on the food.