Tag Archives: hunger

Loving Your Body by Listening to Your Body

I’ve been married for nearly 20 years, and that’s quite a while. If I’ve learned anything over this past 20 years about relationships, it’s this–if you love somebody you have to take time to listen to them. Sure, it’s important to buy each other presents, and show affection. And yeah, sex is pretty important too. But few things are as important as taking time to really hear what your partner has to say.

Today is Love Your Body Day, and I think that’s wonderful. It’s a day which encourages us to celebrate the bodies we have as they are. It’s a day which encourages us to put diets aside and to spend at least 24 hours not comparing ourselves to unrealistic media ideals of bodies and not beating ourselves up for failing to “measure up”.

But I think we can take this relationship with our bodies a little further than failing to beat ourselves up. And I think one of the most important things we can do to show our bodies love is to learn to listen to them.

Our bodies are mysterious and magical and wondrous. So much of it works without our having to think consciously about it at all. Our hearts beat, and breathing happens. Our stomachs digest food and our bodies break it into nutrients that fuel movements both conscious and unconscious. But for things that we need to do consciously like find food and move our limbs, and lay down to sleep our bodies have a very sophisticated built-in wiring system intricately connected with our brains. And if we become attuned to that wiring system, we can learn so much about what our bodies need.

So many of us have learned to be frustrated by the fact that our bodies get hungry. But I for one, am deeply grateful for it. I am a busy person who is easily distracted. Were it not for hunger, I think I might find myself stranded on the side of the road somewhere completely out of fuel and without roadside assistance. Luckily, I get hungry often and in no uncertain terms. So even if I find it really annoying, I find that I have to take the time to find food on the regular. What’s more, I find that if I take the time to listen, my body is pretty specific about what food it wants. The more carefully I listen to my body, the more attuned I am to what nutrients I am lacking and what foods might best top off my nutritional tank. Sometimes my body craves carrots and sometimes (well most of the time) it craves chocolate. And it seems the more carefully that I follow my body’s menu choices (rather than my brain’s dictates about what I should eat) the better I feel. And when I really listen to what my body wants to eat, and give in by eating precisely as much of those things as my body wants, I am rewarded. My body feels warm, wonderful and satisfied.

Another area where I’m learning to finally listen to my loud-talking body is in movement. Our bodies are capable of amazing abilities to move through space. Not only can we walk across a room or catch a ball without thinking about it, but we can also hike and swim in the ocean and dance. And this is another place where the highly sophisticated wiring in our bodies has a lot to tell us. If I sit too long, my body protests. My back and knees stiffen. I feel pain in my head and neck. On the other hand, if I move too much or too long or in a way that is too intense for my current fitness level, my body sends me messages of pain and fatigue. Now just like hunger, pain and fatigue can be deeply annoying. My schedule may convince my conscious mind that it does not want to get up and move or it may not want to stop moving or it may find it extremely inconvenient to sleep. Thankfully, my body sends signals that are difficult to ignore and I try to find ways to meet my body’s demands by moving or resting or sleeping. And when I get this right, my body rewards me. I feel a lightness in my limbs and a glowing sense of energy when I am well-exercised and well rested.

Our bodies strive for something that is so difficult for us to achieve in modern life–balance. Our bodies tell us when we are eating more food than we need or not enough. Our bodies tell us when we need more broccoli, and when we need buns. Our bodies tell us when to leap and when to laugh and when to rest and when to run. And when I listen, truly listen, to my body, it sings. The energy flows through me and I feel a hum that runs from my toes to the top of my head. That’s what it feels like to be in a loving relationship with my body. It feels wonderful. It’s enough to make me strive to make every day love my body day.

Love,

Jeanette (AKA The Fat Chick)

The Body’s Battle with Weight Loss

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I recently ran across this little gem on Cracked.com entitled “Fat is Officially Incurable (According to Science)” which offers a surprisingly accurate portrayal about just how likely those “before” and “after” shots in advertisements are to reflect the long-term experience of real, live people. While proceeding with tongue firmly inserted in cheek, the author offers a nice summary of some of the scientific evidence offered regarding long-term weight loss:

Probability of long-term maintenance of very modest weight loss (10-15 pounds)–Very low
Probability of a fat person becoming (and staying) a thin person–Practically Non-existant.

One of my favorite things about this article (besides David Wong’s deliciously snarky attitude) is the plethora of links to some other wonderful content that I’ve read, but probably forgotten about.

For example, a lot of the math about Weight Watchers “success stories” (including why you may be 20 times more likely to survive being shot in the head than you are to reach and maintain your WW “goal weight”) is derived from this wonderful blog post by fat fu.

And David also references this comprehensive NY Times Article in which Tara Parker-Pope breaks down a lot of the recent research about why permanent weight loss can be so difficult. She talks about a lot of the physiological changes that can happen with weight loss including:

Increased hunger hormones like ghrelin that make us feel more hungry.
Decreased leptin and peptide yy in the body which help to signal when our bodies are full.
Lowered metabolism.
Increased percentages of slow-twitch muscle fibers that make our bodies use calories more efficiently and burn fewer calories during physical activities.
Increased “reward response” to food in the brain leading to more intense cravings for and obsession about food.

Tara also reminds us that these changes in the body are often long-term–lasting months or even years after the dieting has stopped. And while both she and David Wong admit that there are some “rare creatures” found in the National Weight Control Registry who have maintained significant weight loss, the vast majority of us are unlikely to experience the same results.

I don’t say this to depress you. But I do feel very strongly that those of us who work in the health and fitness industries have a responsibility to help our clients to build realistic expectations. Very, very few of us will lose a lot of weight and keep it off. A very slightly larger number of us will lose a little bit of weight and keep it off. But most of us will neither lose a significant amount of weight nor will we keep it off. Does that mean we need to give up on either wellness or well-being? Nope! As it turns out, bodies respond very well to healthy behaviors regardless of whether or not they are accompanied by any weight loss. We can choose to de-couple wellness from weight loss and focus on simply doing the things that make us feel well. So in my mind, it really makes more sense to take this Health At Every Size(R) or HAES approach and let the body’s weight settle where it will.

And even though telling the truth has seriously blunted my book sales and ruined my chances of ever starring in my own late-night, cheesy infomercial, I still must tell it. Oh well, I’m more of a morning person anyway.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Mangia! (And the Sandwich Rule)

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Today’s short but sweet message is to remind you to eat! Even if you’re a person like me who loves to eat, it’s easy to get busy and caught up with stuff and worrying about if you have time to eat or even if you should eat. But my dear Chicklettes if you’re hungry then by all means pull up a chair, sit down and the table and munch away. And if your life is crazy like mine, that might mean that you have to keep a little something in your purse like a package of trail mix or a granola bar or some nuts. Because all too often, I’ll be in the middle of something, and I’ll slowly recognize that I’m not able to concentrate and simple tasks are becoming more difficult and then it gradually dawns on me: I’m famished!

Not eating when you’re hungry can cause problems other than loss of concentration. It can also make you really cranky. In fact my husband and I have instituted something called the “sandwich rule”. Simply put, whenever we’re having a fight one of us calls a time out. During said time out, we each eat half a sandwich. If we still want to fight after the time out, we can. But we’ve found that most of the time, we weren’t really mad. We were just hungry!

So my little Chicklettes, if you’re feeling a little peckish, put a napkin in your collar, grab a knife and fork and tuck in. Take the time. Give yourself permission. You’ll feel so much better and you might not feel so distracted…bacon!

Love,

The Fat Chick