Are You Really Hungry? For What?

Today I woke up quite early, around 5:00 a.m. I ran right into my office and began finishing up the tasks that I had left over from yesterday. I have been working on a new article and a survey. It's for women to take to determine if they are obsessed by food and weight. I know I used to think about food and beat myself up over not having the perfect body, before I learned how to eat intuitively and handle my stress with Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT, a powerful stress relief technique based on the ancient science of Acupuncture. Thanks to EFT, now I'm more at peace with myself and my body more than ever.

Anyway, before I knew it, the clock said, “7:00 a.m.”

My tummy rumbled and I felt the sensations of what I now know to be hunger. Yet I paused for a moment and realized that my body has acclimated itself to having breakfast or my first meal of the day around 11:00 or 12:00.

Knowing this, I paused at the top of the stairs and asked myself, “What do I really want?”
Then once I got the response, I knew that I was exhausted and what I really wanted was to go back to sleep. It’s so nice to have the luxury of having my own business that gives me the opportunity to make up  my own hours and sleep whenever I want to.

Now I notice there are so many times during my busy day when I feel those initial stirrings of hunger and instead of automatically jumping up and raiding the refrigerator or pantry, now I stop and ask myself, “What do I Really Want?”

I’m continually amazed by the range of options that I now have available as I delve deeper and deeper into loving myself more and moving beyond food obsession. Now instead of eating, I know that I can stop my crazy day and remember that I am the boss so I can take a break and do something different. I can turn on some music that I love, go for a walk, read a book, listen to an audio CD, I can even clean if I want to, I can call a friend, take a nap, watch television, pet the cat, learn some new software, write. There are so many more choices that I never even thought about because I always thought that I was hungry.

So let me ask you. How would you feel about taking an extra moment today when you get that first hit of what you may call hunger, and stop what you are doing and ask yourself, “What do I really want?”

If you’re a gal who’s struggling with emotional eating, and feeling lost in a sea of food, then come check out my free discussion board, The Juicy Woman Forum. There you can find an article that I wrote that lists 170 things that I thought of that you can do instead of eating when you're not hungry.