Beck Discussion - Day 12

Day 12 - Practice Hunger Tolerance In this chapter we learn how to tolerate hunger. I know for me, I am always anxious about "being hungry" or the fear of "hunger". I have idea why, I was never deprived of food.. its a mystery I think I will never understand. We think that hunger equates to emergency. It creates anxiety in many of us. You focus on how uncomfortable this sensation is, how we can't stand feeling this way (very me!). We can tolerate hunger Dr. Beck says. Once we are able to convince ourselves of this hunger is no big deal. If it is not your scheduled meal time then you have to say to yourself.. "i can wait". She says we should turn our attention to other things and the hunger pains will gradually dimini**** does subside.. try it out she says. She says to purposely skip lunch. This will make you realize that hunger is not an emergency. We will realize its not as uncomfortable as we thought it would be she says. Just because you want to eat doesn't mean you always should. For some reason this statement always sticks out in my mind from reading this book! This is one of the most important things you need to learn to lose excess weight and keep it off! Pick a day when you know you will be busy and try doing a "discomfort scale" and try using it throughout the day. She gives an example on pages 122-123. Do it on the day you decide to skip lunch too. Try filling this exercise out each hour of that day. On page 125 she discusses how hunger is never an emergency. How we have fasted before for medical procedures or religious holidays or delayed in traffic etc. I know I had to a do a clear liquid diet of 1000 calories or less for 2 weeks before my RNY.. not even a whey protein shake was allowed. I think about this often. If I could do this BEFORE surgery when I was obese.. why can't I have the willpower to eat right foods now.. it really puts things into perspective doesn't it? She then discusses sabotaging thoughts. She then discuses in bold on the top right corner under "did you know?" on page 125 the difference between "want" and "need". She says people have actually gone more than a week without eating and haven't died. She isn't saying we shouldn't eat, shes saying that we need to quit looking at hunger as the "absolute emergency syndrome". She says "once we get over our intolerance of hunger, dieting will be easier." Be sure to look a the todo list and create a time for your experiment. I cannot do this b/c of my blood sugar issues.. which is why I eat 5-6 times a day. I will drop. So if any of you do this I will be interested to know your results! Please share with us! Day 13 is overcoming cravings. I will be gone next week on vacation. Who would like to review this chapter with the group? Any takers? If not, I will pick up when I get back. Have a great weekend and next week!

Thank you for getting this one posted, I read it last weekend and intended to put up a post since you said you'd be gone but honestly...this one was a problem for me. This was on my mind all week and was not a pleasant subject to wrestle with. It hits waaay too close to home. This is always going to be a struggle for me, the feeling of emergency and panic is so real and then my ulcers kick in whenever I go more than a couple of hours without food. Then the headache starts. And honestly, how much of all that is just brought on by my own fears and how much is for real? Having to do medical fasts is always awful...my stomach hurts all day and then it takes me a full day or two to get rid of the headache. And does anybody else get intestinal cramps too during and after a fast too? And then now that I'm a bypass postop and have blood sugar issues there is that to consider too. So, I thought about skipping lunch all week long and never did it. The most I did was to think about it a lot and instead of having a snack, had something to drink instead. I do think that she is right that once we get over the intolerance of hunger, dieting is easier. Sure goes along with what we experienced in the early weeks after our surgeries doesn't it? Well, so anyway...I think I failed this challenge this week but at least I was keeping it on my mind and trying to learn and grow from it anyway. I'll try to get the next one going next week. Hopefully it will be a quieter week once I get the test over with on Monday. Tomorrow and Sunday i have the journalling and measuring to do before...icky. Have a wonderful vacation!!!! Molly

A little of the subject... I really like the idea of the discomfort scale (p. 123) for anxiety in general. This chart is useful in identifying or acknowledging our private anxieties related to food and life in general. Using the hunger discomfort chart on (p. 124) to note the "hourly" range of discomfort / anxiety... or emergency feeling, might place too much focus on the day's task. It's important to monitor the feelings, but this level of "posting" could become a constant reminder that food is going to be "deprived"... and cause anxiety. Pre-op I always ate so I didn't experience much hunger. The few times that I did it wasn't overwhelming because food would be available well within a normal amount of time. A lesson that I learned from a person, whom I considered a "professional dieter" was that if she waited for the hunger pang to lessen, she figured that her body had actually "found" a food source... her body's fat supply. From that point on, I did not really worry about hunger, as I saw the coming and going of hunger feelings as a natural response of the body.... Feed me OR I'll "feed" myself (fat supply). My main concern with this experience is the "backlash" that could occur, after the test is completed. Would a following meal be "jumbo sized" to compensate for the "lost" meal? Would over-eating or binging become triggered, after the test was no longer an issue? It was a good idea that Beck advised against people with medical conditions from omitting a meal. Molly's concerns are valid. Perhaps limiting a "snack" of a portion of a "snack" could serve the same purpose for WLS patients that want to complete this experiment.