Binging

From the last several food logs I can see (and perhaps feel) myself building up to an eating binge. My body's wanting something sweet. I've been dreaming about Resee's Peanut Butter Cups - the mini ones.

Interestingly enough, I'm at a point in the book I'm reading where there's a discussion on eating what your body tells you to eat vs. denying it. According to the book, the denial aspect is a root cause of binging. So along with understanding hunger is what to eat when you are hungry.

My "diet" has been to try and make healthy choices when hungry. The book's suggesting that when you are hungry, eat what your body wants. Failure to do so does two things in their opinion:

• even though you're now full, you're body's still demanding what it wanted
• you'll eat it eventually even if you are full

In some examples the book gave, people ate ice cream instead of salad for a meal, even going to the point of putting away a prepared meal in order to eat what the body desired.

The key in all of this from my vantage point is not simply to eat what you want whenever, but that by feeding the body what it's hungry for when it's hungry (and not just what's convenient) you don't develop diet killing binges. In effect, there are no forbidden foods in loosing weight.

The idea of forbidden foods is a key point in diets from my vantage point. Every diet I've ever tried says in effect: "these are OK, those are not". Naturally I always want what I can't have - high fat meals, sweets, high-carb bread, etc. and in the end that's my downfall - eating the forbidden fruit as it were.

One suggestion was to record what's eaten as either a hummer or a beckoner. A Hummer is an extremely satisfying food that you crave even when you don’t see the food. Nothing will satisfy you besides that food. A Beckoner is something eaten only because it is there and not because it satisfies. You'll eat lots of beckoner while in search of a hummer.

Last night I was grumpy when I came home. I didn't want to cook dinner, which is unusual since I like to cook. I ended up snacking though the meal prep and then after dinner and on into the evening. I think my mood and my food grazing was because what I really wanted was peanut butter w/cold milk and not pork chops w/potatoes and gravy. I did eat the peanut butter but late in the evening before I went to bed. Consequently this AM I feel sluggish, full, etc.

I'll have to do some serious thinking about hummers and beckoners and separating one from the other. Also, how do hummers and beckoners work with family meal planning?