For some time now, I've been telling people that, because of my altered stomach, I don't feel hunger like most people. I said I don't get that empty pit feeling I used to. But now I'm rethinking that. Do I really just not allow myself to feel hunger? Do I dismiss the physical sensations that are there because I don't want to admit that I'm hungry?
Help me figure this out! If you have had RNY gastric bypass surgery, tell me how you know if you're hungry or need nourishment.
Post away!
I CHOOSE
...to love myself.
...to treat myself gently, with patience and respect.
...to accept responsibility for every aspect of my life.
...to be present, awake, aware.
...to be open to possibility.
...to leap with the intention of landing.
...to do amazing things.
...to treat myself gently, with patience and respect.
...to accept responsibility for every aspect of my life.
...to be present, awake, aware.
...to be open to possibility.
...to leap with the intention of landing.
...to do amazing things.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
How do you know you're hungry?
Posted by JUST JEN at 7:05 AM
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14 comments:
Unless I go for a long time (like 8 hours) without eating I do feel hunger. I typically don't feel it though if I'm drinking water.
I do think your body learns what it's routine intake is, and when you skip a meal, the brain says, WTF? Why aren't you eating? I don't consider that hunger though.
Not sure how helpful this is, but there it is. :)
I don't feel hunger at all the way I did pre-op. Sometimes I feel something...something that must be a form of hunger, but it's nothing similar to what my brain thinks of as hunger.
I think that I eat more on a schedule now than anything else. I have a routine and I don't vary from it very often. Sometimes if I've gone a very long time without eating something I begin to feel sluggish, weak, and extremly tired. That's when I realize that I need to eat...but still, there is no actual hunger involved.
I'm scared of the day when hunger returns. I don't want to be hungry like I used to be. I like this new life of only eating for fuel and not for pleasure.
Jen, honestly, unless I have just eaten a packed solids meal, I am always hungry. Whether any of it is in my head, sure - but - physically, my body asks to be fed.
I don't know about hunger. I eat when it is time to eat. If I go past meal time I start feeling some uneasy shaky feeling in my stomach that is either hunger or lowering blood sugar. If it is meal time I eat. If it is not, I try not to.
Some days I want to eat all of the time but it is not hunger, it is boredom or habit. I can tell the difference because I just want "something" and it is usually not real food, it is junk food or nuts or just something to put in my mouth. I find myself wandering the kitchen every ten minutes looking for something. I generally try to drink a glass of water or eat a small piece of cheese when I get this way because I figure maybe if I really am hungry that will stop it.
I never get that bottomless pit feeling or looking at a whole pie and thinking "Yeah, you, me and a glass of milk" any more. I *think* the bottomless pit thing was not real hunger either.
Interesting question and something I have been thinking about a lot recently.
I do feel sensations of hunger in my new pouch - but it's not that deep gnawing hunger from before WLS. However, I don't always get the sensation of hunger in my pouch; more often I just feel light headed and sick to my stomach - almost shaky, like a low blood sugar kinda feeling. I have learned that if I don't eat when I feel this way, for me, it leads to a migraine. So it's definitely taken some learning the new cues from my body to figure out what it needs and when.
I don't know if my input is useful for you, as I'm DSer, but I have similar issues with knowing that I'm hungry. At this point, 13 mos out, I'm convinced that a big part of my sensation of hunger is hormonal.
Most of the time, up until 2 mos ago, the only way I'd really know I was hungry through nausea. When I was first operated, that nausea would be accompanied by pain, but now it's just straight-up, "Whoa, I think I'm dizzy and going to puke".
About 2 mos. ago, I began to notice that, in the week or so before my period, my brain would get this message about between 2hrs 45 min and 3 hrs 30 min after a meal: "Gee, I feel hungry". After this sensation, I have between 10 and 20 minutes to eat something - anything really, ideally something quickly digestible and small (those 3 pks of milano cookies are great). If I don't eat in that time period, I start to feel really confused, agitated or angry. It passes within 2 min of getting food into me.
This scared the crap out of me, until I figure out that it meant I have to carry food with me all the time, esp. before my period. As I had way irregular periods prior to my WLS (18 mos - a personal best), it's taken a while to get my head around how much of a role the hormonal cycle plays with my entire body.
Overeating isn't a problem for me, usually, as it wasn't a problem pre-surgery. The bigger issue was letting myself get distracted from eating. Now when the nausea or "gee, I need to eat signal" hit, I realize that I have to respond, pronto, but I get to choose, usually, what I eat. I work to get my protein in and with some complex carbs - and the odd milanos - I'm doing ok.
Hope you find this useful.
*S*
http://lessflabmorefab.blogspot.com
I'm 3 months out, and I have that head hunger all the time. But as for physical hunger-- I get shaky, light headed, my knees go weak or I feel like I am going to faint. As soon as I have something of nutritional value (even crackers) it goes away.
But I miss that hungry feeling. And that full feeling. I try to eat on a schedule and on a plan, as it's about fueling my body, not rewarding it. I try to eat whole foods, not just protein shakes (but I do imbibe to get all the protein in). Sometimes I worry that I am eating too much too soon.
I guess I'll be working on my own issues.
I do get hungry after surgery. However, I would say that 85% of the time it's head hunger and 15% it's real hunger. Sometimes I feel hungry but it could just be my body telling me I'm not getting enough to drink and that will cure it.
Honestly, the thing I would suggest is going on a liquid protein diet for a week. The first couple days you are either going to feel hungry all the time or not hungry at all but your body is probably not sending accurate signals. By the 5th day, or so, you will start to recognize what hungry is and what thirsty is and what feeling "normal" is. The process is not about losing more weight, it's about getting in touch with your body's signals so that you can respond to them properly.
Good luck, hun. *hugs*
I'm not sure I get hungry per se the pouch is telling me let's eat, but I get a different type of reaction, more sugar related I guess. I feel a little weak and fuzzy, it's past time to eat if this occurs. Being almost a year out, I try to keep my eating on a schedule, which in a perfect world would be great, but alas I miss things and can go without eating especially if I'm drinking the water!
Feeling hunger and knowing my body needs nourishment are two very different things for me. I do still feel hunger in my stomach when I am low enough (I try to eat small amounts regularly)....but more importantly, I have learned to listen to my body, since sometimes when I need a specific nutrient, I may not FEEL hungry at all. Those are the hard times--when I am, for example, shaking from needing protein, but my pouch wants NOTHING in it.
I feel something that seems like actual hunger only once in a great while. Almost all the time I feel a very manageable, livable sense of being just fine as I am and I'm actually more comfortable physically if I DON'T eat. A lot of time will go by and I'll think, gosh I NEED a protein drink. What I deal with now is a feeling of just being snacky. I'm not sure why it's happening. I just want to munch on something. I NEVER get the feeling like I want to eat some mass quantity of something.
Jen... how are you eating in the program? How are they having you eat?
Jen -
I'm part of the Sassy Ladies webring, and I don't comment often, but I wanted to email you to let you know that, I, too, find it BIZARRE how few WLS patients cop to having and/or developing eating disorders (by which I mean, loosely, anorexia, bulimia, or compulsive overeating). How do we think we ended up having WLS in the first place, I ask you? Are we all just "large-boned"? Did we all just not process food the way "naturally thin" people do? Please.
In my case, it's the third disorder and always has been, and I absolutely grapple with this on a daily basis. I say as much in my blog, when I'm going through the whole emotional eating thing, too.
I feel genuine hunger as a DS patient at almost 2 years out, and I also want to eat under stress (which is often). When I'm genuinely hungry I go for protein. When I'm stressed, I want to go for the carbs. And sometimes do. For me surgery has made it easier to manage my psychology of stress-eating or wanting to eat compulsively (i.e., I simply can't eat as much as I used to, and my body reacts poorly to lots of carbs) -- but it hasn't done away with those behaviors.
Also, what I see in the mirror is usually okay -- EXCEPT around my period. Then I literally cannot see an accurate reflection of myself in the mirror. I understand that this is body dysmorphia -- but it still scares me until I look away.
I'm a DS patient so those are the folks I know best, but I can categorically tell you now of a DEer I know from OH.com who's developed anorexia and of a blogger whom many admire for her phenomenal weight loss and transformation who's bulimic but has never made that part of her blog.
So you go, girl. I admire you for stepping out and talking about it. They're out there, WE'RE out there. *You're* actually talking about it.
xo
Deluzy
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