Get A Handle On Your Hunger Signals! 10 Healthy Hedonism Strategies
If you read Part One: 9 REASONS STRESS LEADS TO IMPULSIVE EATING, hopefully it is now clearer why, with so much processed food, subsidized carbohydrates and stress in our modern culture, we have so much obesity, accelerated aging and chronic illness. Add a viral pandemic and you have one of two choices. You can feed a downward spiral of self-destructive despair, or you can choose to use this as a unique opportunity to do something different:
You can cultivate an upper spiral for yourself in which, by understanding how your body works well enough, you can effectively modulate both your hunger signals and your response to them. This way, you are in the driver’s seat of your health and your life!
If you found yourself on the downward spiral of stress eating during quarantine, you were not alone by a long shot! Hopefully Part One also helped you understand that it was perfectly, understandably human. The really good news is that it is not too late to get on that upward spiral starting…right… now!
How might you create this upper spiral, you may be asking? I hope you are!
First, release your cravings from the shackles of shame. Remember, from an evolutioanry perspective, it is natural to want to eat more during a stressful time, and it is healthy to eat, just as long we eat balanced meals made of nourishing foods we evolved to eat. For example, one of my clients told me the other day that since she’s been eating homemade, balanced, delicious meals, she has felt full while losing weight. She also feels more energized and emotionally balanced. That always makes my day. She’s experiencing pleasure and health. I call that healthy hedonism.
It is equally important that we are experiencing the pleasure we are wired to crave, not only from our food, but in our lives more generally. The best way to deal with the lower brain so you can regain control of your life is to soothe yourself, give your body balanced nutrition as well as prioritize more pleasure and play so your brain knows it is safe to turn off eating hyperdrive.
Get A Handle On Your Hunger Signals! 10 Healthy Hedonism Strategies
- Practice damage control: Stock up on “good junk food,” such as organic whole food snacks from online vendors or the health food store so that if the junky monkey takes over, not so much damage is done.
2. Eat more quality protein and fat to feel full, both in your meals and in your snacking. Make sure the fats you eat are mostly unrefined or “virgin” oils as well as fats from organic plants and healthy, humanely treated animals, ideally pastured and wild. Remember that eating stressed animals increases our biological stress via hormones in their tissues.
3. Crowd out crappy carbs with nourishing ones, like root veggies, winter squash and fruits (and more non-starchy veggies, which you can look up on the internet if you’re not sure what those are).
4. Cook homemade meals ahead so you always have the option to eat a real meal. Having meals made ahead increases likelihood you will eat them instead.
5. Ground when you eat by literally eating outside, on the earth if you can. This literally has a calming effect on your body via electron transfer with your molecules. Fresh air is also soothing and rejuvenating. Some sunshine on your skin is also crucial for your cells; just don’t burn!
6. Replace all-day grazing with structured meal times where you put everything you’re eating out in front of you so you can see it. Consider eating dinner 2 to 3 hours before you sleep. This helps you see what you are actually eating and gives you digestive rest between meals, which is part of how your body repairs itself.
7. Shift from zoned out zombie eating to embodied pleasure eating. Chew, taste and feel the sensations in your body when you eat. Make sure your food is yummy using pure ingredients and that you fully register the pleasure of it. Make sure you notice how vibrant or yucky you feel after meals as well. This tells you how well your meal served you.
8. Feel your way free! Be curious about the sensations in your body. Beyond tasting your food, make sure you are stopping to feel all of the emotions coming up throughout the day so that they can move through you instead of staying stuck in the forms of bodily discomfort and looping negative thoughts that lead to numbing with food.
9. Reframe your thinking habits around this whole COVID-19 thing. What are the good things that have happened in your life and on the planet? What new opportunities for growth and connection have been showing up? What can do now to feel upgraded and not devastated on the other end of this? Focus on what you can do so this isn’t happening “to you.” More appreciation means fewer stress hormones and less stress eating.
10. Actively seek healthy pleasures that soothe, ground and uplift you! Meditate, do yoga, play, dance around your house, go on a walk or hike, move in creative fun ways, video call people you love… Crowd out worry and fear with anything that brings you calm or sparks joy. This will help reset your nervous system to replace survival mode with thriving mode.
Take these one at a time starting with what feels most doable then moving to the next and so on. Be gentle with yourself. Focus more on curiosity and exploration than getting it “right” or being “perfect.”
Enjoy this time of healing and recovery to shamelessly indulge in delicious, nourishing foods! It’s not only healthy to enjoy eating, it is a biological necessity to do so, as long as it is in a way that works with and not against nature, because, after all, you are an extension of nature.