Hunger

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I love food.  I love eating.  It is a consistent source of pleasure in my daily routine.  Unfortunately, I abuse this pleasure on a regular basis, reaching for food when I am stressed, fatigued, distracted, upset, or generally rundown.  Yep, that’s right, I am an emotional eater.  It’s not an easy thing for me to admit because in many ways I have a very healthy relationship with food.  Ninety-five percent of the time my body craves good quality whole foods to fuel it.  But even those can be abused in excess or when eaten for the “wrong” reason.

Over the last year or so I have been really working on paying attention to my hunger signals and practicing awareness while I eat.  I have become a more conscious eater but I still regularly slip up and yesterday was one of those days.   Breakfast on the train was very nice, I prepared rolled barley with goji berries and banana.  While it “cooked” in a Tupperware I slowly ate and throughly enjoyed an Asian pear.  I took a nice long time to eat my cereal, noticing as I ate that my hunger was going away and that I was satisfied but not FULL after finishing.

Lunch went downhill pretty fast.  I wasn’t able to find a produce stand before getting on the train this time and so I was left with eating cup of noodles!  At least I found some baked tofu to add protein.  Noodles just aren’t my thing.  Bread, love it.  Rice and pasta I could live without.  Up until this lunch I had only eaten half or less of my noodles and Tate finishes them for me, I just get bored of them and not very satisfied.   Anyways, I ate all the noodles because I was worried about being hungry.  I was very full after lunch but soon became “peckish” (my favorite British word) due to being overtired and completely sedentary.  Throughout the afternoon I munched on food that I didn’t really need or want.  Had I taken a moment to move around or distract myself from boredom I probably would have lost the desire to eat.

As I wrote about in yesterday’s post Big Saturday Night, I had a weird snacky dinner that wasn’t really satisfying or splurge worthy for that amount of calories.  I probably would have been better off drinking a cup of tea and going to bed.  I was feeding fatigue and stress more than true hunger.

And so I strive and struggle, sometimes gracefully and sometimes not, along this path of conscious eating.  I know full well that for me this is a lifelong path, something I will continue to get better at but will always have to “practice”.

I woke up to find this article in my inbox, how appropriate!   It is a good reminder of how to bring awareness to REAL HUNGER

http://caloriecount.about.com/hunger-fullness-scale-b287971

Big Saturday Night

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Wow. That was a rough train ride!  26 and a half hours and ZERO activity later we made it to Guilin in SE China.  Turns out that train we took from Tibet to “mainland” was a new and very nice train.  This last train was dirty and old and stopped short almost suddenly enough to throw me from the top bunk!

Needless to say, by the time we arrived at our hostel at about 8pm I was tired and hungry and a bit overwhelmed.  After walking around reading menus (I am an out of control menu reader, drives Tate insane! I like to know what my options are…) we decided on a bbq place that had a sign for broccoli and mushrooms outside.  The waitress’ English was limited to “one? two?” so  I had to take her outside and show her the sidewalk sign to order bbq’d broccoli, mushrooms, and cabbage. 

The veg was good but small servings, 5 broccoli flowerets on a skewer, and when we left I was still HUNGRY.  We bought some “red bean bread” from a bakery, which was a whole wheat bread with a spiral of red beans through the center, it was tasty but a bit sweet.  My quest to limit sugar has been a serious challenge in China, they love the stuff and add it to foods that are usually savory.  Like whole wheat red bean bread.  Or the green onion wafers I chowed on a bit later while we watched a movie.  Of course, the ingredients are all in Chinese so I rarely have a clue what exactly I am consuming. 

By the time I tore through the wafers, most of a beer, and a small handful of goji berries I was FINALLY FULL! hallelujah!  Time for bed.  Oh, but wait!  I have yet to do my arm workout for the day.  Ugh.  I was going to pretend like I forgot about it completely but, seriously, what good would that do me?  So,  it’s 11:15pm and up to the room I go. “Come on Faith, just 50 push ups, you will sleep better afterward”.