Hunger is an intriguing feeling. I've completed the second full day of my 14 day detox, and I can admit shamefully that what I used to consume was astronomical. This measurement comes not only from the notable difference in quantity of food, but the notable difference in feeling.
Before two days ago, I know for a fact that on several occasions each day I would tell myself "I'm hungry." Or, I'd tell someone else who'd want to go to Fat Town with me that I was hungry, and they'd say the same. Then, in no time, I would be comatose with a Beef 'n' Cheddar meal inching its way towards my stomach. Full up to my esophagus, fearful of the slightest case of hiccups or a cough.
And that was delicious, but it was a routine of absolutely disgusting behavior. After two days of cowering under the harsh pang of hunger, I am quite certain that I was never hungry at all. I wasn't even running on half empty. I was bored, that's what I was. Either bored or exhausted, trying to fill whatever void was out there dangling in front of me. But I wasn't chasing a carrot on a stick. I was chasing McDonald's 10-piece meals and dozens of unclaimed cookies left in the work kitchen.
And I shouldn't even have to remind you about the pasta binge. A girl who burns very few calories should never treat carbohydrates in the same manner as Michael Phelps. Which I practically was until I honestly felt too full to go on. This is possible. Just as possible as it is to eat heaping piles of green vegetables and still feel so hungry that napping is the only way to avoid eating everything in sight.
After a lovely weekend home for Christmas, I returned to work - almost afraid of food. My sodium levels and insane volume of cheese consumption alone were enough. But the cookies and cakes and sweets that were just staring me down wherever I went go to show that the body wraps itself around these habits and sucks at them until there is nothing left but destruction. Taste buds and kidneys alike have their own strange way of holding on dearly to these daily injections of artificial sugars, sodium-infested seasonings and sauces and the robust filling that is fettuccine. While none of it was good - and my body knew that - it wanted what it was used to having.
And then, after a long engagement, the body and the food it's so accustomed to loving, parted ways. Last week, I came home after work one day, having just put myself through another food montage of McDonald's, Taco Bell and a decent handful of raw Snickerdoodle cookie dough - and I felt sick. A sick that is so deep and painful, that I couldn't eat dinner because there simply was not enough room left to breathe. I came in the door, stripped down from the clothes constricting me and laid down. And stayed there. Then went to bed early ill from not only the thought of food, but even the idea that I'd have to eat it again.
I woke up the next morning. not hungry at all. But, I proceeded to feed myself silly. Having never felt hungry or ravenous in any way. Just continued to enlarge the area needing to be filled with each bite and swallow of my almost decade of demise. And now, I take pleasure in the delight of six raw almonds or the slight tang of balsamic on a bed of baby field greens and small cubes of tofu. I take tiny bites and eat slowly, so slowly that I had to reheat the half head of cabbage I had for dinner tonight because it got cold as I was savoring it. Instead of living to eat like I usually do, I've been eating to live. Although this sparingly rabbit-food-like diet is only until January 14, its foundation is strong enough to carry on for the rest of my life.
What we put in really does have a reciprocal output. The crap food and even delicious homemade food I used to covet anchored my energy to the couch. Slow digestion, synthetic caffeinated energy, a feeling of fullness but a lack of nutrition. These past two days are a testament to self-awareness and observation of habits on the whole. My skin, hair and even the whiteness in my eyes have changed. I've been able to sleep more easily, I do have more energy and I feel lighter. All the while, battling a hunger that I haven't known in my entire life.
Because I never let myself feel hungry for fear I'd stop being full. Of what? Joy? Happiness? Occupation? Friendship? Sexual encounters? Music? Fun? Whatever I was lacking severely made itself up at Jewel-Osco. Now that I am starving, I am doing everything in my power to not only distract the hunger as my body readjusts its appetite - but to replace what used to be food time with life time. To sleep earlier so I don't binge or need to binge the morning after to revive energy. To dance or move after I've already browsed all 1,000,000 sites I visit daily. To be satisfied instead of full. With nutrients instead of crap. Everyday, from now on.
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