Hungry Hippo

One of my patients had a very poor appetite upon admission, and I was concerned she would lose weight and decline, so I recommended an appetite stimulant.  The drug clearly worked because before long the patient started eating great and saying "I'm a hungry hippo!!!" all the time.


You are born with an innate sense of how much you need to eat, and you follow those hunger and satiety cues to promote your growth and development.  But at some point in your early years you begin to respond to external cues to eat rather than your internal hunger and satiety cues.


Some of the external cues may include:  emotions brought upon by environmental factors, celebration, boredom, habit, food looks/smells good, or need for comfort or consistency in a world of variables.  Responding to these external cues creates a situation where internal cues are first ignored then eliminated.


Your objective for the next few days or weeks or however long it takes is to be re-introduce the internal cues of hunger and satiety into your life.  ("Hello, Hunger...Hello Satiety, it's a pleasure to meet you again.")  If you never let yourself know hunger, you will never know satiety.  Here are some guidelines for making the adjustment to responding to internal cues:

• Plan on eating three meals daily and not snacking.  Space your meals evenly throughout the day so by the time you get to your next meal you are hungry again.  
• Do not skip meals, doing this produces ravenousness instead of hunger and will likely result in over-consumption of Calories.  
• Slow down your eating pace--pay close attention to the fact you are eating.  Let your meal be a multi-sensory experience.  
• If you're satisfied before your food is gone, go ahead and stop eating.  If you are still hungry when your meal is gone, eat something else.  Each meal should satisfy you--you should not feel restricted or hungry at the end or any meal.  

You may still be trying to establish a healthy relationship with food (avoiding labeling foods "good" and "bad," etc..see previous post), so don't worry as much about *what* you eat as achieving the feelings of hunger and satiety.  The "what" will come later.  At this point, if you focus on what you eat, you will begin to think you are dieting, which is what I'd like for you to avoid.  

Good luck, have fun, feel hungry, feel satisfied, and enjoy your meals!! :-)