Understanding Hunger

After my prior post, I was asked to clarify the difference between 'head hunger' and real hunger.

For most of us who reach the point of needing serious surgical intervention, we are not starting out with the healthiest relationship with food in the first place.  I can't say what it is that started me down the path of feeling safer as a heavier person.  I have some things I suspect, but overall, I just don't know.  I just enjoy food.

After I met my husband, I started liking food even more, because he is REALLY, REALLY good at making it!  It became part of our relationship.  Our dates always centered on going out for food. Our family spent time together around the dinner table.  Even our friends ended up in on the act as my husband would crank out one delectable dish after another on New Year's Eve.  

I have not suffered from a lack of food being available to me in the last 10 years, for sure, and any time I went more than a few hours without food, I'd start out 'hungry', and move to 'hangry'!  You know how that feels - the emptiness in your stomach, the growling, the urgency in your head that you have to have SOMETHING.

For 10 days prior to my surgery, I was required to follow a 'full liquid diet'.  I thought, during that time, that I was STARVING.  I felt hunger. My stomach complained over the lack of solid food.  Protein shakes, soup, and sugar free pudding just don't cut it when you really want a cheeseburger and fries.

After the surgery, in the first day, there is no room for hunger because there is only THE THIRST.  You want nothing more than a drink of SOMETHING...and you can't have anything until after they do a swallow test to make sure there are no leaks.

When you CAN start eating again, it's still the liquid diet.

In the first few days, my body was still so out of whack, that was no big deal.  After a week or so though, which made it more like 3 weeks on the liquid diet, I wanted REAL food.  It was not a physical need for food - not driven by emptiness in my stomach.

The difference between 'head hunger' and real hunger, though, is that 'head hunger' is hunger driven more by WANT...I WANT to have a cheeseburger, or I WANT to put something solid in my mouth and chew it, but then also by habit.  "It's time to eat, so I want food."  You have no idea how much of your daily hunger ties to just the habit of when you eat.

Realistically, right now if I had to, I could live on water.  I do not feel physical hunger.  I want to eat, because it is morning and I haven't eaten anything since dinner the night before, but there is no part of my body (aside from my brain) that complains if I don't eat the food.  When we go to a restaurant, I am not physically hungry, but because I see a nice, juicy steak on the menu, mentally, my brain tells me I am really hungry for that food.

The desire I feel, and even the 'pains' I will feel in my stomach sometimes, make me think I am hungry - but if I stop for a moment and think about it, I really am not.  I WANT to eat, to be a part of the social moment, or because I want to be able to do the things that used to bring satisfaction, not out of a need to meet the physical requirements of my body.

Actually, that last big isn't ENTIRELY true.  Right now, 95% of what I put in my mouth actually IS solely for the physical needs.  I drink at least one protein shake daily.  The one I usually drink has 50 grams of protein, and is completely yucky to drink.  I've tried dressing it up 12 ways from Sunday, but it isn't as easy as you'd think.  That leaves me to find another 10 grams of protein somewhere in my day, which I typically accomplish with a cheese stick and yogurt.  I guess I would say that right now, food is functional, not fun.

I miss the fun.

The fun I miss ties to my head telling me I want things my body doesn't really want.  Most of the time, if i give in, I end up being pretty sorry I did.  My body just isn't able to handle pretty much anything with carbs right now, so I kind of hope the negative association will end up making me never want them!  Doubtful though...I'm a fan of the fries.

I'm not sure that really explained it, but maybe it helps.  The closest non-weight loss surgery equivalent thing i can relate it to is pregnancy cravings.  When I was pregnant, I did not NEED a Whopper from Burger King.  But...whatever mechanism it was in my body told me I NEED THAT CHEESEBURGER RIGHT NOW.  Not physical, but you want it!  You want it in a way that is not entirely sane!

So anyway - that's 'head hunger'.