Maybe I'll Start Sucking My Thumb

I have not had much of an appetite these past few days. For whatever reason, I just haven't been that hungry, and as such I have really been able to notice the difference between hunger and emotional eating.

You always hear advice telling dieters to make sure they are really hungry rather than eating out of emotional reasons. But it can be really hard to differentiate between the two, especially in instances when you ARE hungry, but also craving the wrongs things out of comfort. So for this reason it has been very interesting to experience intense cravings when I know without a doubt that I am not hungry and would not be thinking of food for any other reason.

Of course, identifying the urges when I want to comfort eat and actually finding a way to get around them are two different things. obviously, if I am aware that my desire for cookies is based on the need to comfort or whatever, I can resist. Not that I always do, you understand, but I CAN. however, resisting just means spending the whole night with that vague feeling of needing to do something, plus of course, craving cookies. Which is distracting at best, and fairly unpleasant.

How do you get to where these issues don't bother you anymore? I'm sure it is simply a matter of ignoring it and suffering until your body chemistry is rewired well enough to not send craving signals anymore, but how can I comfort myself in th meantime? There really isn't a good substitute when what your body really wants to do is sink it's teeth into something. I guess there really isn't any choice but to suffer through until the bad habits are broken and food no longer sings it's siren song.

I hope it's soon.