Biking day! Actually, I had the bike out yesterday, too. I love my bike so much! It was 50 degrees when we got up, so good to ride. We were ready for breakfast today. I had my usual wheat bagel:
and coffee! 
John had a pumpkin coffee cake. It’s all about the pumpkin now. Even the baby ones for decoration:
Total bike miles today? 15. I will be sad when the bikes have to come inside, but fall riding sure is nice!
After a morning of work, it was time for lunch. Mess bowl.
This contained 2% Fage, strawberries, flax meal and drizzled with honey. This bowl promptly made me chilled and I needed a cup of tea.
Regarding the post title, I have been thinking a lot about hunger lately. Then Marisa wrote a post a few days ago on that very subject.
I have trouble with dealing with hunger. I hate to be hungry. Well, I don’t mind the little bit of hunger before meals, but what I really hate is how fast that little hunger goes over the cliff and becomes the Ineedtoeatrightnowfeedmefeedmefeedme!!! feeling. Then I overeat and can’t seem to get full. Even after all this time of taking off 100 pounds I struggle with this. (Losing is only 1/4 of the battle, people).
So, sometimes I am not sure if I should eat or not. That is my biggest problem because often times I think I am hungry and if I ate every time I was hungry, I would be snacking all day. Grazing leads to a *lot* of calories for me. This is why intuitive eating is not so good for me.
My full mechanism also does not work like it is ‘supposed’ to. You know how Conventional Wisdom states to wait 20 minutes for your full mechanism to kick in and then have seconds? Mine takes way longer than that. Like an hour. Seriously. An example – for breakfast this morning, it wasn’t until halfway home on the bike that I noticed that I was actually full from breakfast. What’s up with that? So, if I don’t portion my food out , I will eat way more than I need to. I have to not go for second helpings because of this.
Anyway, I have taken to the mints again to help with the hunger thing.
I got a 6-pack box of these on Amazon. I love the ginger mints. Crutch? Maybe, but I will use it for now.
John made up afternoon lattes today. Mine is an almond milk latte.
This is a candy corn candle. I so wish the kernels came that big! 😀
Cooked up a nice big turkey burger for dinner. I like burgers and don’t care for the 97% lean meat, so my burgers need to be smaller. Ground beef is pretty calorie dense. So, I love it when the natural ground turkey is available (why it isn’t always is beyond me). I have been scarfing down the turkey this week.
Plus grapes were still on sale for $1.99 a pound. Must be in season? I don’t know the season for grapes.
It’s funny, even though I have been thinking about hunger a lot lately, this past week my eating has really been with hardly any extra snacking or overeating in general. Weird, eh?
Pink item of the day:
Time to visit with my mother!
Question: How do you deal with hunger?
As you know, hunger has been such a difficult thing for me, too, Lori. I’m slowly starting to recognize the difference between mouth hunger and stomach hunger, also. This is a big thing for me because I don’t think I truly understood hunger before. Probably why when I do feel physical hunger it freaks me out! Nutty, I know!
Anyway, here’s a link to a great handout that helps differentiate the two types and possible triggers. It may be something to look into to understand if what you’re experiencing is truly physical hunger. http://www.tcme.org/documents/ADifferentTypesofHungerHandout.pdf
Yay for a great ride, btw! And I’ve been thinking of you a lot with all the candy corn around! LOL!
Thanks for that link!
Ha! How do I deal with hunger? I don’t! We are twins again. I don’t like being hungry. This week has been an interesting experiment, I’ll write more about it tomorrow. But that crazy hunger like you describe, I seldom experience that any more. I wonder if it is because you are exercising more than me? Are you able to relate it to the days where you eat more sugar/wheat? I do tend to plan, most days for small meals, and larger than normal snacks. In other words, maybe 5 small meals a day? And I know that 300 calories will keep me full for a good long time. 200 calories usually lasts 3 hours. That is, as long as those 200-300 calories are worthy calories LOL.
I can’t figure out when the cliff dropping happens. It is so random and that is why it can be problematic.
Hi Lori! I *really* like this post. First of all, sometimes when I read your posts, I imagine, “Oh that Lori, always watching her portions and never seeming like a Cookie Monster!”
But I do think that your newly coined word– needtoeatrightnowfeedmefeedmefeedme –is an clear admission that you have also had cookiemonsteritis afflict you. 😀
Love that candy corn candle. I love cupcake lip glosses.
🙂 Marion
Haha – I am quite the cookie monster at times. Just wait til closer to Christmas 😀
Yah on the wonderful ride! Sounds like you’re still getting good weather there – we’ve got rain for the next week here, but it’s still mild thankfully. Slippery with all the leaves coming down too.
Love the daily pink thing…
And I agree about not being able to eat intuitively – I can do it better than before, but I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to totally trust it. Mine is out of whack also!
I was thinking that your blog is called “Finding Radiance” but when I look at your pics, I think you’ve found it already! 😉
Dawn
Thanks, Dawn 😀
I end up drinking a ton of water if I’m having a hungry day – and honestly, I eat. But if I have the water, I tend to eat less.
This is such a good post, and I feel the same way about hunger and trusting myself with intuitive eating. I’ve been on maintenance for over a year now, and I’m getting better at reading my body but it’s not quite there yet. I do eat a lot of veggies and volume, so I think that deals with it for the most part.
Unfortunately I usually give in to the hunger and eat more than I want. It doesn’t happen that much as it used to but still it happens. If I eat a cookie: I can’t stop. Since I’m not losing weight I’ve been looking into different styles of eating and just ordered a Dutch book about low carb eating. There were 30 questions and the more you answered with yes the more you are kind of a carb addict. I answered 16 questions with yes. So it’s worth to look into this and hopefully if I’m going to follow this I will be less hungry.
Oops this is more about me than about you, sorry for that.
Hey Lori! It’s always such an encouragement to me when my maintaining friends reiterate that 1) getting to maintenance is NOT the end of the struggle and 2) intuitive eating doesn’t work for them. Thanks for that! It keeps it real.
BTW, I’ve been meaning to ask you for a long time…..the plates/bowls you post your meal pictures on….what size are they? I can tell they aren’t full size dinner plates or large bowls, but I’d love to get a better sense of your exact portions.
The plates vary in size between 6 and 8 inches on average, although the leaf plate for dinner is bigger than that.
Portion size for dinner – 5 ounce turkey burger with 1 laughing cow wedge, 1 cup of broccoli and about a cup of grapes. Just to give you an idea. My dinners are usually around 400 calories.
Thanks Lori! And that’s pretty much what I had imagined so it’s nice to know I was on target. I always love seeing your dishes. You haven’t posted any new bowl pictures lately! LOL!
I deal with hunger poorly. I nibble a lot, often because I don’t have the time to make a proper meal and I graze. Terrible! But it’s something I know is a problem and that’s the first step.
Meanwhile, even though I’m not a fan of candy corn, I LOVE that candle. Super festive and I want one!!
I want that candy corn! 😉
I so hear you on this post Lori & a great one! Losing is hard but the long term maintenance – yes, it is tough & I have been at this a long time & I still struggle at times. I have gotten pretty good at listening to the bod but yes, it does play games & fool us at times. Honestly, I still think about foods I loved when I was heavy & that was a long time ago. A post already started on this but I have not decided when to post it…. I know some people get over it forever but after all these years, I still want to eat my certain foods that I love & made me fat!
Marissa’s blogs have been very interesting lately. Even if our own situations are a bit different, I am interested in the things she is sharing.
What I’ve learned is that I deal with hunger fine if I’m busy. Sometimes on the weekends, I actually ‘forget’ to eat. It’s when I’m bored or stressed and not busy that I don’t do so well. Right now my job is pretty boring (but I’m glad to have a job!) so the only thing that keeps me from overeating is that the portions of food I bring with me are controlled. If I was home and bored I’d eat, eat, eat all day long. Not good. I can only imagine how hard it must be for you at times since you actually work at home!
Rain has arrived here but looking good for a lovely fall weekend. Gotta get in that outside exercise while we can, right?
I was just having a conversation with myself last night about whether I was hungry or not before bed. Decided to have a small snack (I had eaten dinner at 4:00 pm) but nothing sounded good. Anyway, I’m going to check out the link. Thanks!
I learned a great hunger lesson from you Lori. You mentioned many many months ago about protein keeping you full so I try to eat protein at every meal to keep hunger at bay. When I really want something between meals though, it’s hard. Most of the time I just work through it, but others, I have been known to eat some of my husband’s snacky foods that he has. sigh. It’s a never ending saga is it??? Have a great Thurs.
Very timely post, Lori! I’m trying to learn intuitive eating too. I don’t usually have problem with hunger, except when I go too long without eating, like I’m doing errands in the city center and it takes longer than I expect.
If that happens, I ALWAYS end up eating too much in the evening (grazing) and it’s my understanding that it can’t really be prevented. It’s a physiological mechanism (called “Cookie Monster”!).
My favorite nutritionist – a Finnish guy – says that learining to trust your hunger and satiety signals again may take a long time, usually 12 months or sometimes even longer.
Are you sure you aren’t trying to eat too little? You exercise a lot, so your body probably needs a lot of fuel.
No, I don’t think I eat too little. I actually eat too much sometimes! LOL. What doesn’t show up in my pictures is the fat in the meals. I eat a good percentage of my calories in fat to help keep me full.
I never seem to let myself get hungry, I don’t like it either. Though the intuitive eating thing doesn’t really work for me either I did find something from the book I was reading about it. I put the hunger scale to the test and really give thought to where I am on a hunger scale of 1 to 10. Many times it’s stop me from eating when I realize I’m already full.
I try to control my temptations by keeping busy and keeping the snacky foods out of the house. If I take a taste of something I shouldn’t, I’m a goner. I’ve noticed by your pictures your portion control looks great. Losing the pounds is hard, but keeping it off is even harder. You do a great job with eating and biking (exercising)!
I struggle with hunger. My biggest issue is eating when I am not truly physically hungry. Too often. Snacks. I am like you in that if I go too long and get too hungry I get a bit crazed and can’t shove the food in fast enough. I get shaky and very cranky.
How often do you bike? What is the farthest distance you have gone? I LOVE your candy corn candle. I am going to try and find one for my husband. His favorite candy is candy corn.
When I am hungry I either have a cup of tea or coffee. Sometimes I drink a glass of water and realize I wasn’t really hungry, but thirsty. My problem is eating when I am not hungry- bored or some other emotion.
LOL – Jill, I bike a *lot*! The farthest distance I have done in 1 day is 100 miles. We routinely do long weekend rides and I try to get in a couple mid week rides, but right now that is really weather dependent.
WOW!!! 100 miles! That is awesome. I am trying to build my mileage up from 30-40. I rode 40 once and I felt terrible!!! Any advice on increasing mileage! I am planning on doing the MS100 next September….. I can only imagine how your butt felt after 100 miles! My husband rides too- isn’t it great to share an activity that is good for us with our spouses!?!?!?!?