notes.jays.net

Not hungry for the first time in 17 years

Originally posted to deafferret on 2012-09-24.

So I’ve been on the Paleo “diet” for 6 days now and have lost 11 pounds. I’ve crashed weight off before, through calorie restriction, but this is different.

Diet or no, this is the first time in nearly two decades that I haven’t felt “hungry all the time.” My relationship to hunger has changed completely in 6 days, a shocking thing given that I’ve been eating food for 37 years.

Now when I’m “hungry” I just feel kind of empty. I eat something, and I don’t feel empty any more.

For 17 years my mildly abusive love-hate relationship with food has been a mild crack addiction: gotta have a fix! followed by eating something, periodically way too much (ugh! so full), and then crashing back down to bleh and then, an hour or two later hungry! again. That description is a bit melodramatic – the roller coaster wasn’t an intense one every day, but it was always present. I’ve always eaten pretty “healthy” foods by FDA standards, and not insane amounts. For years I’ve been focused on a low fat, low sodium diet. Lots of grains and milk and veggies and fruit. The hunger cycle was an insidious daily reality, at varying degrees of intensity and discomfort, for 17 years. It was my normal, I was completely accustomed to it. Diets came and went.

Now, 6 days after giving up all grains, beans, and processed foods; all of my hunger signals are different. It’s staggering. I’m eating eggs, meats, nuts, cheeses, and plants. My diet is basically 12 completely natural foods. I’m not hungry. I’m eating far less. The weight is melting off (so far). My light exercise regiment has not changed in years (pedometer says I’m walking about 30 miles a week).

No surgery, no pills, no powders, no meetings, no money, no salesmen, no exercise binges, no hunger pains. Amazing.

I’m a skeptic. But boy, so far I’m impressed. Recommended reading:

Oh, also: Only 3 days into the “diet” my ankles are skinnier than my spouse of 12 years has ever seen them.

Stay tuned. The exploration continues. :) fitbit, loseit