Allowing myself to experience true, physical hunger has been one of the most difficult aspects of this journey so far. I find myself wanting to eat simply because my mind is telling me that I should be hungry by now. I begin to panic a bit when I realize it’s been hours since I last ate. Thoughts of “what is wrong with me” flood my mind. I believe that my body is betraying me. Surely, it’s really hungry but I’m somehow missing the cue. Some days I fear that if I wait for hunger I won’t eat all day and that it will mean I’m falling back into my old patterns of anorexia. Of course, during those years, I was denying my hunger signal instead of trying to listen to it. I viewed this signal as an enemy to my waistline. Over the years, this morphed into being afraid of allowing my body to reach that signal, I would eat to prevent feeling that pain. Granted, I would still diet, or at least attempt to diet… which set into motion the diet/binge cycle.

When I woke this morning, I wasn’t feeling well. This was partly because I overate last night. I’m still not sure why I didn’t stop myself. I knew I wasn’t eating out of hunger but out of pain. I strained a muscle in my leg during TaeKwonDo on Monday. Tuesday I tried to rest… but still in pain. Yesterday I was on my feet most of the day… in pain. I arrived home… in pain. I wanted to wait for my hunger signal but for some reason I was compelled to eat to ease the pain… which of course it wouldn’t. As a result, I didn’t sleep well and had a yucky start to my morning. I couldn’t tell if I was actually hungry when I woke up, or if I wanted to eat because I felt bad… geesh, can you tell my signals have been all kinds of crossed?! So, I didn’t eat before leaving for the rink like I normally do. I didn’t take anything with me either. Four and a half hours later, I was still trying to decipher if what I felt was physical hunger or not. Tired of not knowing and worried that I might miss the signal and starve to death (could that thought process be any more ridiculous?), I ate. Oh Lord, have mercy.

As I sat on the couch thinking this over, I noted that the true problem was my lack of trust in me. If I went a whole day without eating, I would think I was mistreating myself no matter what the circumstances. Well, I may not be able to trust myself, but I can trust God. He designed my body to notify me of hunger. So, shouldn’t I be able to trust that the signal will come? Yes.

Alright, I’m giving this another try.