Eat When Hungry: Decisions of a Lifetime

Eat When Hungry is a simple and complex idea in modern society where we are surrounded by unhealthy food choices and many pressures to act against our own best interests around personal health and wellness. Each day offers new choices, and the journey changes over time – even if my choices look similar day-by-day.

Eat When Hungry. This idea takes on different meanings every day, and I want to highlight the ongoing nature of my health, wellness, and weight loss journey. This is a process, not a destination, even if losing half my weight without medication looks like a final destination.

I made big changes in 2020 around the idea of eating when hungry, and I found greater success. These changes still define my life.

Even so, I continue to learn, grow, and change in how I understand myself. I am only starting to think deeply about the ongoing nature of the journey, largely because others think I have arrived.

Yes, I have found answers for myself. The actions of my answers look similar on a day-by-day basis.

• I eat plants.

• I avoid processed foods.

Yet, taking these two steps is not the same experience every day. In fact, eating the same foods can and does feel like wildly different experiences on different days. My journey to change continues to develop in ways I did not expect when I dreamed of success in losing weight and eating healthy.

New Days, New Meanings

Shift and change constantly define my actions to eat when hungry, even if the idea of eating when hungry is a concrete fact at the center of my personal survival. I have to eat in order to live.

Nearly 5 years into eating whole plants – almost entirely without salt, oil, and sugar – I am surprised that eating when hungry looks and feels so different each day. Others may “arrive.” But I have not. I constantly see and feel myself evolving around what it means to eat when hungry.

The balances of my foods shift. The ways that I prepare my foods shift. The ways my days unfold shift. The ways I live in my environment shift. My understandings shift. My strategies shift. My plans shift. My exercises shift. My circumstances shift. The numbers on my scale shift. The people around me shift. My age shifts. Everything shifts while I stay the same.

Take, for example, vegetables. I have my raw vegetables plain, in juices, smoothies, blended salads, salads, chopped salads, salads galore. My go-tos for cooked vegetables include soups, stir fries with water, and steamed vegetables. Dehydrated vegetables, freeze-dried vegetables, and powdered vegetables serve as pinch hitters for my success and failure plans. Countless variations and endless permutations of eating vegetables.

Eating vegetables means new decisions and new experiences in every meal, every day. From savoring the delicious tastes and beauty of vegetables to working to get them in, every day feels different and takes on new meanings in me — one me, the same person, no matter what my size.

Eat When Hungry on the day I wrote this blog meant eating healthy foods on a holiday weekend, fighting fatigue, and reflecting about life.

To stay on track, I went out to eat by myself at my favorite restaurant and had a double serving of plain steamed vegetables and single servings of brown rice, fresh tofu, peanuts, and mixed fruit.

I was tired and just sat outside for a long time, finding joy in the view, weather, and food. Sitting with stillness in my soul.

Fighting the Shadows of Myself

Deep down, I still fight the patterns of myself. I have to eat the right foods to override the patterns of myself. Even with the right foods, I periodically wage war to battle my instincts that drive me to ignite explosive garbage food fires.

Eating junk foods adds gasoline to the fire that fuels me, triggering the all-consuming flames of overeating, binging, and devouring high volumes foods laden with salt, oil, and sugar. Times where throwing in the towel and thoughts of starting tomorrow rule the moment. Genetic codes programmed into me for my survival.

Beyond these fights, moments of morbid obesity still shadow my sense of self. Just recently, I wondered if I would break an exercise ball if I sat on it. Thoughts like this routinely surface in my life. Thinking about weight and how much space I take up remains a weight that takes up space in my mind. All these moments are a part of eating when hungry and the multifaceted experiences that go with it.

Through it all, I succeed and fail. Each day entwines successes and failures in my journey. I work to string together more successes than failures. And, that has been a winning strategy over time, and one I need to revisit in my current life. Living in a lane that gives me enough space to fail has helped me succeed beyond what I ever imagined.

Being realistic changed my life in positive ways. So did understanding that I was not broken, and I am not fixed. Enduring and ever-present truths of my journey – the constant balance of both sides of centering health and wellness in my life. To use Dr. Doug Lisle’s words about humanity from one of our Eat When Hungry episodes, I am “beautifully designed,” and I am a work-in-progress. We all are.

Eat When Hungry. Food decisions and much more. My answer is always the same, and my answer is never the same. A paradox that defines my life.

My Transform Shadows Framework for Change

This is the framework that I use to explain my ongoing mental processes to build successes and handle failures in my health journey and my broader life.

Naming my shadows honestly lives at the foundation of making any change. I have to start from a position of honesty in order to change myself. Being honest about binge eating was particularly challenging for me. Once I accepted that as my reality, I could face it.

Facing my shadows moves me from speaking my truths honestly to acting on these truths. For me, there is a distinct difference between naming and acting — largely because I lived for so long knowing what I should do and not doing anything.

Understanding my shadows allows me to act for success. Misinformation about health, wellness, and weight loss permeate society. A big part of my journey includes the process of uprooting misinformation. Understandings that I can feel from inside of me help the most.

Fighting my shadows centers the ongoing battles of working against my instincts and the constant pressures for unhealthy living from the world around me. Some days, the fight runs deep in what feels like a losing battle. Giving up was my action of choice for way too long. The verb nerd in me now centers action verbs – actions that have positive results.

Reframing my shadows redefines how I understand and perceive ideas, actions, and myself. I have learned to love foods I used to hate. I understand hunger and eating when hungry differently in myself. Learning to see myself, foods, and concepts in new ways has empowered me.

Transcending my shadows describes the state of living where all the changes seem effortless, normal, and natural. In this phase, I wonder how I could ever struggle. Perhaps most importantly, I feel a sensuality of wellness that permeates all aspects of my life. And, I always want to come back when I leave this wonderful place.

Losing half my weight and centering my health have been worthwhile and complex processes. Showing the successes and challenges is what my journey is all about. Follow along; I would love to have you join me in this life-changing adventure!

Cheers,

Tania Lyon, Ed.D.

For more about my health, wellness, and weight loss journey, check out my social media:

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