I’ve stood in front of the refrigerator plenty of times when I wasn’t hungry.
Maybe you have too.
You ate dinner. You had plenty of food. There is absolutely no sensible reason you’re standing in the kitchen at 9:00 at night staring into the refrigerator as though something new might have appeared since the last time you looked.
But there you are.
I’ve done it.
One night I caught myself with my hand on the refrigerator door and realized something.
I wasn’t looking for food.
I was looking for something else.
That little moment changed the way I started thinking about hunger.
Because sometimes I’m hungry.
And sometimes I’m stressed.
Sometimes I’m bored.
Sometimes I’m thirsty.
Sometimes I just want something because eating something sounds good.
Those aren’t the same thing.
I Started Asking a Different Question
Instead of immediately asking, What do I want to eat?
I started asking:
What am I actually looking for?
That’s it.
No protocol.
No app.
No hunger scale from one to ten.
Just enough of a pause to notice …
