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 what was happening.
If I’d had a stressful day, sometimes what I really needed was to move.
Take a walk.
Breathe.
Go outside.
Do a little Qigong.
Anything that changed my state rather than feeding it.
And sometimes, ten minutes later, I didn’t want the food anymore.
Interesting.
Sometimes I Was Just Bored
This one isn’t terribly profound.
Eating is something to do.
You’re sitting on the couch. Nothing particularly interesting is happening. You wander into the kitchen.
Open something.
Eat it.
Go back to the couch.
I’ve certainly done that.
So I started experimenting.
When I caught myself heading toward food without much actual hunger, I’d do something else first.
Walk around.
Work on something.
Listen to music.
Call somebody.
Anything that occupied my attention for a few minutes.
If I still wanted food afterward, fine.
But quite often I’d forget about it.
Apparently I wasn’t starving to death after all. 😂
And Sometimes I Needed Water
This was another useful one for me.
Before automatically eating something, I’d have some water and wait a little while.
Not because water is some magical appetite suppressant.
I just wanted to separate I want something from I need food.
Sometimes I drank the water and still wanted to eat.
So I ate.
That’s important.
The goal wasn’t to trick myself out of eating.
The goal was to pay attention.
That’s Really the Whole Practice
I’ve become increasingly suspicious of anything that requires me to ignore my own body in order to follow somebody else’s rules.
Eat at this hour.
Never eat after that hour.
Fast this long.
Eat this many meals.
Never snack.
Always eat breakfast.
Skip breakfast.
Good grief.
What if you paid attention instead?
When you feel like eating, give yourself a minute.
Are you hungry?
Are you stressed?
Bored?
Thirsty?
Tired?
Or does that leftover steak in the refrigerator simply sound really good?
That’s allowed too.
Then make the choice.
This Got Easier With Time
I didn’t become some perfectly enlightened human who never eats for any reason except biological necessity.
That sounds miserable anyway.
Food is pleasure.
Food is social.
Food is part of living.
But I did get better at noticing the difference between hunger and wanting relief from something else.
That’s been useful.
And it fits something Peggy and I have learned over and over again.
Your body gives you information all day long.
You don’t have to obey every signal.
You don’t have to distrust every signal either.
You can get curious about it.
That’s what I wish I’d done years earlier.
Try This Tonight
The next time you find yourself heading for something to eat, don’t stop yourself.
Just pause for a moment and ask:
What am I actually looking for?
Food?
Relief?
Something to do?
A drink of water?
Or maybe you’re simply hungry.
Then respond to what you find.
That’s it.
Don’t track it. Don’t turn it into another damn program. 😂
Just get curious.
Do that a few times this week and see what you notice.
The next time you find yourself standing in front of the refrigerator when you know perfectly well you ate two hours ago, don’t beat yourself up.
Don’t declare war on snacking.
Just stand there for a second and ask:
What am I actually looking for?
Then listen.
You might be surprised by the answer.