What is Success?
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; this is to have succeeded.
I had a really good day yesterday, I had a phone conversation with a lady named Brenda who made me feel really special (thank you Brenda), so if you want to brighten someone’s day today, tell them what you think of them (obviously only if its something nice!). Also members were generous with their £1 coins and I was able to send homeless man some money to keep him fed and watered for a week or two hopefully, if I collect some more I’ll send him it next month to help him out again. He plans to write a book about his journey when he’s finished and all the money will go to homeless charities, now that’s admirable I’m sure you’ll agree.
January is a dark, cold month, which seems to be made worse because there’s been so much celebrating in December, and I think it’s probably the worse month for catching the “Curse of the Winter Hungries”
Some days I want to eat non-stop all day. One winter morning started with my
usual bowl of cereal, then onto fruit collecting from the kitchen. First a banana, a little later an apple, then a yogurt sprinkled with cereal for crunch. You'd think I'd be okay by now, but next came a pear, then a Weight Watchers toffee bar.
I thought about having some soup but I don't think I did. At that point I was pretty much over the morning hungries. For whatever reason, that morning I kept wanting, needing more.
I mentioned this to a friend and she said she'd experienced the same thing that day, so she too was trying to fill something.
Is it the cold winter air driving this urge to "stock up”? I think it's perfectly normal to experience this, so if you've been fighting the January eating frenzy, take heart. It's okay; you're not flawed. You can combat it by making healthier choices of what to eat.
Keep lots of ready-made snacks, such as cut up vegetables, but do eat them. It's not smart to buy apples and let them rot. Try a bite now and then; you may find those green peppers are actually quite tasty. A cucumber is a different kind of snack; cut them up and soak in vinegar and they're instant pickles.
Expect your appetite to change occasionally and don't let it rattle you. We don't hibernate but it doesn't stop us from wanting to eat a bit more this time of year.
Experiencing real hunger is a good thing, even a learning experience. By really getting hungry you can learn your degrees of hunger.
Degrees of Hunger:
* There's the slight idea of hunger
* The "maybe I should eat something" hunger
* The vague, not really hunger, but hey, I'll probably be hungry soon hunger
* All the way to the "I better eat something quick or there's going to be trouble" hunger.
We all have an entire range of hungers, just sit with your stomach rumbling and notice which it is this time.
Start by choosing a day, or time when you'll experiment with hunger. Weekends can be good, but if you're brave, go ahead on a workday and do a little homework on company time. The decision to do an exercise comes first, so first you plan ahead that when you notice you're getting hungry or thinking about eating, that's when you pull out your notepad and begin to take some notes.
What do you notice first about the sensation of hunger? Write it down. Is it a feeling, like a rumbling, gurgling, tingling or some other sensation in your stomach or some other part of your body? Notice where you feel it. Is it a sensation of emptiness or lightness, is it deep or shallow? Describe it in as much detail as you can.
Does the feeling cause other emotions such as fear or anxiety, danger, foreboding? What is hunger like for you, right now?
It could also be you see the clock, think it's nearly lunchtime and suddenly, yes, you're hungry. Then the "I'll never make it until noon" hunger pangs start, and the dips into the biscuit tin might begin.
Note the level of your hunger on a scale of 1 to 5, then the level of fullness from 6 to 10. Here's a scale you can use, but you can design any type you like.
Hungry Scale
1) Ravenous
2) Too hungry
3) Getting ready to eat, can wait but want to eat soon
4) Not hungry, but could eat.
5) No hunger
Overfull Scale
6) Eaten perhaps a bit more than I needed
7) Ate past full, but not uncomfortable
8) Uncomfortably too full
9) Way past too full, probably thinking about lying down
10) Holding my stomach and making sounds of a sick animal
On this scale, you want to stay around a 3 to 6, ideally, letting yourself become hungry, then stopping before you've eat past too full. It's a good training ground. There's no reason to think you won't experience hunger, since that's how you know when to eat, so playing with learning your levels of hunger helps to calm the hungries.
It's a tricky scale because you are obviously really hungry sometimes and other times you're sorta hungry, while other times you are way too hungry and should have eaten sooner. Only you know. This isn't scientific, just gauge your hunger so you know the difference between the idea of hunger and real "feed me" hunger.
Now, if you first notice your hunger and decide it's a four, you wait a bit. The idea is to learn to experience hunger, live with it for a minute; you won't expire. You're just going to wait a bit to see what the bigger hunger is like, remember?
Take this one step further if you are able, so you know you have truly reached real hunger, because anything above a 3 on the type scale I suggest above is likely a false hunger you could ride out. You don't have to rush to feed every hunger, it's not a pit you must fill. It's a normal thing, but sometimes it becomes bigger than us, or we let it seem as if it's bigger than us, and that's when hunger rules you, instead of you choosing when to eat.
Try this at least twice this week -decide in advance that you won't eat until you are hungry at least twice this week. Let me know what happens...
Have a fabulous day xx
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