Emotional vs. Physical Hunger

I've lost 4 lb. since New Years! Wahoo!

I should be thrilled, right?

Hmmm...that's actually a very good question and right now I don't know the answer.

Although this blog started out as a "weight loss blog" in December 2008, the truth is I'm not very overweight…I've never been very overweight. I've discovered that my problems are mostly emotional.

As a former bulimic, I have a terribly distorted body image. As the result of some wonderful advice from other bloggers I've started therapy. And in the past 9 months, this blog has become less about my weight and much more about my therapy, my childhood, my relationship with my mother, and occasionally the boring minutiae of my life.

My weight has stopped being the main focus of this blog. I really feel like I'm in a better place than I was 9 months ago. But...my weight is still the main focus of my life. I'm still obsessed with my weight. It's the first thing I think about in the morning, and the last thing I think about at night. It colors every experience of every day. Whenever I meet anyone, the first thought in my mind is to wonder if that person thinks I'm fat.

Yup, I still have an eating disorder.

For my whole fucking life, I have been literally ravenous. Ever since I was 12 years old, my life revolved around a desire for food but a also a desire to not eat food. Food was my best friend and my worst enemy. But my main quest was to be thin, by whatever means it took.

During my last session with Dr D on Wednesday, I came to a realization. The only thing my mother and I did together during my teenage years was…diet. It was the only way I could get my mother to pay attention to me, the only way I could get her approval. When we starved together, we were "girlfriends." She wasn't mean to me while we were dieting. It was something we had in common and we could talk about all the details of whatever diet we were on at the time, and commiserate on how awful we felt while we were starving ourselves. We had regular weigh-ins where we would compare how much each of us had lost.

Most of all, I just remember being hungry all the time. But I couldn't eat, because Mom and I were on a diet together. Sometimes I'd snap, and binge when she wasn't around. Of course then I'd need to do something drastic to offset the binge so it wouldn't show up on the scale...so she wouldn't find out that I had been eating.

Other than that, I never had a "real" relationship with my anorexic, possibly BPD mother. I developed an emotional hunger which was probably stronger than any physical hunger. I think I ended up with a combination of both.

Since I've been going through therapy and blogging, it's helped alleviate much of the "emotional hunger" that I had for so many years. I'm no longer ravenous all the time, but a new twist has emerged.

I now weigh 165, which is a good weight for someone 5"10" tall. Yes, I've already lost 4 lb. since New Year's; my goal for 2010 was to lose 7 lbs. So I'm 3 lb. from the NY goal, which was supposed to be the loss goal for a whole year.

The problem now is…I'm not hungry.

I don't recognize feelings of real physical hunger. I don't know when to eat or how much to eat. So I find myself not eating at all. It's easier, since right now I don't trust my body's hunger. It's not real to me yet because the emotional hunger was the stronger of the two my whole life. I don't know if I'm hungry or full or something in between.

Right now, I'm not eating much, because I don't know how. My mind doesn't really recognize physical hunger. What does real hunger feel like? I don't have a clue. So I haven't been eating until I reach the point of being shaky or almost ready to pass out. Right now that's the only way I recognize hunger.

Isn't it funny that you work towards fixing one problem and you end up with another? I have to admit I have mixed emotions…I'm loving the fact that I'm not hungry and losing weight...but I also recognize that this is probably the flip side of compulsive overeating. It's still an eating disorder. It's still not healthy.

Dr D is concerned, and temporarily we're meeting once a week, rather than every two weeks. I need to get a handle on this new unexpected problem.

I'm certainly not asking for sympathy for this weird problem. When I read some of the inspiring weight loss blogs, I realize my problem is small by comparison. But I want to be normal. I want to be able to recognize real hunger. I want to live a healthy life.

I know I will figure this out. I'm nowhere thin enough to be concerned yet, but I need to get this new mental aberration under control before it becomes a real physical issue. But I know I can do it. This is just a minor blip on the radar.