It's been 13 months since my surgery, and it's taken me this long to really figure out the difference between feeling "empty" in my stomach, and actual hunger. It occurs to me that I don' t like the empty feeling much and in the past, I would shove food down my throat to cope with that feeling. I've discovered that there is a big difference between empty and true hunger.
I guess I'm a pretty slow learner. Maybe if I'd worked more closely with a counselor or nutritionist, I would have wrapped my head around this earlier in the process. The good news is, I'm consciously on to it now and looking out for it. Not to say that I still don't have times where I'm needlessly feeding the "empty" feeling, but I'm not unconsciously gorging myself anymore.
What I've determined for myself is that true hunger is painful. Hunger makes me grumpy, and I can't think of anything except food. Sometimes I even feel lightheaded if I'm truly hungry. For the record, hunger is pretty rare for me. I'm not one of those girls who conveniently "forgets to eat". Also, I don't live in a third world country, so there is that.
Empty for me is a kind of knawing feeling that is just uncomfortable for some reason. Psychologically, I just don't like it. I believe I've conditioned myself to "feed" that feeling. I'm trying my best to recognize this feeling now, and I use water to hydrate and fill my stomach when it hits. I feel better when I'm well hydrated, and I feel better when my stomach isn't completely empty.
I'm teaching myself that empty is okay. One day at a time.
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