Good Ole Extreme Hunger.

I came across an info-graphic on my Instagram explore page last week which made me chuckle. The post suggested that I spend a week noting down the different types of hunger that I notice arising. The challenge was to identify 8 types of hunger and the result of this would, apparently, be that I was more in tune with my body. Eye hunger. Ear hunger. Nose hunger. Mouth hunger. Stomach hunger. Cellular hunger. Emotional hunger and Mind hunger.

Sounds fun, right? And, so, for the next week...

I absolutely did not do that. That 'hunger identifying challenge' would be my response if I was asked: "what can you add onto a global pandemic to make your week even more lame?"

Although I can't deny my curiosity was peaked about how one would go about identifying cell hunger, staring at a wall seems like a more appealing activity to me these days, and so I forgot about this challenge. Until it came to writing this blog, that is, where I thought the lunacy was somewhat relevant.

From my initial response to the suggested challenge, you can probably guess that I'm not the biggest fan of prefixes to the word "hunger". The prefixes (along with that challenge) seem to imply that we should suss out and analyse our biological need for food. In my mind, (and experience), labelling just fuels further micromanagement and government over our own bodies. This micromanagement is simply not needed because, when left to their own devices, our bodies do a pretty awesome job.

And that's not an assumption. We see our bodies wonderful ability to self-regulate in so many other areas of our lives. For example, if my rate of breathing were to increase after doing an underwater length at the pool, I don't judge it to be 'extreme breathing'. It is just breathing in response to a deficit. If the number of times I pee in an afternoon is elevated because I drank a lot and wasn't able to use the bathroom in the morning, I don't coin it 'extreme peeing'. It is just peeing in accordance to my bodies needs. In exactly the same way, if my body requires more food, especially after a period of deprivation, there is nothing 'extreme' about it. It's just hunger. It is not excessive, or unusual. In actual fact, it is an entirely, completely, absolutely reasonable biological response to deficit.

I believe that the heightened awareness the entire recovery process calls for means that decisions we make whilst on our journey, (no matter how trivial), feel quite managed, deliberately exerted, and as though they need to be orderly. Those of you who have experienced Extreme Hunger will notice that these traits — managed, deliberate and orderly — directly contrast what the phenomena of extreme hunger is like. In addition to this, a biological response being confirmed to be 'entirely, completely, absolutely reasonable' makes little difference to an eating disorder. So long as a behaviour threatens the constructed restricting wiring cycle, 'appropriate' means nothing. Couple the highly irrational and selective-information-believing-illness, with haze-inducing malnourishment, it is no wonder the experience feels so terrifyingly intense.

What is it?

Hyperphagia, (the proper name for "extreme hunger") is driven by signalling mechanisms from both fat mass and fat-free mass. In ED recovery, you carry on feeling hungrier than usual until both types of tissue are fully restored. It is important to note that this sensation - of needing to constantly eat - can be felt at any time in recovery. It is not 'right' or 'wrong' to experience it persistently, in bouts, at the start, or nearing the end. Whatever your body needs, whenever, is what you should do your best to support it to have. It is not because you have lost all control, nor have you drifted into binge eating disorder; you are not doomed to “obesity.” Rest assured that if you keep going with your recovery, you will not feel this level of insatiability forever.

After an extended period of undernourishment, E.H is simply evidence that your brain and body are tugging at you to heal after emerging from a perceived state of perceived famine. Once the 'famine' is over, and full weight has been restored, the need and desire for feasting peters out.

(Side note: No, this does not mean that the permission to eat leaves. It just means that unrestricted eating may take on a different, less urgent, look.

What does it feel like?

If you are reading this blog, my guess is that you already know exactly how terrifyingly intense the drive to eat is when E.H hits. What I can assure of, though, is that this doesn't have to be a excruciating dual between your healthy mind and your restrictive mind. Why? Because your restrictive wiring cycle has no say in this. You have to let yourself eat. Case closed.

For most people, extreme hunger doesn’t come knocking on your door. Instead, it storms in violently, breaking down the most fortified gate. For those of you with vivid imaginations, think: Hagrid's entrance in the first Harry Potter. I've also heard Hyperphagia likened to a Tornado, consuming everything in its path, ravaging until it eventually weakens. I like this visual, because it captures how it eventually dissipates, leaving you devastated by what just happened, but nonetheless in a strange state of clarity.

Why does it happen?

As I alluded to earlier, this desire to eat and eat and eat, (often to the point of feeling uncomfortable) is a result of your bodies primal drive for survival. In response to your body enduring an extended period of famine, food seeming available again will activate a survival mode that looks to restore your health and prepare for the next drought. Your job is to allow the feast to happen, and then, give your body no reason to interpret this occasion of food abundance as a one-off. You need to let it know: "the famine is over" and this will be done with rest and food abundance.

As with most things in recovery, this takes time. 'Giving in' to extreme hunger once or twice is not enough. To develop the trust between yourself and your body, you need to consistently give yourself permission to eat whatever you want, whenever you want, how ever much you want. A solid guide for this will be your mental hunger.

On reflection, it's amazing

Had you asked me to describe extreme hunger in a few words when I was actually experiencing it, no sort of appreciation would have been my response. In reality, at the time, all I did was object, judge and question it.

Who wakes up in the morning craving cheese?? Is my continental ancestry showing? Why am I so drawn to this bag of nuts as if I was some sort of starved squirrel??

Why is granola still plaguing my brain, I've just had 3 bowls??

Why do I fancy hummus - I don't like hummus ?

Why am I not, whatsoever, interested in a single vegetable?

Well, I'll tell you why. My brain was smart and it was demanded energy. It was seeking food that packed a punch. See the cheese, the nuts the granola and the hummus? Is it a coincidence that all those foods are all highly energy-dense, highly palatable foods that my organs were desperate for and the ones I had been avoiding?

Nope! My brain knew I needed these foods to restore and it knew I was better off getting them fast. My body, thankfully and intelligently, didn't set its sights on anything less or anything more difficult to digest.

Although I was partly horrified, I also vividly remember how good it felt to be consuming food in good quantities. Both mentally and physically, it felt as though I could finally let go of so much stored up resistance and tension. On many days, I ate and ate and ate. 10 minutes later, I ate more. Of course, this initiated an almighty battle between my healthy brain (that was so comforted in this action) and my ED (which was mortified), but I plodded on and went to bed with a full stomach every night until more normality and less urgency crept back in for a while.

Sometimes after I ate in this way, I told myself that after that occasion, I wouldn't do it so 'chaotically' ever again. I shouldn't have just had handfuls of nuts, followed by handfuls of cereal, followed by slabs of chocolate whilst standing at the cupboard. That was unsavoury behaviour. I should sit down. I should portion it on a plate. My heart beating fast and my full stomach seemed to confirm that my critical judgement was right. Next time, I wouldn't let it happen in such an unstructured way...

But it kept happening. And something within me drove me to keep allowing it to. In retrospect, I am so thankful for the incessant drive to eat and the desperate, chaotic manner of doing so. It saved my life. A sarved squirrel doesn't need to sit on her perfect branch to enjoy her nuts. Neither did I.

What's the time frame?

As I mentioned at the start, there is no 'right' time to experience extreme hunger. I myself was comforted by the fact that many people seemed to experience the 'final push' phenomena, just before full weight restoration. Different bodies respond differently to starvation - and this is something we must all acknowledge on our healing journeys. This means all extreme hunger varies, there is no 'norm' and not everybody even experiences it at all. Don't allow this to be another thing that the ED 'uses' to fulfil its agenda of keeping you sick. You're better than that. Ignore recurring those thoughts about being a unicorn who is damned to experience E.H forever and don't engage in the thoughts which suggest E.H's absence means something is wrong.

If you have E.H, my best advice is to release all judgement of your body. It helped me to continuously remind myself that my body had one agenda and that was: to get me to a place where I would optimally function. I could have either spend my lifetime working against it, in turmoil, or trust the process and hope it brought me mental peace, no matter how long it took. In my view, a timeline or numerical figure doesn't have to be attached recovery and it may actually be safer without expectation. E.H can last for months. But it can last for a day. E.H can be persistent or it may come in bouts. It can also arrive in different forms, or simply manifest itself in the same way every time. There is no 'universal'. Whatever floats your bodies boat is what you must sail through. Once your body is nutritionally rehabilitated and your brain trained to understand that food is available for you whenever you want it, and in any quantity you desire, the pull to food, the “binging”, the obsession, they dissipate. It takes time, but it does fade. Perhaps sometimes you will laugh. Most likely, you will also cry. It may physically hurt. It probably will mentally burn, but rest assured, it will fade. Trust me.

And if you don't trust me, I get it.

After all, why should you? And so, I urge trust other people with lived experience of reaching the other side too. Every resource you will watch or read or listen to which subconsciously reaffirms the importance of fully honouring to mental and physical hunger will gradually increase the permission you will ultimately be able to give yourself. Every time you hear it, read it, watch it, I encourage you to note down how it is part of the process, how it is there to protect the body, how you shouldn’t fear it and how you should honour it. Then, read those notes every single day. Slowly but surely, your solid base of resources will help you overcome overwhelm and panic and allow you to succumb to your bodies tugging. I know from experience we don't miraculously “snap out of it”, because someone tells us something that, in theory, makes sense. But by hearing something validated over and over again, it eases some of the anxiety that stems from the unknown and we find our own way.

As hard and unpleasant and confusing this stage is, keep going - keep eating. Do your best to try and welcome extreme hunger, for it is there to heal you. Your body is joining in with those who have been imploring you to eat. The only solution is to let go.