Mental Hunger

It barks like a dog

Mental hunger is a niggling obsession, intense infatuation and completely relentless focus on food. It doesn't necessarily have to involve actually eating food however (although sometimes it is indeed this clear cut...). Sometimes it manifests itself in thinking about the logistics of eating food, like how much and when and what compensatory behaviours you have to perform before you can eat that food. Either way, mental hunger is like inner thought loop that won’t shut up. It's like the neighbours dog yapping from sunrise, to sunset. The only difference is that it's all in your head and only you can hear it.

The dog won't stop

You can try to ignore it, of course. You can try to divert it or distract it or interrupt it. But, my guess is that you've probably noticed by now that doesn't really work. It follows you. And why is this? Why isn't it tamed with your judgmental suppression? Why can't you just decide you don't want it an leave it at that?

Because you are experiencing this for a fucking reason. It's not there to be diverted, distracted from or interrupted. It is your bodies way of trying to save your life. So long as it needs to happen, no matter how much you despise it, I'm so glad it's poking and nagging and spinning you. Not because I don't like you, but because I want you to recover. And it's just my luck! Because it will continue so long as your brain perceives that you are restricting.

What does it want?

After an extended period of undereating, my mental hunger had a very long shopping list of foods that it wanted, needed and craved. Fruit and veg were not on it. Neither was light yoghurt, almond milk or protein bars. No Sir. It wanted hummus, cheese, peanut butter, eggs and cereal, cookies, ice-cream, toasties and... more peanut butter. It didn't just want this once, or for a few weeks. To my eating disorder's horror, it wanted energy dense food it in large quantities, frequently and for a while. Even when my stomach protested its fullness, my mental hunger only rolled its eyes and nagged me to eat more. It took some time for me to really grasp this, but it is what I had to listen to if I wanted to fully heal. It is exactly what you need to do too.

When does it want it?

NOW.

Once I had accepted the mental hunger, and finally understood it was more than just a tedious looping of nuisance meaningless thoughts, my learned tendency to overcomplicate how and what and when to eat fizzled. The ED judgement was, of course, still present for some time, but by this point, I felt so exhausted by the relentless mental nagging to eat that I heard the ED hullabaloo and failed to respond. I figured my head was in a state of turmoil either way; it was either to be fuelled and on my way to healing, or unfuelled and submerged in my brain's mental hunger clamour.

If I were to create a list of my 'Top 10 Unnerving Activities I Ever Did', listening to my whining mental hunger would take the crown. Responding to my hunger meant eating after I had settled into bed for the night. It meant eating whilst I was running errands. It meant eating a whole fucking lot of the time. I make no attempt to hide the fact that it it was tremendously uncomfortable, or that took me several attempts to actually fully grasp what unrestricted eating even was. After all, I was deviating from a well-used cycle. Many times I considered myself doing unrestricted eating excellently...until I noticed I could do better a few days later. Finally, when I understood (and practiced) that there was no ceiling on what I could eat, my brain began to calm. I was consistently and generously fuelling it and it was feeling safer every day.

Unrestricted means if you are day dreaming about several slices of thickly spread peanut butter one toast, you get yourself exactly that. Or if find yourself thinking about chocolate, you eat a hell of a lot more than a couple of measly squares. Unrestricted means no upper limits.

Hard? Yes.

Avoidable? No.

But, what about a balanced diet?

I include this question because it's one I used to stew over daily. Is it ok — is it safe — to respond to mental hunger, even if all my mental hunger is asking me for is energy dense foods?

Yes. It is the safest thing you can do. Hear me out.

I now eat what I consider to be a very balanced diet. This is not because I am actively seeking to, but because my body has found balance without external force. It has learnt to self-regulate without my micromanagement, (which is really what it was trying to do all along with the mental hunger is was sending my way all that time!). Eventually, I noticed that the more I listened to and trusted my body, the more it trusted me. The more I readily responded to food thoughts, the less food was on my mind. I was not the unicorn, for whom my body decided: "Hey! you know what would be fun? Let's keep sending her persistent, nagging food thoughts even though we are safe now! LOL!". You won't be that unicorn either.

Oh the irony.

My ED's outrage at my lack of forcing balance made me really see how insidiousness it truly was. There I was - an individual who had been obsessively shovelling in a high volume of vegetables and other low-energy density foods for a very long time - and never once did my ED question if I was 'in balance' or not. Yet, come the point where I fancy and eat 3 bagels, all of a sudden up pipes the shrill cacophony of the ED orchestra with the a “balanced diet” anthem. That is Anorexia to a T. Selectively moral and shamelessly bias.

We have to counterbalance

If (somehow...) I placed all of the foods that I had consumed during my illness in boxes on a see-saw, the volume of low-calorie filler foods I had consumed would mean this side would be on the ground. In contrast, the high energy boxes would be up there at a 45 degree angle. The restriction (involving a disproportionate quantity of low calorie produce) meant I had swung way 'out of balance' and to 'correct' this, I needed to prioritise the energy dense side for some time.

Like a pendulum, once something has swung very far one way, it tends to swing very far the other way when it is let go. It doesn't just swoop back to the centre. When I let go and listened to my mental hunger, this is what happened. I ate exactly what I hadn't eaten enough of for a long time. Then, gradually and to my surprise, my obsessions with these foods dissipated. I started to feel like I would naturally like to bring a bit of fruit and veg back into my life. Without force and without obligation - it was just like that. I was back un-micromanaged 'balance'.

So, the take home message here is: if you have artificially tried to control your food intake, you have pushed your body out of balance. The only way to get true, unmanipulated balance back is to hand control back to the rightful owner — the body. No matter how much you don't trust it, it is the only way. If physical hunger is absent right now, that's beside the point. Mental hunger is your guide, telling you exactly what you need to eat and when. If it dictates ice cream at 9am, so be it.

What do I eat?

Your ED will condemn you eating more, or eating different. There no doubt about that. But, your ED's opinion isn't relevant, so, make the changes regardless. Mental hunger — driven by your incredibly complex and intelligent brain — doesn’t care what the dietician told you about 3 meals, 3 snacks being adequate. Your brain and body want better than adequate. Somehow, whether it be physically or mentally, your body will be begging you to consume more than more than enough. You have to figure out a way to tune into this. It will relentlessly yearn for more until you stop restricting food and until your body is the size that it was always meant to be. There is no dipping or diving under this. You have to eat whatever first comes to mind, without leaving space for this thought to be thwarted by the ED.

Eat the contents of your very, very initial thought

Allowing myself to eat whatever my first thought was is an art that took me little while to perfect. A suggestion such as“have ice cream with cookies,” was rugby tackled by the eating disorder almost before it had fully formed. Split seconds after it entered my cognition, negotiations started to happen...

"Erm. Maybe just pick 1 of those..."

“It’s too early for ice cream, wait until after dinner,”

"What until Mum's home so you can show her you're eating ice cream..."

Sound familiar? And a few seconds later, the ED intercession had pick up pace and the ice cream squeezed is out of the equation entirely...

"Why not have some low fat yoghurt instead, you like that, don't you!"

Before you know it, you have settled for the same old shit as usual.

Trust me, I get it, that's hard. But, I can reassure you that it does become easier and easier until the point it's no second thought. For now, you must catch your first thought and make a B line towards it without deviation. This initial thought is innocent. It is genuine. It is unadulterated. Eat the ice cream and cookies. No less.

Eventually, when your brain and body feel safe through consistent, authentic decision making, the disordered pathways rewire and the ambush ceases. The excuses stop coming and there is no internal mental assault on your choices. The mental hunger leaves you too, only appearing when necessary, but is met with no judgement due to your healthy mindset.

So, mental Hunger might indeed bark like a dog...

....but I promise, it's like a pet golden retriever. It's completely harmless, and will only bring you nice things. Respond to it's needs and it will shut up.