Eating in the Light of the Moon

Once, a long, long time ago, a prosperous farmer brought his pears to the marketplace. This was a fine year for pears, and his pears were so plump, sweet, and juicy that many in the marketplace gathered around his wagon to buy them. As he stood in the midst of the crowd, beaming with pride over his successful harvest, a woman wearing coarse clothing and tattered scarves approached the farmer and begged for some fruit. The farmer tried to shoo her away, yelling and cursing at her, but the woman would not budge.

Some in the crowd tried to convince the farmer to part with one of his pears. Others began to yell and shout at the woman and a great commotion ensued A market guard, concerned that the uproar would get out of hand, tossed the woman a few coins to purchase a piece of fruit.

All I needed was one seed,”said the woman as she proceeded to gobble up the pear. She then reached under her garments, pulled out a small shovel, and began to dig a hole in the earth. She placed a seed from the pear in the ground and covered it with dirt. She asked for a little water and a bystander fetched some from a shop nearby. As she poured the water over the newly planted seed, all eyes were upon these strange proceedings.

To their astonishment, a tiny shoot appeared out of the ground It grew steadily until it became a full-grown tree, with a canopy of green leaves. In an instant it burst into bloom and then was laden with luscious fruit. The woman picked the pears and passed them out to the onlookers who were entranced by this spectacle. When the fruit was all gone, the woman began to chop down the tree with her shovel, hacking away until the tree fell. And then hoisting the upper part of the tree upon her shoulders, she sauntered away.

The farmer, meanwhile, had forgotten his business and stood there with his mouth gaping. But after the woman had departed and he returned to his wagon, he noticed that all his pears were gone! “It was my pears she distributed!” he exclaimed as he inspected the pears she had presented to the crowd. He then noticed that the handle of his wagon had been chopped off. After much searching, he found it discarded in the corner of the marketplace. He now realized that he had been tricked and the pear tree he had seen cut down was in fact the handle to his wagon.

A woman who desires to be freed from her struggles with disordered eating must develop an ability to see through the illusion that only food can give her sustenance. Until she is able to distinguish physical hunger from symbolic hunger, she remains vulnerable to deception, like the farmer in the story.

Without the ability to recognize the difference between these two hungers, she will desperately cling to food or calorie counting and be unwilling to release her disordered eating patterns. Like the farmer who had a full wagon but an empty heart, she will continue to feel as though she doesn’t have enough to spare, that she can’t afford to let go of what she is doing with food.

Our minds can play all kinds of tricks on us, but out bodies never lie. If we are listening only to the promptings of our minds and not listening to the messages from our bodies, we can be easily tricked into thinking that we are hungry for food when it is something else we desire. And so we eat and we eat. Before we know it, the plate is empty, the pot scraped clean, and we are left feeling dissatisfied and angry at ourselves for having been so foolish.

Imagine that within us we all have two containers that we carry on our journey through life. One is a gourd-shaped vessel for carrying food and water, and the other is a heart-shaped basket for carrying all the things we need to make our life meaningful and fulfilling. The gourd is what we fill when we need physical nourishment. It is to be filled with food. The basket is what we fill when we need emotional nourishment. It is to be filled with attention, affection, appreciation and other “foods” for the heart and soul.

A woman with disordered eating patterns fails to distinguish one container from the other. When she she feels hungry, she begins to eat. Before she knows it, her gourd is bursting at the seams. But she finds herself still feeling hungry. She does not realize that even though the gourd is full, her heart basket is empty and needs to be filled. She must learn to distinguish one kind of hunger from the other.

There are really two different kinds of hungers, those that come from the stomach and those that come from the heart. The hunger of the stomach must satisfied with food, but the hunger of the heart must be satisfied with love, with emotional nourishment. Once a woman learns how to recognize the difference between her physical stomach-hunger and her emotional heart-hunger, her needs for food and her longings for emotional sustenance, and how to respond to them, she no longer has to worry about becoming fat.

Like animals in the wild, we all have a built-in gift from Mother Nature that tells us when to eat and when to stop eating, when to drink and when to stop drinking. In their natural habitat, there are no fat zebras, cheetahs, or giraffes. Even hippopotami are just the size they were meant to be. Left to their own devices, these animals grow into the size that is right for them. They eat in response to the internal, instinctive signals they receive from their bodies. They eat when they are hungry for food and stop when they are full.

Some domesticated animals, however, can become overweight because Mother Nature’s messages have been preempted by the messages from our culture. They learn, just as we have, to respond to external rather than internal cues. They eat because it’s “dinnertime,” because others are eating, because it tastes good, because food is a reward for being “good,” or because they have learned that being fed means they are loved.

Like all animals in nature, we are born with the ability to know when we are physically hungry. As young babies, we cried and demanded to be fed, not according to the clock or our parents’ schedules but according to when our bodies needed to be nourished. A feeling of emptiness in the stomach let us know that it was time to eat. But this pristine and simple process became increasingly complicated as we were expected to accommodate the needs of others, first our families, then the larger culture. We were taught to stop listening to our internal signals, to disregard our inner authority, and, instead, to pay attention to external cues. We might have been instructed to eat with our families whether we were hungry or not. We might have been punished for not eating what was on our plate, even if someone else had decided what and how much to put on it. We might have been prodded to eat when we weren’t hungry in order to be free from guilt over “the poor children starving in China.” We might have eagerly become members of the “clean plate club” so we could get some dessert.

Eventually we stopped listening to the quiet, soft whispers of our bodies, and were left able to recognize only the more blaring messages like “I’m famished!” or “I’m stuffed!” We forgot about our gift from Mother Nature and became caught up in the illusion that our bodies can’t be trusted and must be either ignored or controlled. We lost trust in our own true nature.

The path to recovery from disordered eating inevitably leads us back to a place of attunement with our bodies, a place where the wisdom of our bodies is honored and our trust in them restored. To get there we first must learn how to listen.

I have found a couple of body awareness exercises to be helpful for getting back in touch with those physical sensations that tell us when to eat and drink, and when to stop eating and drinking. Thirst, like a need for food, is a kind of physical hunger, but I have found that the signals for thirst are less likely to get entangled with heart hungers and, for that reason, are easier to begin with. For these exercises, I suggest you drink only water and drink only when you are thirsty.

Next time you begin to feel thirsty, ask yourself, “How do I know that I am thirsty? What is the physical signal that is telling me I am thirsty?” You might be able to recognize a signal such as a dry throat, a dry tongue, or some other physical sensation.

Then ask yourself, “Okay, how do I know when to stop drinking once I have started?” This answer may not come as quickly, but it is important to understand that there is a very specific physical sensation in our bodies that tells us when to stop drinking. This sensation can be different for different people. For one person it may be as soon as her mouth no longer feels dry; for another, it may come when she feels a certain coolness in her throat. What is important is that you recognize what your particular signal is. Keep paying attention in this way until you are certain of your physical thirst signals, those that tell you that you need to drink, as well as those that tell you when it is time to stop.

For most of us, the signals of thirst and quenched thirst are identified much more easily than hunger and fullness signals because we have received less pressure to ignore those messages. But the same basic exercise can be applied to help you rediscover you food-hunger signals.

Ask yourself, “How do I know when I am hungry? What is the physical sensation that tells me I am hungry?” It is not unusual for some women to respond, “I feel light headed and dizzy,” or “My stomach starts growling loudly.” That is not the signal for hunger, that is the signal for famished! The signal for hunger is much more subtle. It is important to recognize the difference between feeling hungry and feeling famished because if you wait to eat until you are famished, the chances of your overeating are great. You will then say to yourself, “See, I can’t trust myself to eat when I am hungry!” and begin to feel very discouraged and out of control. You will most likely not allow yourself to eat again until you can’t stand it any longer (because you are famished), and then you will once again overeat, setting up a vicious cycle of discouragement.

The physical sensation for hunger is different for different people. Some people identify it as a tightness in their upper torso, others as a hollowness in their belly, still others as a tension in their chest. It is important to recognize your personal signal, not to look for someone else’s. With practice it will become a very clear, unmistakable signal that you will recognize in its most subtle form.

The second part of this task is to identify what fullness feels like to you. Once again ask yourself, “What is the physical signal that tells me when to stop eating?” Many women are stunned by this question because it has been so long since they listened for this signal that they don’t believe it exists. They need to be reassured that we all have a fullness signal, but for many of us it is buried beneath a whole pile of other messages such as, “I should stop eating when my plate is empty.” Some women can only identify the sensations that comes after fullness: “When I can’t eat another bite,” or “When I can’t move.” This is not full. This is stuffed. The signal for being full is much more subtle but with practice will become unmistakable. In fact, you may eventually learn to recognize not just the physical sensation that tells you that you are full but the physical sensation that comes just before it, the one that tells you, “One more bite and I will be full.”

Apply the same exercise for learning to recognize your thirst to learning to recognize your hunger. Whenever you reach for something to eat, ask yourself, “What is the physical sensation that is telling me I am hungry? Where in my body do I feel it?” If you can only recognize the sensation for famished, that’s okay. Start with that. Take a few bites then ask yourself, “Am I still hungry?” If the answer is “Yes,” ask yourself, “How do I know? What is the physical signal?” You may no longer feel famished but you’ll recognize that you are still hungry. Look for the specific physical sensation that is telling you that you are hungry. Locate it in your body. Take a few bites and then see if it is still there. Keep taking a few bites at a time, continually asking yourself, “Am I still hungry?” (identifying your physical signal every step of the way) until the answer is “No.” Then look for the specific physical sensation that is telling you that you are full and locate it in your body.

It is important to identify your signals as specifically as possible (not something vague, like “I just feel hungry” or “I feel empty” or “I feel satisfied”) and locate where in your body you experience them. You need to be able to describe them in physical terms. Do you feel a warmth or a coolness? A smoothness or roughness? An expansion or contraction? A movement or stillness? A heaviness or lightness? A loosening or tightening?

Imagine that you have just met an extraterrestrial who has come to our planet for a couple of weeks to promote world peace and needs to learn to eat and drink in order to survive. This E.T. is asking you, “How do I know when to eat and drink? What does it feel like? How do I know when to stop?” What would you tell her? What specific physical sensations would you describe?

A woman beginning her journey toward recovery from disordered eating may feel discouraged when she is unable to recognize her physical signals right away. She may begin to feel like there is something wrong with her or that she is failing. That is why it is important to remember that finding those signals can take weeks of concentrated focus and attention. She needs to be reminded that while she may at first be able to identify only the very loud and dramatic signals of “famished” and “stuffed,” in time she will develop a more refined power of discernment. More subtle signals will reveal themselves to her.

Without diet books, calorie counters, fat charts and the like, she will find that the inner wisdom of her body will guide her toward those choices that are most truly nourishing and healthy. She will be astonished to discover that her internal “computer” provides her with far more accurate information about her needs and desires than any other external source might provide. She’ll learn that her body itself will assess not only how many grams of fat she’s consumed or calories burned, but that it will also take into account her metabolic rate, the amount of sleep or exercise she gets, where she is in her menstrual cycle, the amount of stress she has been experiencing and much, much more. She will discover that she does not have to do any fancy calculations or analysis: all she needs to do is get to know and trust her body.

As she learns to trust her body signals, she discovers that if she eats when she is physically hungry and stops when she is full, she can eat what she wants and not get fat. The only criterion she needs for eating is physical hunger. She no longer needs to worry about fattening foods versus dietetic foods, good foods versus bad foods. If she eats something high in fat, her body knows it takes longer to digest fatty foods and will not signal her to eat until much later than usual. As she allows her body to be her guide, in time she will find that it will steer her toward those foods that are more nutritious, that make her cells sing. Her body will only want what it really needs, not what other people say is good for her.

Understanding how different foods affect her body can be helpful for a woman who is trying to eat in response to her physical appetite. Most of us do not have work or school schedules that allow us the flexibility to eat at any moment we feel hungry. We need to know a little about how our body processes the foods we eat so that we can use food to accommodate our busy lifestyles rather than centering our lives around food and eating.

If, for example, a woman decides to have a jelly doughnut for breakfast, her blood sugar is going to rise very quickly and then drop dramatically shortly thereafter. The simple sugars found in the jelly doughnut are digested by her body very rapidly, and she will find herself feeling hungry again within a fairly short period of time. If instead of a jelly doughnut, she has a piece of whole wheat toast with some jelly on it, her body will respond differently. Although her blood sugar will rise quickly because of the simple sugars in the jelly, it will drop more gradually because the complex carbohydrates in the bread take longer to digest, and it will take longer for her to feel hungry again. If she adds some peanut butter to the toast, she will get yet another response from her body. The simple sugar in the jelly will bring her immediate relief from her hunger, but the fat and protein in the peanut butter will be digested even more slowly than the carbohydrates in the bread, lengthening the amount of time until she is hungry even further.

As we pay more attention to what we eat in terms of how long it takes us to digest certain foods, we can plan our meals accordingly. If you are hungry but plan to go out to dinner in a couple of hours, you might choose to eat something that will satisfy your hunger (like an apple) but not something that will take awhile to digest (like a cheese sandwich). If you are not hungry at breakfast time but know you will be famished before lunch, take something with you to snack on later (a piece of fruit, trail mix, crackers) that you have discovered will carry you until lunchtime but not leave you full. If, one morning, you know that you have a very busy schedule that day and won’t have a chance to eat for a good five hours, you might want eggs for breakfast so that you will have the fat and protein to carry you through. If, instead, you are planning to go out to an early lunch with friends, you might want to choose something lighter in the morning, such as some fruit or cereal.

Learning to eat consciously and to treat our physical hungers with respect rather than hostility (“I wonder why I am hungry now?” rather than “I can’t believe I am hungry again!”) is an important part of the recovery process.

For many women who have struggled with disordered eating most of their lives, there is nothing more terrifying than the concept of eating whatever they want. They truly feel that left to their own devices, they would destroy themselves, that if they dared to trust their physical appetites, they would go spinning out of control. They need to understand that it is not their physical appetite that leads them to overeat, but the deprivation they experience in other aspects of their lives. As they learn to appease their emotional hungers with something other than food and to eat only when physically hungry, their appetites will no longer seem so dangerous.

One of the first dilemmas a woman learning to eat in accordance with her physical appetite encounters is “What do I do if I am eating something that tastes absolutely delicious and I feel full before I can finish it?” In the past, she might have said, “Tomorrow is a diet day, I better eat this now,” and then quickly gobble it down. As she learns to respond to physical hunger more appropriately, she may choose instead to save that delicious food for when she feels hungry again or allow herself to select it the next time she is hungry. Eventually, she may surprise herself by eating only half a candy bar and saving the rest for later, or by having two Oreo cookies rather than the whole bag. Food then becomes just food and not something forbidden, sinful, or rewarding.

Once we are able to stop seeing food as our enemy, we find we can use it to learn more about our emotional state. We begin to see that our favorite binge foods speak to us and for us. When we learn to listen carefully and decipher what our food choices have to say, the information can be quite revealing. Certain qualities in foods can be associated with certain feelings or with the suppression of certain feelings. For example, women who crave warm foods such as soups and stews are often longing for emotional warmth in their lives. Those who crave sweets may either be missing sweetness in their lives or be trying to make themselves “sweeter.” A craving for spicy foods may indicate a need for intellectual or emotional stimulation, a desire to spice up one’s life. Crunchy, salty foods are often associated with frustration or the need to express anger. For many women, chocolate carries images of love or forbidden sexuality.

Playing with the symbolic meaning of food can help reveal troubling feelings that for one reason or another have been kept out of our awareness. If a woman finds herself craving a particular food and determines that she is not physically hungry, she can be certain that it is her heart basket that needs to be filled. Knowing that this food is holding an emotional charge for her, she may ask herself, “What is the feeling I don’t want to feel? What might be bothering me? What feels out of balance in my life?” If this line of inner searching leads nowhere, she can then turn to the food she craves to give her some clues.

Instead of forbidding herself from eating the food or wolfing it down to quickly dispel her guilty feelings, she needs to eat it very slowly, deliberately, and consciously, asking herself with each bite, “What is it about this food that I like so much? What are the qualities I find so attractive? What is it about the taste, the texture, that is so appealing to me? What memories does it evoke?” An example of this inner dialogue might go something like this:

Appreciating the way foods act as metaphors for our deepest longings and concerns can move a woman far along the path of recovery. As she pays attention to her cravings and the images they evoke, she can bring unconscious feelings and desires into the open. She can gain a better understanding of what the real issues are that she struggles with, an understanding she might not have obtained if she had continued to deny herself those foods.