Several years ago one of my close friends told me this story about her older brother, and it still pops into my head pretty regularly. One day when they were little, he dished himself up a bowl of ice cream and when their mom saw his bowl, she told him it was way too much.
After that, every time he’d ask for a bowl of ice cream, he’d say “I want too much ice cream.” For him too much was just a description of quantity. It wasn’t loaded with judgment. He hadn’t developed an overwhelming sense of lack or fear of not having enough.
When I first flirted with the idea of allowing myself to eat whatever I wanted, to stop dieting and restricting and depriving, it sounded incredibly dangerous. I assumed that I’d always want too much. I was afraid that I might be insatiable.
The thing is, when it came to ice cream or cookies, maybe I was. But I misunderstood something. I was insatiable precisely because I wasn’t hungry for butter and sugar. When I’m not physically hungry, no amount of pastries will fill me up.
The poet Jack Gilbert said:
Why do so many settle for so little? I don’t understand why they’re not hungry for what’s inside them.
I eventually discovered that that’s exactly what I was hungry for all along. And so too much ice cream would still never be enough.
Another coach recently offered this helpful question to use with clients: Am I hungry, or do I just want to eat? If you find that you’re not hungry and you just want to eat, see if you can pause and acknowledge to yourself:
I want something, and it’s not food.
You might still reach for something to eat, but I find that these momentary pauses are the first step toward creating a conscious relationship with your body. And yeah, yourself.
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