Weirdly hungry.... then not!

Ever notice some days you are starving, will eat anything, the junk food in the office (that's been lying around for days) or things you don't even like, whereas other days the tray of bagels and donuts and pastries don't even catch your eye at the morning meeting? Well, me too. Now I think some of it is lunar: your monthly cycle, your hormones, your sleep patterns (when tired I troll for food as ready energy) and of course your workouts. But other times it's emotional. I get stressed to the point of not even wanting food. I want to solve my work problems, workout and get home where I can see the fam and those days of hyper speed, it's as though I am on autopilot, and don't even remember food exists. 

Recently I got a nutrition program from a triathlon source that suggests just as you cycle through your workouts from easy to hard to easy again (called periodization) there may be some logic to the body's natural periodization in food. I love this since it makes sense of why I naturally go through the ravenous to satiated cycles. Watch a kid eat over time: some days they barely pick at their pasta and other days they eat their steak and then yours. It's the same with me. In a week I get the nutrients I need, I get the sugar and sweets I crave, and the protein and fiber and all nature of ingredients that do a body good. But it's never in the three-square meals and a couple of snacks pattern. I just am unpredictable and that is fine. 

I would suggest that in the bathroom you ignore the scale for a week and in the kitchen you follow your inner desires and eat instinctively and you'd be surprised how the body takes care of itself, if you let it and get out of the way. Don't think about "what's eating me?" as a chance to stress eat and trigger "what can I eat?" feeding frenzy. Believe me I have experienced many a night of emotional tying on the feed bag. But now days I try to eat what i am hungry for, and nothing more. Dinners out, events with passed hors d'oevres, and other weird "food as entertainment" mash ups (movies and popcorn, flights and party mix, ballgames and beer, drives and chips, etc) can make it more difficult to cut through the external hunger cues, the static of the brain's radio channel, and just listen to your inner voice. But you can do it if you unlink these events. No one says you have to eat to watch or drive or be social. Just when you are hungry and when you want something to fill you up. 

Try it. Eat like a toddler. You will probably have the energy of one too!