I had been experimenting with actually responding when my body told me to "put down the fork." Whereas in the past, when I felt full, I would rationalize eating more (you haven't finished your plate, you paid for this food you should eat it, one more bite won't hurt you); recently I was trying, instead, to just do what my body said: put down the fork and stop eating.
The first time I did this, it was fine. After I had eaten at the restaurant, I went home. About an hour after eating, I was hungry again so I just grabbed something from the fridge, ate as much as my body felt like, and went back to what I was doing. A little later, I was hungry again, and ate some more food from the fridge. I did all of this somewhat unconsciously. I just went to the fridge when I was hungry and ate what felt right.
But another day, because I ate only what my body wanted at the time, I later found myself, out and about, and feeling hungry.
"Oh," I thought to myself. "This is hunger. This is what it feels like to be hungry, and to not have food to eat right here, right now."
"Hmmm," I thought to myself. "I do not like feeling hungry. I do not like the feeling of emptiness at the pit of my stomach. I want to go home so that I can fill the emptiness inside me. Also, I don't like the fact that I have to go home to do this. I don't like the fact that I have to wait, that I have to exist with this emptiness in my belly until I can find a place to eat."
And so I came home, and ate a lot. I ate enough so that my belly would be full for a long time. At the next meal, I ate a lot again- filling up to avoid any chance of that empty feeling in my stomach. I had an absolute fear of that feeling of hunger, of not having food to fill me up.
For the next few days, I ate each meal with the future in mind. I ate more than I wanted based solely on an attempt to avoid that feeling of emptiness in my stomach. I also rationalized this behavior. I concluded that this whole "being present to what you're hungry for right now" wasn't all that doable in today's society. I decided that there was a reason we finished our plates, that we ate more than we actually wanted. We needed to eat more so that we could make it to our next meal.
After a few days of this, I started to notice that I was being silly. As I walked around my school, I noticed that there was food everywhere. I also knew that I had snacks in my bag that I could eat between meals. I also knew that at any time, I could walk across the street to the corner store, and grab a sandwich or a bag of chips. I didn't actually need to eat to avoid hunger. Anytime I felt hungry, I could probably eat. I might have to wait a little bit, might have to have a little bit of experience with that emptiness, but not for very long and, honestly, probably not at all.
And then I thought about that first day when I put down the fork- how I had gone to the fridge when I was hungry and eaten only what my body felt like eating at the time, and then stopped, and how I had come back several times throughout the afternoon- eating just enough to meet my body's needs. And then I thought about oryoki and I thought that I remembered that it meant something like "just enough." I thought about eating only what my body wanted, right then, right now. And I thought that this made a lot more sense- that I would feed my body what it wanted- just a little bit- and then feed it again when it wanted some more. It was like I was being present to my hunger and only giving it what it needed in that moment. Sure it was inconvenient, maybe it wasn't efficient, maybe it didn't work with my schedule, but it still seemed doable and it actually felt good.
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