Fear of Starvation

Posted by admin on January 1, 2011 under Food Associations | 3 Comments to Read

Over the last 10 years I have put on an extra 40 pounds that needs to come off.  As the pounds crept in I bought a larger clothing size.  I found comfortable jeans and I figured I could live in them.   The 40 pounds was primarily the result of being very sick for a few years and I had no energy for exercise.  I would eat anything that gave me a quick burst of energy…sugar and lots of it. I had this very special relationship with a sweet roll I nicknamed the ‘Ooey Gooey Wonder’.

I am healthy now (thanks to Reference Point Therapy) and exercising 5-6 times a week at the gym.  My stamina and muscle strength is increasing but I still need to do the other part of the equation, drop those unhealthy 40 pounds in my abdominal area. I also know my liver and gall bladder was not working as well as they should.

A friend wrote to me recently about her dramatic weight loss using a diet called Body Ecology. I purchased the book and invested in all the gear and foods. This diet works to reset the organs and if you have a Candida problem the diet is effective at combating that issue. This is a difficult diet and it is especially hard for a vegetarian as soy and beans are not permitted for the first few months of the diet. Within a week I was noticing the difference. I felt clearer. I did not miss the sugar. My guts felt much better without the dairy and wheat. But I was not getting enough protein. The author of Body Ecology intimates that you should look at not eating vegetarian while doing the first phase of the diet. That was not an option for me. Within 3 weeks I was feeling really challenged and stressed by the diet. Vegetable soup at breakfast was not going to happen. Eating out was not possible. I was facing a very challenging holiday season. And I had managed to only drop 3 pounds. I was feeling very frustrated by a diet that required a great deal of work with very little payoff.

Now that Plan A was not working for me I moved on to Plan B. Plan B was to go on a calorie reduction balance diet without wheat and dairy (goat cheese and kefir are permitted) since I did not miss those and the elimination from my diet had created a physical change…sounded reasonable. I started Plan B and soon found myself in a cycle of self-sabotage. I would get to about 10 am in the morning and I would be so hungry I could not think. The hunger pangs took over my entire body. The same routine developed in the afternoon around 4:00 pm. I would go to the kitchen (one of the big disadvantages of working from home) and snack. I would snack on healthy food items. But nuts, pepper dip and chips made of edamame, flax seed, blue corn meal, etc. are not low in calories and I could not face one more raw vegetable.

I was triggering a feeling in my body that if I didn’t get that handful of nuts or chips I was going to starve. My body hunger was overriding my goals for a healthy weight. I have never experienced food deprivation so the fear of starvation was not from my current life experience. As I sat in reflection on this aspect of my dieting experience I remembered stories told by my ancestors of deprivation during the Depression Era of having only one small meal a day and often going to bed hungry. There was no food. Farmers were not growing food because they could not sell it.

Had that feeling of an empty stomach, experienced by my ancestors, created an association that was passed to me via epigenetics that was now linked to my instinctive fear of starvation? I sat with the feeling that had taken over my body and used Reference Point Therapy to clear that association. Over the last few days the pangs from an empty stomach have not overwhelmed me. I know my stomach is empty but there is not this overriding need to fill my stomach.

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