WAITING FOR THE GROWL

Hi there,

How are you all doing?

My behaviors are GOOD! Here I am stuck here with this bumm toe and I'm layed up in my room, foot elevated, with Cliff bringing me my meals in bed. Is this the life or what?

I guess you'd call what i ended up doing the last few days as SIMPLE RAW. Simple Raw is things your man can make, like a sliced raw veggie plate with raw nuts on the side, and simple smoothies.

Some people say raw is complicated. It doesn't HAVE to be.

It's such a TREMENDOUS relief to have stopped binge eating and to be CHOOSING RAW again, wow, it just blows my mind! Life is so amazing. One day everything looks bleak and hopeless. The next, there is hope. What a DIFFERENCE only a day...a few days make!

I always thought self control was a GIFT, but i think it's really a SKILL that we can acquire with a little training. The WDW seems to be teaching me self control.

I'm also working on portion control, a big part of the program. Today, I have the awareness that extra food doesn't really comfort me, and that by following my hunger/fullness cues, I can be free from compulsion.

Knowing that cooked food is not EVIL and ADDICTIVE, but made CLEAN by God...is a cool concept. I really like it. It gives you amazing FREEDOM to choose it, with blessing, should you desire.

But i consider myself priveleged and grateful to understand that raw is the MOST healing way to eat food. Physically, my body has been very, very UNHAPPY, and now that i am feeding it wonderful fresh raw fruits and veggies, i await pain-free days ahead! No more backaches & painful joints! Hurrah! The regular WDW folks don't get that priveledge eating their cheeseburgers and fries.

When and if i eat cooked, i'm going to ENJOY it THOROUGHLY...but in small portions, savoring, with gratitude! I am STOPPED binge eating for today! I undersstand that more food will NOT make my heart happy. No, my HEART can't be filled by what goes into my stomach. Today i know that I have to fill my HEART with comfort, communication, spiritually uplifting videos, love, understanding, sympathy, kindness, God's love, bible verses, gratitude, love for myself, prayer, etc... Food doesn't feed a hungry heart.

I'm trying to get my portions smaller since this is a goal of WDW.

For breakfast, i sensed a slightly hungry feeling, so I said yes to breakfast, though i thought twice about it and considered waiting until i was really hungry. But i decided to go with the flow. Better to keep to our schedule of morning shakes if i can at all possible. My darling Cliffy takes pride as the shake maker.

My hon made a wonderful shake of berries and bananas with some raw honey. Mmm, mmm! I usually drink 2 or more glasses, but I drank only 1 this morning sensing it would be enough, and knowing i had the 2nd glass on my bureau waiting for me all day for whenever i get hungry again. That was welcome new behavior. I didn't drink it until about 9pm!

For lunch, Cliff hand delivered a wonderful veggie plate of cut up raw celery, tomato, carrot, cucumber, red cabbage, with a little assortment of raw walnuts and almonds on the side. Am i a lucky girl! I sampled and rated each element of the plate. Mmmmm, raw veggies are freakin' delish when you're hungry! The carrots and tomato and walnuts tasted the best so i ate those first! When i felt like i'd had enough, i chose some grapes from the fruitbowl my honey had also brought up. The grapes were yummy in my mouth, and so sweet.

But it was bad food combining. My tummy didn't feel settled after lunch for quite some time maybe because of the grapes. I hate to feel nagging in my tummy all day. i like when it's good and quiet and doesn't yen at me. After breakfast, it was quiet for SO long, i loved it! What a relief!

Food combining and eating gluten-free at home continue to be a dominant practice in our household. We do it because it really seems to have striking benefits for digestion and inflammation. I need to remember this, and consider it.

But, i also need to be open to satisfying myself. I felt like a dessert after my veg plate and the grapes did hit the spot. I felt satisfied after lunch from them. But, then my tummy was funny.

Anyway, something to consider, food combining, and how it affects the rumble in my tummy, and how i feel between meals. And what's more important to me at the time... Do i feel settled in the belly? Do i feel nagging? What did i eat? If the thing i miscombined really satisfied me, am i willing to pay the price in grumbly belly for it?

I tried to wait until TRUE PHYSIOLOGICAL HUNGER (growling stomach) for lunch, but a growl never came, so about 30 mins after Cliff brought my lunch plate up, i decided to eat. I WAS hungry, but no growl. I'm so intrigued about this stomach growling thing. i don't think my stomach has ever growled a day in it's life! I'll try before subsequent meals to wait for a REAL growl, because it really didn't growl before lunch OR breakfast.

I enjoyed about 1/2 of the lunch plate. I knew i was getting full when i kept sighing. Sighing, we are taught in WDW, signals that we're getting full. How clever! I never was taught these things...!

Waiting for the growl is a different concept than other 'demand eating' programs that instruct you to eat when you're hungry. Waiting for the growl is ALOT LESS vague than just 'hungry.' I'm just hungry all of the time! No wonder i was eating all day on these kind of legalization plans whenever i had the slightest feeling of emptiness. Waiting for the growl is so specific, and pointed. When do you eat? You wait for the growl.

I'm finding that i have slight feelings of emptiness...alot. Today, I felt slightly hungry on and off for most of the day today. Kind of annoying, but it seems to leave when i question if it's for real. It could just be i'm digesting, or my tummy is testing me, "Aren't ya gonna FEED me?"

Maybe i'll get a growl tonight. We'll see!

I watched a WDW video this morning. In it, Gwen Shamblin, the founder of WDW with her crazy hair, says that we should eat anywhere from 1-3x/a day, a saucer-sized plate of food. That surprised me. That's not really much!

Yesterday i ate about 5x. After hearing that, i was more vigilent to wait for the growl. But since the teaching is based on regular food like fries and burgers with cheese and mayo and regular soda, I am going to have to readjust the teaching when it comes to simple low fat raw, or other lo cal things I might eat/want. I might experience the need for a different plate size eating God's more natural stuff.

Gwen promises that the longer we wait for true hunger, the more fat we burn up. Interesting! Enticing!

Unlike a car that needs fuel and we fill up when we have 1/4 tank left, Gwen teaches, we should wait until we are on E - totally empty - before refueling.

I'm working on it. Just as long as I don't faint again from low blood sugar, waiting...!

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THE GROWL ARRIVES7:11p.m. I just heard a growl! I don't know if it was GAS or my stomach!!! I think it was GAS!!! No, it kept going...it was definitely a growl!!!!

Time for din din? Now, what did i want?

Cliff was working and the fruit bowl and rest of the raw veggie plate and leftover smoothie did not appeal to me. Since i had to watch Americas Next Top Models downstairs, my FAVVV show, (our TV is downstairs) i ventured downstairs for my first meal since breaking my toe.

Grapes appealed at first and I made a big bowl, but soon, i didn't want anymore. Hmmm, what was i gonna do now? I opened the tupperware of baked cod and sniffed it. It definitely didn't match what i wanted. The baked sweet potato that Cliff had made earlier looked at me, so i said yes. Sitting down, it was delicious plain and cold from the fridge with the skin still on. I'm allowing myself to go with the flow, though i'm constantly trying to remind myself that raw is ultimate.

Cliff got home by then and we sat and chatted during his dinner. My belly was empty feeling, i felt miserable, I even cried real tears. I was hungry! Hungry and actually slighly faint and most definitely irritable and empty, though i'd just eaten some. "I'm hungry, Cliff!," I cried. Better to satisfy myself even without a growl than get angry and go binge. I'd only eaten a dry potato and some grapes (and 10 oz of smoothie in the morning and what amounted to maybe 2oz of nuts and calorie-free veggies for lunch). I was hungry. I finished the smoothie from earlier by rewhipping it up with an extra banana and a tbsp of almonds. It was good, but did little to quiet the empty feeling. I warmed up 1/2 cup millet with 1/2 chopped tomato, which was really delish and i savored with my eyes closed. It seemed to do the trick.

I got out of the kitchen, kissed Cliff good night, and retired upstairs. My tummy rumbled little digestion noises, but I felt satisfied.

I don't think the WDW people actually have these types of long extended meals, they are instructed to make it 15-20 mins tops, because they're eating small portions of caloric ribs and sour cream and butter on their baked potato and jelly and butter on their biscuits and cheesesauce on their broccoli. Fattier foods satiate quicker and longer.
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Waiting for the growl is a new skill. I'm finding that a need for food doesn't apparently always come as a growl, but can come as lightheaded, dizzy, irritable, even as far as faint, or just an empty feeling. Discovering all of this is fascinating! Feeling slightly hungry also comes frequently throughout the day, but if i acknowledge it and just move on, it seems to subside. It's probably "growing pains." My belly is testing me.

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I'm still soooo intrigued about the growl! I woke up this morning and searched myself. Was i hungry? Had i really overeaten last night? Was my stomach growling now? It wasn't at 7am. In fact, about 2 hours after we woke up, my stomach was feeling hungry! This was a happy discovery. That means, i don't think i did too badly at all yesterday, if i was genuinely hungry in the morning! There may have even been a little rumble!

When i was in the bathroom, mulling over my day, i considered my cooked dinner last night. Raw IS the most healing, I told myself again. That said, I enjoyed my dinner VERY much!

The most IMPORTANT thing to me? To STOP BINGE EATING PERMANENTLY. That's even MORE important to me than being raw. Because i WAS raw, but still binge eating. And THAT, my friends, is what led me to gain 100+ lbs back. Because when i stepped over to cooked, i was still a greedy greedy eating machine, only with cooked, you can't do that and get away with it like raw. And the more cooked you eat and the guiltier you feel for it? The more and more degraded the binges get, the more and more volume it takes to really do the binge job.

I've come to realize I don't have an EATING disorder. I have a HEART disorder.

Food can't fill a hungry heart. But GOD'S LOVE can.

I await more growls today!
xoxo michelle joy