Hunger Pains and Frozen Nose Hairs

I have no recipes to share tonight, just a few thoughts on the topic of hunger. One of my coworkers and I got into a conversation last week about food and hunger and how hard it is to actually pay attention to hunger signals, like an empty stomach or the sensation of fullness. If I'm honest, I don't think I pay too much attention to either of these in my eating habits.

So... My coworker and I decided to try a little experiment this week for three days. We decided that we would only eat when we felt a literal hunger pain and we would go carefully and stop as soon as the hunger pains went away. We were curious how much more often we would have to eat and if, at the end of the day, we would wind up eating less.

To my surprise, this has been EXTREMELY difficult for me. Also to my surprise, it hasn't been the waiting for hunger pains that has been hard, it has been stopping when they go away! I'm not sure why this surprises me, but it does. I find that I have a super strong desire to continue eating even after I feel satisfied. Perhaps I am used to feeling overly full? Perhaps it is just fun and enjoying the way things taste is a form of entertainment? Perhaps it just bugs me terribly to leave a 1/3 of my meal on my plate and feel that I have wasted food? I have no idea. But this has been an interesting revelation.

I've also found that my psychological desire for food sometimes outweighs my physical hunger. Today I was having hunger pains around 3pm, enough to be uncomfortable. But I did NOT want the carrots and hummus that I had brought as a snack. So I just didn't eat anything until I could get home and devour a handful of dry roasted macadamia nuts. Interesting... I'm hoping I'll be a little more aware after this of what is going on inside of me when I reach for a snack or plow through my lunch.

And lastly, I just needed to post out there into the great, wide world that it is RIDICULOUSLY cold here!! Maybe the coldest it has ever been since I moved to Colorado. Cold enough, yes, to freeze your nose hairs when you go outside, which results in a funny tickling prickling sensation that makes me wrinkle my nose like a rabbit while I am trying to get to my car. Yesterday we had a "High" of -7 degrees with a wind chill factor of somewhere around -30 degrees! This morning, for fun, my coworkers and I tossed cups of hot water up into the air just to watch it turn instantly to powdery snow. (SUPER fun!) Below is a picture of some girlfriends and I who braved the cold last night to get together and watch a movie. We watched it under blankets with hoods on and hot tea just because it took me 45 minutes to get warm after being outside for 5 minutes!



That's all. Those are my deep thoughts for the day. Hope you have a lovely evening!