One of the things I find really helpful about Ozempic is that it gives me the space to start looking at and unpacking my issues around food. Sometimes, issues I didn't even know I had.
This past week, I thought to myself that I would be happy if I was never hungry again. It took one of my friends pointing out how disordered that line of thought is. Of course it's healthy to be hungry! It's normal to have your metabolism kick in and remind you it needs fuel, or to have a specific craving when your stomach starts to rumble. It would be abnormal not to!
I feel like the wiring in my brain has gotten so wonky over the years that I may not correctly identify hunger at all anymore. I think that possibly the feeling I name hunger is actually feeling starving. I don't usually have (pre Ozempic) a rumble in my stomach that makes me feel like, "oh, I could eat"- but instead mine tended to be much more intense and carry a sense of urgency to eat something quickly. This would often lead to me grabbing convenience food or quick snacks.
Now, that being said, I have always had issues with hypoglycemia where if I ignored being hungry for too long, I'd start to get a headache and nauseous, and while it would go away for a while if I ate, it would generally come back later as a painful reminder that I really do need to pay more attention to my body.
While I've been taking Ozempic, I've had two episodes of hypoglycemia where I forgot to eat and didn't notice because I wasn't hungry. It's not something that I consider to be an issue with the medication, since it's been part of my life before. However, it's definitely created an awareness for me that I need to pay attention to my body's cues other than hunger as a reminder that I need to eat- or failing that, even to keep an eye on the clock to continue to eat my three small meals a day plus two snacks. It's also why I make a point of saying that it's important to eat enough to fuel your body and not only eat when you think you're hungry, because I may not be the only one who has a disordered concept of hunger, satiety, and all the other cues that go along with eating.
Taking a step back from our past perceptions can give us the opportunity to try and build healthier habits around eating. Do I really want never to be hungry again? No, I don't. What I was really feeling is fear of reverting to my old patterns. I don't want to feel that sense of lack of control that when I'm starving that I can't make good decisions about food anymore. I don't want to feel that intense sense of urgency that I'm eating to stuff my face instead of eating both for enjoyment and for fuel.
I like that Ozempic has given me the opportunity to take a step back from those abnormally intense hunger pangs that I suspect are part of my faulty brain chemistry issues. And I hope that over time, I learn how to manage and welcome normal feelings of hunger, and create healthier patterns. I'm not in this just to reach a healthy body weight and to deal with my diabetes and other health issues, but to develop a better relationship to food.
Obesity isn't like many other emotional coping mechanisms- we can't just stop eating because we have issues with food. We are going to face these choices every day for the rest of our lives. It's not realistic to assume we will never eat the things we love again. What we need to do is to find a way to change the way we eat, and the way we think about eating, so we can find a good balance for ourselves.
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