How to Eat Food

This article about healthy eating habits has been making the rounds. It turns out that "normal" eaters follow four basic rules:

1. eating when hungry.
2. choosing satisfying foods.
3. eating with awareness and enjoyment, and
4. stopping when satisfied.

This is usually the way that I eat (although I do wonder sometimes if I'm being sufficiently mindful of my food.) Or rather, it's how I eat when I'm in a good mood. As I've mentioned on this blog before, my reaction to stress is to stop eating. Therefore, this comment really struck me:

What became clear to me immediately is that my eating is completely detached from my hunger, that in fact the hardest part so far is telling when I am, in fact, actually hungry.

That's how I feel under stress - either I'm not hungry or I tell myself that I can't eat right now, it's more important to get this other thing done first . . . and then it's the end of the day and I haven't eaten. Depending on the circumstances, I can go from normal attitudes about food to stressed-out attitudes in less than 24 hours. Which is a weird experience.

Food is so vitally important to us. I guess that's why we develop eating disorders. But nonetheless it's strange to think about all the different reactions that people have to such a basic thing.