The 5 stages of Hunger

It was a typical Friday night for me and my man, sitting at home doing nothing. We decide to go in to town to see my mom and family, we get there and no one is home. So I call my little sister and they have all gone out for dinner. Well just great, we drove all the way here and now we just have to go home. It has been a few months that we have been on our real food journey, and I have been craving a burger. You know a big greasy burger with some salty fries and a pop. First off, I haven’t eaten Mc D’s in well over 4 months and I haven’t had any pop for much longer. So for me to have this craving, it wasn’t just a ‘well I could have one’ my stomach was like ‘WE ARE HAVING ONE.’ The kind of cravings that take over your whole body and you can’t think about anything else but what it is. So your thought process begins...

Stage 1: Bargaining

Well I haven’t had it in a long time, what will it hurt. I will just get one small burger, small fries and no pop. Yea no pop that will make it better. No I’ll just go home, I am not that hungry…But I really do want a burger…

Stage 2: Thinking facts

Then you remember about the article that told you that the pickles are made from 7 different ingredients. That the meat is pretty well made of nothing that is going to nourish your body, and that your know you’re going to be hungry in an hour. That last time you had one you had an upset stomach and you had to race to the bathroom as soon as you got home…

Stage 3: Tricking your mind

You try to convince yourself that you are starving and will die without it. You tell yourself, that no matter what you get it won’t satisfy you like that burger will. You think about the first bite and the salt on the fries, how can I not have it plus I don’t know how to make fries at home…

Stage 4: What else could we do

You think to yourself that you could just make a burger at home, yea that’s better. But wait, we don’t have hamburger, lettuce, mayo or anything else to go on a burger for that matter. Ok that’s fine we will buy it. So you rack your brain about the cost. Isn’t that what it all ways comes down to, money? So now your $1.49 cheese burger has now turned in to $20….

Stage 5: To do or not to do

So you convinced yourself that this is what you’re going to do. You’re pulling closer to it; you can see the big bright shining M like a beacon in the dark summoning you towards it. You look around at all the different restaurants and think, ‘I should not be down here’. You pull in to the drive threw…..

Now this is the deciding move, once you go into the drive threw there is no turning back. Skylar pulled up to the drive threw and pulled a little to the side. He looked at me and said “Now are you really sure you want to do this?” He looks at me, the gears in my head just going a mile a minute. Going through all these stages again in my head and a little out load, throwing a million different ideas at him. He calmly looks at me again and repeats “Are you really sure you want to do this?” I start to panic and the guilt sets in and I haven’t even done anything yet. I say… well it was more of a soft shout “NO! Get me out of here!” He pulls the car forward and we leave, with the golden arches in my rear view mirror, I feel better.

However my stomach is still growling, so to the super market we go. We travel down to the meat section, with our $10 budget in hand. Meat $7.00. Wait, that can’t be right I still need more things…

We spent the next hour wondering around looking at food, trying to figure out what we could possibly do to satisfy my craving. Pre-made burgers? Sandwich? Fish sticks? By this time, my stomach is so load I can barely think. We both just get to overwhelmed and we ended up, after over an hour or shopping around, leaving the store with sandwich meat.

We are going to have black forest ham sandwiches; we have all the ingredients at home. And I have been wanting to make mayo for a few days now, this is the perfect time to try. Well 11pm is not a very good time to try and use your food processor, especially when you live in a basement suit. Ok no mayo, and the bread if frozen….

Anyway, we ended up having these super awesome delicious sandwiches and we both felt very good about our decision to stay healthy.

We have both come a long way, I know it doesn’t sound like it but we have, but we have. When Skylar and I first started dating we used to eat at Mc D’s at least twice a week! We did that for years, and when we decided to make the change to real food, we cut it out cold turkey.

We cut out eating out at all! I decided that learning to cook and make food that not only nourished our bodies but made us feel good, was way more important. It has been hard; I am not going to say that it’s super easy when it’s not. But since we have switched we have both noticed huge differences in lots of aspects of our life. We feel more energized, we don’t really get headaches anymore and when we eat we just plain feel better. Skylar has been struggling for a while with his stomach, whenever he eats his stomach goes rock hard and it’s very painful. He had tried a few different things, like taking pills before he ate, taking gut and bloating meds but nothing worked. Ever since we went organic he has not had one issue. He likes eating again and he never has to deal with weighing eating over pain again. We are in transition now to go Paleo because of my dairy problems and it has done amazing things for my energy level that alone is worth it for me. I just have to remember that next time a get a craving.

Have you ever been tempted to go to the Golden Arches?

What was your outcome?

 

PS. Food for thought...