In this episode of Simple Shifts: Conversations to Fuel Your Body, Mind and Soul, Martha and Peter explore the themes of fear, particularly the fear of hunger, and how it can impact our lives. Martha shares her personal journey of overcoming her fear of hunger, discussing the role of mindfulness and intermittent fasting in her transformation.
The conversation delves into the nature of fear and anxiety, the difference between emotional and physical hunger, and the importance of understanding our feelings around food. The episode encourages listeners to confront their fears and embrace a more mindful approach to eating and living.
Key Takeaways
- Martha describes herself as a ‘scaredy cat’ due to her fears.
- Fear is often self-imposed and comes from our thoughts.
- The fear of hunger can lead to anxiety and overeating.
- Intermittent fasting helped Martha become comfortable with hunger.
- Mindfulness can help us understand our fears better.
- Hunger is just a feeling and doesn’t have to be feared.
- Emotional hunger differs from physical hunger in experience.
- Building habits can be challenging but rewarding.
- Celebrating small victories is important for habit formation.
- Community and social interactions can enhance personal growth.
Overcoming My Fear of Hunger Podcast
Video Transcript
Martha McKinnon (00:00)
Hi, welcome to Simple Shifts: Conversations to Fuel Your Body, Mind and Soul. I’m Martha McKinnon from the blog Simple Nourished Living and with me is my brother and partner, Peter Morrison.
Peter Morrison (00:14)
Hello Martha MacKinnon.
Martha McKinnon (00:16)
Hello, Peter Morrison, how are you today?
Peter Morrison (00:18)
I’m doing good, how are you doing?
Martha McKinnon (00:20)
I’m doing really well. Actually I’m feeling kind of brave because I’m going to share I’m going to share a confession in today’s episode. I’m going to talk about my fear. I sort of label myself I have labeled myself through the years as a scaredy cat and my scare is my fear actually even extended to the fear of hunger if you can believe it or not. So I’m going to be really honest about that. But before we talk about my fear of hunger and sort of moving beyond my fear of hunger.
What’s going well in your world? What are you really excited about?
Peter Morrison (00:51)
I like that little juicy start. You’re creating a little drama.
Martha McKinnon (00:58)
The little teaser, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Peter Morrison (00:59)
Little teaser, that’s the word, yeah. Let’s see, what’s going well. Well, I’ve been pretty good. A while back, I mentioned where I wasn’t really getting to the gym, though I wanted to, and feel like as I get older, balance and strength are important, but I did start doing pushups. They are the not full on pushups, but from my knees. But I haven’t been doing them every day, but I’ve been doing them, I maybe miss one or two days a week over the last few weeks.
Martha McKinnon (01:42)
Mm-hmm.
Peter Morrison (01:54)
And I’m liking the challenge that it’s presenting and I’m doing more and more and I’m up over 20 now, which probably sounds pathetic to some people, but I think it’s good.
Martha McKinnon (01:56)
It’s important not to compare.
Peter Morrison (01:58)
And it hasn’t quite, yeah, yeah. And it hasn’t quite led me to the gym yet, but I feel like it is building somehow, like building me to want to do more in that direction. So I’m just happy that I’m, like with this podcast, I’m happy I’m sticking with it. It’s hard at times, it’s uncomfortable, and some days I don’t feel as strong as other days, but I’m doing it and it feels good, so.
Martha McKinnon (02:24)
Well, good for you. Good, good, good. That’s awesome. That’s wonderful. That’s to be celebrated. So I’ve read tons on habits and one of the suggestions is that you celebrate when you’ve actually executed on one of your intentions. So have you included celebration somehow after you’ve completed your pushups for the day?
Peter Morrison (02:50)
My celebration exists of a nice stretch, like usually like child’s pose or something like that where I’m down on the ground and it just, you know, relax your back. So that’s it’s not like a joyous jumping celebration. It’s a it’s relaxed. Yeah.
Martha McKinnon (03:10)
It’s a relief. But relief is a good thing, right? I think relief is a… Yeah, for sure. Well, good for you. That’s great. And so is it something that you’re trying to do every day or have you attached this to a particular time of day or a particular activity to help make it stick?
Peter Morrison (03:29)
It’s generally one of the last things, I don’t know why, it’s one of the last things before bed. It’s just kind of a quiet time, the house is dark and I’m just, yeah. So.
Martha McKinnon (03:48)
Well, that’s, that’s all that’s great. And right before bed is a great one, because one of those suggestions is to make your habits so small that if you get to the end of the day, you know, you can still get it done. I mean, and the truth is, you can even I mean, this has happened to me sometimes with my Duolingo, I actually am in bed and I remember, I didn’t do my Duolingo lesson today, and I’ll get up and get on the phone and do it. So
Peter Morrison (04:16)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (04:18)
So that’s great. mean, it’s a great way to start building a habit and to make it so small that you really can’t really not accomplish it. And there’s real power in that because you can start to build some momentum. So good for you.
Peter Morrison (04:29)
Thank you.
Martha McKinnon (04:31)
Alright, so would you consider yourself a fearful person?
Peter Morrison (04:37)
In some regards, yes. Have a fear of heights.
Martha McKinnon (04:41)
In some regard. You have a fear of heights, but you jump, you bungee jumped.
Peter Morrison (04:46)
This is true. But yeah, it’s not logical. We were at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon one year and there’s all these hiking trails out and a lot of them didn’t have any kind of railing or anything and you just you get up to the edge and it’s like just straight down and that just that is really that really freaks me out.
Martha Mckinnon (05:16)
Okay. So, okay.
Peter Morrison (05:18)
But if you’re at, you know, in a skyscraper and there’s a railing and there’s something to hold onto, that is less, bothers me less. So.
Martha McKinnon (05:31)
Okay, yeah, and you’re right. It’s not a lot. It’s not always logical Rod. I mean, as you say that Rod’s afraid of heights too, but he and he actually flew planes. I’m like, how does that work? But again, he described it similar to the way you are the fact that being being on the edge of like the Grand Canyon or when Mac got married, we stayed at a high-rise hotel in Madison, right on the water, and it had these tiny little glass, like little patios right off the room, but it was all glass.
Peter Morrison (06:02)
The floor was glass?
Martha McKinnon (06:04)
The floor wasn’t glass, but the walls were glass. And he was just even really hesitant about getting out on that and looking down, because it just didn’t seem very sturdy. Yeah, that’s fear. I mean, fear is a challenge for us, right?
Peter Morrison (06:20)
I have a fear of snakes.
Martha McKinnon (06:22)
Yep.
Peter Morrison (06:24)
So yeah, so I do, I wouldn’t say I’m a fearful person. Like I don’t wake up afraid of nothing. I mean, there’s usually something that causes the fear. So I’d say I’m mildly fearful, cautious. I’m a cautious person.
Martha McKinnon (06:42)
Mm-hmm. Well, I mean…
Yeah, and I think we all right, if you’re human and you’re alive, I think you have you’ve had fear, I think it’s built into us for survival. And I think without fear, I don’t think I think it’s programmed for our survival. so it’s pretty common across humanity, right to have to have fear. And again, it was wired in it makes perfect sense right that for survival, if you’re in the presence of a rattlesnake, it’s best to be fearful because it can kill you. Where it gets a little crazy is when suddenly just the thought of it can make us, right?
Peter Morrison (07:17)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (07:19)
So that’s interesting. So, but I do, and I’m working on it, but I think of myself as sort of as a self-described scaredy cat. I feel like I’ve had a lot of fear in my life, a lot of anxiety.
Peter Morrison (07:35)
Would you say that that’s self-imposed or like from an outside source?
Martha McKinnon (07:40)
Well, what I’m coming, what my current teachings, like what I’m coming to understand is that a lot of us believe that it comes from an outside source. But the real truth is that it comes from within, it comes from our thoughts. And that’s been, that’s been a real shift for me. In fact, I always sort of self-described as, you know, introvert as like, I’ve always had very, lot of social anxiety.
And the concept was suggested to me recently through some some of the study I’m doing, this whole concept of it’s just a thought – you’re not afraid you just think you’re afraid – it’s just that you know you’re not anxious you just think you’re anxious and it’s it’s really sort of been very enlightening for me because I’ve been able to embrace that and see it, know, see how your thinking about something can be that powerful.
And when you change your thinking, when you change how you see it, then that suddenly I feel like a lot of the fear that I’ve had, a lot of the anxiety is kind of just evaporated because I’ve just, it’s really, some of it’s unexplainable really.
So I do think it, like from this most recent understanding, I do believe that most of it, all of it’s coming from inside. We just don’t know it because of the way we’re programmed, you know, because of the emotions and thoughts and chemicals and biology. It happens so fast you think it’s coming from the outside, but it’s really coming from the inside.
Martha Mckinnon (09:29)
So, hunger. way back in the day, hunger was something that was on my, like, my fear list. I was afraid of, I was afraid of being hungry. And, I don’t know, I mean, I can’t explain why. I mean, why, why, but I think it’s, I mean, I think it’s common. I think it could be common amongst dieters. I think it could be common amongst people who really sort of obsess about food. I think it’s common maybe for people who use food, you know, to comfort and to self-soothe. I don’t think for moment that I’m alone in this sort of fear of hunger.
Peter Morrison (10:12)
Do you remember having that fear in your childhood or was it something that came about as an adult?
Martha McKinnon (10:24)
I don’t really remember, like, I don’t remember having a, I don’t remember labeling it that way or having that awareness, like as a kid.
Peter Morrison (10:34)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (10:36)
But I do, I did know of it as, as an adult when I was able to start making my own decisions. And what I found was, you know, I found myself eating, eating, like getting, getting nervous when it’d be start to be near a meal time. Like that suddenly, my gosh, I might, I might get hungry and if I get hungry, what might happen or eating for prevention?
Like I better, I better eat something now because I’ve got to go into this long meeting and I’m going to get, I’m going to get hungry. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t understand what I, what the fear of getting hungry meant. Um, but there was this like this stress or this anxiety around, Oh my God, if I get hungry, then what will happen? Um…
Peter Morrison (11:19)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (11:21)
So again, there’s not always logic, again, so eating preventatively became sort of very common, right? Or making sure that I always had a snack with me to make sure that I wouldn’t experience hunger. It’s just sort of avoidance, avoidance of, and I guess sometimes in the dieting world, right? There’s a lot of messages that come through – like that if you get too hungry it’s dangerous to get too hungry. I mean think that sometimes this is where the eating every couple of hours came from, this thought that if you if you get hungry if you wait too long, then suddenly you’re gonna you know overeat and that’s a bad thing, so I think it got labeled as a maybe a bad thing or a dangerous thing or something to be avoided if you’re if you’re trying to like really stay in control.
So I can’t totally wrap my brain around where all that came from, I know that’s some of what would come up for me around it. So this was actually so severe that, I mean, there was a time when I traveled for work. I mean, I was doing consulting work and I traveled on planes quite regularly and I was on a flight coming from the East Coast to the West Coast, so I was scheduled for a five hour flight and I get there and suddenly they’re saying, you know, there’ll be no food, you know, there’ll be no food served on this flight.
And it sent me into a panic. And so I ended up getting, you know, finding a food concession to queue up to get a sandwich or a salad to take on the plane with me so that when I got hungry, I’d be prepared for that and I wouldn’t suffer and so I queued up and the line was long and I lost track of time and when I got to the when I got to the gate I mean the gate had shut. I mean the door was shut and and I couldn’t get on the plane, so I actually and looking back on it now, I mean, because I have played with my hunger, I look back on it now and it seems like incredulous, right? That I actually, that I actually, you know, I don’t, I actually missed a plane because I was queued up in line for a sandwich because I was afraid. You know, it’s okay, you’re my brother you can laugh. I know you’re not laughing at me. I know you’re laughing with me. You’re laughing with me, right? And you’re laughing with me.
Peter Morrison (13:53)
I’m laughing with you.
Peter Morrison (13:56)
I’m just picturing you standing in this line and…
Martha McKinnon (14:02)
With my paper, like now I’ve got this nice little bag, right? This nice little paper bag with the nice handle, like, and I get to the gate and it’s like, my God, I mean, the plane is gone. So, and it’s so, you know, I mean, even in that…
Peter Morrison (14:19)
So did you save that? Did you save your meal for your next flight?
Martha McKinnon (14:24)
No, probably not. No, I probably I probably didn’t. So I mean, I had to go back and, you know, recheck into a hotel and get rescheduled and, you know, show up home a day late because of this. And of course, you can imagine like the shame, like the shame, the embarrassment, like, my goodness, like what, you know, what’s going on here? How can this?
But the fear of hunger didn’t evaporate in that moment. It’s still something that continued on for quite a while until I really think it was you who suggested Intermittent Fasting to me. And I think it was that experience of playing with intermittent fasting which helped me get comfortable with hunger and start to experience it. And this is the teaching around fear. I’m watching, actually watching, taking part in a little mini course right now through the Happier app where it’s about anxiety and fear and there’s this whole concept of titrating and getting comfortable in small ways with your discomfort in order to work your way through it and to move beyond your fears and anxieties.
And in the episode, the host, Dan Harris, has a severe anxiety and panic around elevators. And so they’re actually taking him through that process of getting in the elevator and seeing how he feels and sort of working. And so a lot of the teaching in mindfulness is that instead of trying to avoid these fears or perceived fears that you actually start being more mindful and paying more attention to the actual sensation of it and that that can be very freeing.
Because once you really experience it you come to understand that again the fear was sort of in your mind it wasn’t in reality it wasn’t nearly what you thought what you had you know made it up to be and and that was what inter that was one of the gifts that intermittent fasting gave me was it gave me the opportunity to kind of play with and get comfortable with the feeling of hunger.
What exactly is hunger? What does it feel like? And in the body. And I think there could be a lot of us who struggle with weight to have this, you know, have this fear, have this aversion where they’re trying to avoid hunger. They have some type of concern around hunger. And so they eat, they eat in excess to try to avoid that feeling when the truth is that it’s just a signal.
It’s just a feeling, it’s just a sensation. It doesn’t really mean anything in and of itself. It only means something with what you assigned to it. If you say that it’s bad, then it’s bad. If you say that it’s good, but in and of itself, mean, a feeling of hunger is just a feeling. It’s just neutral. So that’s been very empowering for me. I don’t have to eat breakfast. The world will not come to an end. And I know how hunger feels in my body, that it sort of comes and goes like in waves and it doesn’t.
It’s not a big, and actually it can, like you said, I think I’ve gotten to the point where it can actually feel good. I mean, you can actually start to be comfortable with your hunger and know that when you do eat, it’s going to taste so much better because you’re actually, you’re actually ready. Your body’s ready for food where if you’re eating ahead of hunger, then you never really, you never really get that same, think, experience of just how delicious sort of quenching your hunger can be.
Peter Morrison (18:31)
That’s where I’ve landed with the times, the days that I do play with intermittent fasting is just, everything is heightened. The food, the meal you’re gonna have, you do have tastes so much better.
Martha McKinnon (19:01)
Yeah. Right?
Peter Morrison (19:02)
I don’t need a lot when I’m hungry and it varies. But I usually don’t, I’ve never, I hear what you’re saying about the fear of hunger relating or contributing to possible overeating because you’re trying to make up for something. I’ve personally not, that’s not a concern or fear of mine for me personally, but when I,
like my first meal after going a period without eating. don’t, again, my eyes are bigger than my belly. I often don’t even need as much as I think I should need because it tastes good. You’re eating it in a good environment. You’re sitting down, you’re breathing, you’re chewing, you’re actually in the moment. I have had those times when I’m hungry and maybe gone a little too long and you do tend to eat without breathing or thinking and that never sits well with me. But nine times out of 10 if I’m able to be in the right environment sitting down at the table then it’s a wonderful experience.
Martha McKinnon (20:28)
And you’re right. I mean like anything these are guidelines. They’re not absolutes, you don’t want to go too long and you don’t want to get to the point where you’re ravenous You don’t want to get to the point where you’re out of control and you’re just scarfing down like a Big Mac while you’re driving in traffic. I mean, that’s not a place you want to be what you’re describing is, you know sitting down and really being part of and paying attention to your food Which I think is huge in our world.
I think that that’s another place where you know, we suffer from the realities of just modern life and moving really, really fast and double multitasking and not really getting the same enjoyment from our food. If we’re eating, you know, frantically while we’re doing three other things, it’s not going to be as satisfying. And that can cause and lead to overeating and eating beyond the point where you would have been comfortable. And so.
Peter Morrison (21:20)
Right.
Martha McKinnon (21:22)
So there’s a lot to sort of consider and unpack here, but I think the basic mention, the basic suggestion would be for folks who do share what I’ve experienced to start to play and to start to experiment. And when you start to notice your hunger, when you start to tune into it, it also helps with this whole concept of knowing real true physical hunger versus emotional hunger.
Because if you don’t let yourself get hungry, then it’s harder to appreciate those differences and those nuances where if you started to experience your hunger, then it’s easier when people talk about head hunger versus body hunger to understand how that presents in your body.
And I can know that automatically now having done the intermittent fasting, having experienced real physical hunger, know that how physical hunger feels, it kind of comes and goes, it gradually increases. And you know that when you’re really, truly physically hungry, like an apple sounds delicious, right? Where emotional hunger is very different experience in the body. It comes on suddenly and intensely and rarely, rarely, rarely does an apple sound like the solution. And so for me, I can readily know based on these experiments whether I’m experiencing, I have a taste for that. I want that, which is not true physical hunger because now I’ve felt that in my body. So I think that’s been helpful too.
Peter Morrison (23:03)
Would you say like when you’re, when you have more of an emotional feeling that you’re, it’s more of, I want a brownie or a cookie or it’s something.
Martha McKinnon (23:14)
Yeah, it’s a taste for a specific sensation. I want something cold. I want something creamy. Or could be a specific food. You know, I’m craving pizza. I really have the taste for pizza. Or I have the taste for a potato chip. Or I want something crunchy. Yeah, so those are usually signs of something that you’re looking to use food to soothe some type of emotional issue. Yeah.
Peter Morrison (23:46)
Do you still consider yourself afraid of being hungry?
Martha McKinnon (23:56)
No, and that’s why I wanted to share this. Because like anything with time and openness, I really feel like we can overcome, you know, we can move be our move beyond these experiences and come out on the other side just more more understanding like of ourselves and of other humans and yeah.
Martha McKinnon (24:20)
So no, I don’t consider myself… I consider myself a lot less of a scaredy cat than I did even a few weeks ago thanks to my new understanding around how thinking works.
Peter Morrison (24:38)
So do you still consider yourself an introvert?
Martha McKinnon (24:44)
I’m really playing with that too. I’m really staying open because it’s like, does that really mean? And so it’s again, it’s how you define it, it’s how you interpret it, it’s kind of like a story you tell. Some of the teaching is that as an introvert you feel more, you gain your energy by being alone and being in quiet, you know, and that as an extra extrovert you fill up your battery, you gain your energy through being with people.
And I always felt as though being out and about with people drained my battery. But I’m not sure that that’s necessarily true. I think part of it was the social anxiety that I had around you know, meeting new people. Or all of that thinking that went on inside of my head that, I’m not good enough or I’m going to embarrass myself or I don’t know all of those stories, all of that thinking. I don’t know what to say, you know, I don’t know how to make conversation, all of that story. And that will of course drain you.
Peter Morrison (26:01)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (26:03)
So I’m just, and I think we’re probably all, I think all of life is a continuum. I mean, it’s like, we’re all like sort of, there are very few absolutes. So, so I’m, I don’t really, I do like, I do like quiet. I do like peace. I do like stillness. Because I feel as though it’s from that place that, that I can gain like, understanding.
And I think there’s something really peaceful about having a like a more quiet sort of mind. But I don’t know, to be to be determined, because it was always the best story that I’ve told. I’m going to be 62, like, soon. And so it’s a story I’ve told myself for a long time. And so I’m not sure. I’m just not as sure as I used to be. That’s for sure.
Martha McKinnon (27:00)
I’m really enjoying this community here. I’ve been much more social these past few months in this community where my husband and I, you know, Rod and I are spending the winter outside of Ensenada, Mexico. And it’s just been much more social and I’m enjoying it. I’m really enjoying it and I’m genuinely enjoying meeting people and in a way that I don’t even know if I knew I was capable of. So it’s been fun. Yeah.
Peter Morrison (27:28)
No, that’s awesome. Very cool. Yeah.
Martha McKinnon (27:34)
So, I would encourage people if you’ve suffered like I do, I mean, and I think, like I said, I’m not alone I don’t think. I’m human and other humans, I think probably also share this fear. And if you do, I encourage you to just kind of start playing with it in ways that feel safe to try to just and to tune in more than just trying to avoid and just see for yourself what hunger actually feels like and it might not be as scary as you think it is.
Peter Morrison (28:08)
And you might not miss your plane.
Martha McKinnon (28:10)
And hopefully you won’t miss your plane. I think more people know and are prepared in this day and age where food is much less common on planes, people are more prepared. So hopefully, hopefully you don’t have to miss a plane to learn the lesson.
Peter Morrison (28:23)
True.
Martha McKinnon (28:25)
Alright on that note, we’ll give it a wrap for today and if you enjoyed this we’d love for you to like, share, subscribe and please tune in soon. We’ll be back in a week or so.
Peter Morrison (28:40)
Have a great day.
Martha McKinnon (28:41)
Bye bye, take care.
