Why I Eat When I'm Not Hungry

Do you have difficulty noticing your hunger cues as an autistic person? If hunger is a confusing sensation for you, stick around – you're about to learn how you can master this complex bodily cue!

Let me start off by sharing a bit about my personal story with hunger. Simply put, hunger and I have always had an interesting relationship.

Growing up, I don't remember ever feeling particularly hungry – but I have always loved food!

If you've read my memoir Rainbow Girl, you know I pretty much lived off of sugary cereal, macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, and desserts.

I never thought twice about what I put into my mouth, and I didn't really need to.

Even though I ate like a horse, I was always the smallest in my class.

People would often wonder, "Where does it all go?"

I have no idea – all I knew was that at age eleven, I started depriving my body of what it needed to grow.

Fifth grade health class...yikes 😬

When I started learning about health and nutrition in fifth grade, I decided to go on my first diet.

My autistic brain took the health recommendations so literally that my new purpose in life was to become the epitome of a "perfect healthy eater."

Feeling lost and confused due to growing up undiagnosed autistic, I needed something to grasp – something to make me feel safe in this scary and unpredictable world.

What more accessible way to gain a sense of control than through controlling the one thing we all need to do everyday?

Before anyone could realize, my weight had dropped well below what was healthy.

My first hospital admission spiraled into years of FBT, being forced in and out of treatment centers, and multiple moments of not wanting to live.

All the while, I was building up more and more of an energy debt – energy debt that would eventually need to be paid back.

ED recovery and extreme hunger

When I finally committed to recovery in 2017, I knew I was about to embark on the most difficult journey of my life.

Feeling overly full, gaining weight, not having my safe clothes fit...it was about the worst autistic nightmare imaginable.

Little did I know that was just the start.

As I was struggling to accept my "weight restored" body, I was hit by extreme hunger.

Suddenly, nothing could satisfy me – it was as if my stomach had turned into a black hole of hunger.

Believing my body was broken, I did everything in my power to resist what I deemed to be "binge urges."

I tried to distract myself, I loaded up on high-volume foods, and I increased my exercise to compensate whenever I had eaten "too much."

But I was powerless.

My mind was playing tug-of-war with my body, and there was nothing I could do to win.

The more I restricted, the more extreme the hunger became.

I continued this game for nearly three years until I realized it wasn't truly a game – this was my life.

And was I really going to spend the rest of my life trying to fight something that couldn't be fought?

While, as an autistic person, my hunger cues may not resemble those of neurotypicals, I do know that restriction is never the answer.

I eat consistently – whether I'm hungry or not – to provide my body with trust of abundance.

For only when there is trust of abundance can there be trust of a full life.

If you want to learn about all the different ways to recognize hunger so you can find your unique version of food freedom, grab your copy of my book How to Beat Extreme Hunger HERE!