When we can’t follow our PHS…

I discovered my PHS in February 2021, a little bit over 2 years ago. Appetite is about 2 things mainly : eating only what we have appetite for and eating one thing at a time.

Terrible news for a French foodie…

My PHS was one of the worse news my design brought to me about who I am, how I’m made to function. See, I used to love cooking, so much I actually had a blog about it. I used to love mixing flavors so much. I could spend so much time preparing attentively food for my loved ones. I used to spend so much time thinking about food I’d like to eat, looking for restaurants to try… I’m also French, food is in my culture, it’s about love and socializing. Even more in my family…

It didn’t change 2 years ago. It actually changed 13 years ago, when I accidentally discovered my PHS through the lens of intuitive eating. That year, a painful breakup left me mostly unable to eat unless I really had an appetite for whatever was in my plate. And in that awfulness, I discovered a physical well-being I never experienced before. Life put on my path a book about Intuitive eating with all kinds of exercises helping me to really be present when I was eating, including closing my eyes, my cognition, my PHS sense.

From that day on, I started only honoring my appetite whenever I could and only eat when I was hungry (crucial for my Right brain). And my whole life changed forever in months. The way I was seeing myself, others, life, everything. Incidentally I stopped cooking mostly, and never really went back, thinking it was depression for years… I didn’t know it at the time, but I had started to prepare my body to follow my PHS.

We don’t choose when we follow our PHS, our body does…

I reread recently my other article about PHS after my dear friend Bri invited me to do so, pointing out how much changed in my way to discuss PHS since then. It made me chuckle to realize how much I thought I could choose to follow it. “Strive for excellence, not perfection” haha, such cute mind bullshit.

PHS is something quite deeper than it appears. It nourishes our awareness. We’re not necessarily ready to be aware.

Some know it and simply cannot or won’t even try, not even a little bit.

Others try really hard, and find themselves in an impasse, completely refusing it. I’ve seen so many people over the years sharing how awful they fell when eating per their PHS. How depressed, anxious, unable to even get out of bed. This is no small thing. It’s not random if so many people can’t follow it even years into their experiment, even knowing about it!

I found the “one ingredient at the time, not even spiced” ridiculous, it sounded like a death sentence of my love for food. I could not imagine a more boring way to eat. And yet, I started to have those weird impulses in the midst of some meals. I still remember vividly the first time I took apart the end of my burger as much as I could and suddenly the tomato in it tasted better than any tomatoes I could remember eating.

When it’s time, it just happens…

And very slowly, I found myself against my will craving for more and more of such weird things. To be slowly disgusted and bored with complex food, while differentiated food tasted so much better, it was like my body was getting used to it, by itself and regulated itself on its own.

2 years later, I don’t often eat burgers now, but I still eat a decomposed version of burgers, where each ingredient is separated on my plate. Same with tacos. Or spaghetti bolognese. And a lot of my meals are now a collection of things to eat separately I gather depending on what my inner visions tell me I seem to have an appetite for.

And to keep abiding to those weird experiments where I just try out thing, even just for only part of my meal.

Recently I chuckled : I was missing lemon with some fish I still love to eat. I discovered that I now love to alternate a little of lemon juice with it!

I realize that the way I used to cook was allowing me to sort of taste some flavors separately. Like tartines (the way French call what you eat on bread), I always needed a ton of butter and a ton of jam on mine. Now I eat everything separately. And discovered that I actually love to eat a little butter on its own. And stopped guilting myself for loving eating jam with a spoon.

Similarly, my Love who has Consecutive appetite, who refused it completely at first, with my support, a little later, tried to force himself and it was a disaster and he started to hate eating. Everything changed when he allowed himself to follow what he had an appetite for. Sometimes only to eat separately half of his meal. Or alternate like me, etc… Eating whatever/however looks good to him (his cognition is Outer vision).

In my other text, I shared I couldn’t not drink my sugared morning lattes. I tried without sugar and I tried coffee black several times and it tasted like something the devil would call food 😂 At some point, I simply couldn’t drink it everyday anymore, it tasted gross, I’d feel all bloated, mini heart-burned, and I realized my body would simply refuse to take anything in some mornings, while still having cravings for sustenance. And that when the first thing I’d drink/ate in the morning was only one ingredient, it was much easier during the day to follow my strategy and authority. I still drink a latte once in a while, but to make it short : most mornings, I drink pressed orange juice or non-sugared peppermint tea (weirdly energetic). When I crave caffeine and that’s the only thing I can « see » myself drink, I usually drink a small Coca Cola, that still tastes mostly like « one thing » instead of a latte.

And it’s not linear at all…

You may have noticed that not everything I shared eating is a single ingredient. I still alternate complex things with my differentiated food. Like a delicious homemade sauce with my « burgers ». Or some bread. Or a Coke. Or whatever I get obsessed with for a while. I still eat complex for one or two meals a week.

Very recently, the transits helping me (emotional transits are almost always involved when I’m eating complex for more than a meal/day at a time), I did drink lattes again. And bought cookies and something called Viennese chocolate (a chocolate dessert with whipped cream on top) that were devoured. No meal was solely differentiated for weeks.

Honestly : I hated a big chunk of it. My brain was all foggy, I’d feel so dumb, I put on quite some weight in a matter of weeks, I was never fully comfortable in my belly, I would eat much more… And yet, I simply couldn’t stop until it was time and I got to feel the comfort and ease of food tasting good and being digested well. 🤷🏻‍♀️🥰

If there’s one thing I learned over a decade following my appetites it’s this : it doesn’t serve us to force or restrain anything. Our mind cannot interfere, and the more it tries, the more we develop food addictions and such. Evil cycles where we don’t consume something we crave for a while, until that’s all we can eat/drink and we feel like shit about it, like we failed at something. Didn’t try hard or well enough. When really : it’s trying in the first place that is the mistake.

The more we watch instead of try, the more things regulate themselves exactly how they’re meant to. Even if the mind thinks it’s not good enough or « the right way to do things ».