Lunch time. A delicious smell finds its way through the house. I go to the kitchen and ask how longer it will take for lunch to be ready.

"I'm really hungry!".

"You're not hungry" was the common answer. "You just want to eat. Do you know the difference?"

Of course I knew the difference. After all, we'd seen those documentaries at school were children had to go through piles of garbage in order to get some food and I was sure I wasn't anywhere near that.

Let me tell you that although 10 years old me thought I knew the difference, there's only so much a child can really comprehend about certain topics. In the years that have passed since those kind of conversations with my family I've come across many people that had almost nothing. People who came to my country to try to escape from poverty, dictatorships and hunger. I've seen people crying because half a ration of a cake had ants and it was time to throw it in the bin. I've had to physically block someone from eating a fruit with worms when there were perfectly good pieces of fruit right next to them. They were not planning on eating the worms, but still. I could put a lot of examples but I think this will do. Suffice to say that I have never experienced hunger and I'm very grateful for it. The more I see, hear and know about the world around us the more grateful I become.

As safe as it is to say that I've never gone hungry, it's equally safe to say that I've never felt full. Please note the difference: it's not that I've never been full but that I've never felt full. I have no idea why, really. There could be a ton of contributing factors and I'm sure it isn't related to any kind of illness as nothing has popped up so far. It's a little bit strange because it started exactly when I was born. In my first few hours of life I was breastfed and then gulped a whole bottle of newborn formula. Fair enough, I wasn't born small but how I just gulped down double the amount of what I was supposed to is still a mystery. When I was a kid I would eat as long as there was food to be eaten. If we were at some kind of party I'd eat nonstop. I'd eat so much that I couldn't digest it and I'd wake up in the middle of the night and be sick. The next morning I'd just wake up and eat my usual breakfast like nothing had happened.

Rest assured that it wasn't (and still isn't) any kind of eating disorder. It also wasn't a daily occurrence but it also didn't come as a surprise that once or twice a year, after a big gathering, I tended to get sick. I never registered being full and I still don't. Of course as an adult I have a better grasp of how much food is enough (better, which doesn't mean good because I didn't become obese by controlling my portions...) but I still can't say when my stomach is full. I can recall feeling full twice in my live.

The first one came as a surprise as it was just a normal meal and I didn't expect anything out o it but it happened. We thought maybe it meant that I'd had a breakthrough managing my anxiety but we ruled that out as my anxiety is now mostly gone but I still don't feel full no matter what I eat.

The second one was during a tasting. There were 32 plates to be tasted, most of them cocktail sized and a couple mains. I not only ate all of them but I also ate up to 3 of some. It was nasty, really. I didn't get sick (maybe this is a bit too much info but I'm not so bad at controlling when I'm gonna be sick because well, experience) but I felt some cramps and sweated a river. I've never been so full and yet barely an hour later I was wondering about my dinner.

When I was starting this diet I thought maybe rations would be too small, as it has happened before with some other diets so I was greatly surprised when I realized they weren't. They're still smaller than the ones I used to eat, of course, especially the protein proportion, but they're not too bad. During my third meal I had a revelation: the amount didn't really matter. As I don't register when I'm full I feel exactly the same no matter the amount I've eaten. This is actually an advantage as I can eat smaller portions and feel exactly the same as if I'd stuffed my face with whatever in whatever quantity. Reducing your portions and not feeling like you aren't eating enough is quite nice. It makes things so much easier.

On other topics, some days ago I finally got my bloodwork done. I can't wait to see the results and compare it with the next one.

This weekend I had a bag of popcorn and some chocolate. I'd planned on allowing myself a bag of popcorn a month as it'd barely add 20 calories daily and I'm quite sure I'm more than that below my daily allowance. The chocolate was an extra but when you don't get the cravings it doesn't really taste as good. 

So far I'm doing so good. This week I lost a little over 1.5kgs (that'd be 3,5lbs for my American friends). It's way more than I expected, especially since I ate popcorn and I'm still not doing any exercise (and the way things are going that won't happen until summer). But honestly, I'm proud of myself. I'll try not to make a big deal out of it, though, as I know that the first few weeks are the easier ones and the more I lose the harder it'll be to get rid of the last few kilos.