Confessions From A Personal Trainer: I get HANGRY

True Confession Tuesday

Where every Tuesday: I confess.

Confession: I get HANGRY.

Do you get hangry?? The intersection of hunger and anger. It’s quite the dangerous place. Friends and family often ask me “On a scale of 1-10 how hungry are you?” 1 is fine, 5 is worrisome but when you get close to a 10 – HANGER is coming. And the funny part is I can go from a 5 to a 10 in a matter of minutes.

I used to get so hangry when my blood sugar wasn’t regulated, I ate more processed foods and didn’t know what my body needed. Now I am much more in tune and take better care of myself and rarely get to a 10.

Unless I’m traveling. 

Then I become a HANGRY monster. I found out this last week that I do not travel prepared. I didn’t have snacks, I didn’t know when/where I was going to eat next, I got caught up in what I was doing and missed lunch most days. It is a truly miserable place to be when you’re SO hungry and you have no idea what’s around and what you’re going to eat. And never mind trying to find something reasonably healthy.

This got me thinking about other facets of life. We go into so many things unprepared, without snacks, and without an idea of what we’re going to do next.

For example –

• We don’t have our meals planned out for the week (or even for lunch).
• We have no idea when we’re going to work out.
• Rest and recovery are not planned into our life.
• We are running from here to there to here to there without stopping.
• And on and on and on in our busy lives

We end up in a state of HANGER in our life. Busy, crazy, not knowing what end is up, starving because we didn’t plan our meals and feeling so out of balance.

Do you know that feeling? I sure do. Running out of the house with only 5 minutes to get ready, drinking coffee on the way, feeling rushed and crazy through the whole day, sometimes not having lunch because I was too busy, coming home and wanting to feel relaxed but instead feeling so absent minded and HANGRY.

I don’t want you to feel hangry with your life. So do yourself a favor and take a few minutes. What can you plan ahead?

• Food. This is a huge one. Make sure you go into your day knowing what you will have for lunch and snacks (and dinner too if you can!). This will ease the mental stress and help you avoid getting to the place where you are so hungry you’ll eat anything.
• Work Outs – Plan these out at the beginning of the week. And ease up on yourself if your week is so busy you will only get one or two work outs in. That’s ok! But leaving it to chance or when you feel like it is a sure fire way to not work out.
• Rest and Relaxation – oh boy. Most people (myself included) find this one to be challenging. Can you actually plan ahead for some rest? Can you create an hour where you read a book, take a bath, watch a movie, go to the spa, get a massage, or whatever makes you feel calm? This one is key.

I hope this week you can avoid being a “10” no the hanger scale in many aspects of your life. Life can be much more pleasant when we’re not HANGRY.

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