A First Simple Secret

This discussion will clearly instruct you as to how to learn the

difference between mind hunger and stomach hunger.

It will give you the simple secret to keep slender and to never gain
extra stomach, hip, buttocks and thigh fat again. Never.

Opening

Ever see a fat aborigine? The reason why, is that

they spend a substantial amount of their time looking for food and
they know the difference between mind hunger and stomach hunger.

Mind Hunger

Stomach Hunger

Hint: When your stomach is making noises, that’s true hunger.

Hint: If you Think that you’re hungry, you ain’t.

Take a look at any of the still wild tribes in the Amazon or New
Guinea and you will not find one obese or even fat person. Not one.
You want a guarantee? Take any obese person like this guy

and place him into a 90 day hunter-gatherer environment where the

nearest refrigerator is far and away.

It is a 100% certainty that you will not find this guy fat 90 days later
but rather he will be a slimmed down and lean muscled man who is
now most definitely aware of stomach hunger as opposed to
mind/brain hunger.

How I Know This.

True Story: Back in the late 60’s, I had the occasion to spend July in
a 28 day survival course called Hurricane Island Outward Bound
School. It was the first year’s opening of the Hurricane Island School
whereby you learned to control panic and to overcome artificially
induced stress situations.
On Hurricane Island, which was located in Penobscot Bay Maine, one
of our courses was how to solo survive on an island for 72 hours.

I well remember the famous author Euell Gibbons who wrote Stalking
the Wild Asparagus, leading us about the main island and pointing to
here and there as to what was okay to eat and what we should leave
alone.

At one point he stopped and picked up a purple sea urchin

Does this look tasty to you?

from a tidal pool, cracked it open and popped that poor morsel into
his mouth raw. Smacking his lips he then moved on to picking up
some seaweed and extolled the virtues of boiled seaweed.

After two days of training on the main island, we were then dropped
off at our respective tiny little islands with a canteen of water, fishing
line, a plastic tarp and a sleeping bag along with a large empty can
for boiling water and six matches.

I placed my life jacket in a tree near the beach every morning and
took it down in the evening. Somewhere out of my sight, a boat
would be gliding by to check that I was still alive but they never
directly contacted me.

I have to digress here and tell you an interesting story.

One night on the main island, we were awakened about 2AM and
hustled down to jump into assembled whale boats. We were then
taken to an island and the whole school, about 8 Watches, (mine was
the Grenfell Watch, named after a famous sea captain, and
composed of 12 guys from different walks of life, several from the
inner cities of Boston and NYC), strung ourselves out across this
small island searching for the solo guy who did not put up his
lifejacket as he was supposed to.
Imagine 84 of us,(one Watch was out on the 72 hour solo), plus the
staff, some of whom had SEAL backgrounds, slowly moving across
the island in a long line with our flashlights bobbing up and down as
we moved down a brushy decline and stumbling back up the next hill,
stepping over deadfalls and hoping like hell that we would not come
upon a corpse staring up at us in the starless night.

Every five minutes we had to call out our Watch and our names so
we wouldn’t be lost. “ Grenfell Watch, call out!”

After two hours of this, the staff gave up and we all piled back into the
whalers for a long wet ride home in the 3 foot swells and a cool stiff
Maine wind blowing the sea spray into our faces.

It turned out that the solo guy had hailed a passing lobster boat,
which took him to the mainland, and of course he never came back.

What a night!

Back to my little solo.

I had no food other than what I could find such as the ever so tasty
sea urchins or beach peas or boiled seaweed. I thought to myself,
“forget this stuff, I’ll just drink water Instead of eating this stuff.”

The fishing was a bust, as my Maine island get away, slowly sloped
into deeper water, and standing in 57 degree bone chilling waters to
my hips as I tried to cast my 12 feet of line with hooked sea urchin to
catch a fish, quickly became intolerable.

(I would have loved being left on this island)

(This is the kind of island they stranded me on and the nearest island was
about 10 miles away.)

I found a wild patch of raspberries on my little island and spent breakfast, lunch
and dinner shooing away the local birds.

(Dinner is served sir)

I quickly discovered that it is one thing to be hungry and have the

refrigerator nearby to assuage your hunger and it is quite another to
be hungry and have to expend energy finding food to eat such as
harvesting my raspberries on the side of a steep rocky incline.
Interestingly, there was a rock squirrel, which I was friendly with during my first
24 hours solo. At the end of the second 24 hours, I was in a nasty poor mood

and was out to kill and eat the little guy. I never got close to him.

I had crossed the line between being simply snack brain hungry
civilized to being out and out truly stomach cutting hungry. Even
though I knew I was going to be picked up early on the fourth day and
taken back to Hurricane Island, my stomach did not give a damn
about all my rationalizing and made me continually aware of its
demands.

Somewhere in the early hours of the third day, it happened.

My brain sent a direct order to my taste buds to shut off along with
the command imperative to find food. At that point, I realized that
cooked Brussels sprouts would have been greeted with joy. That bit
of brain news was amazing to me, as I cannot stand cooked Brussels

sprouts. Yuck!

I soon found myself munching on beach peas and even boiled seaweed

and could not taste a thing. Beach Peas. Great when you are stomach hungry.

I could not even taste the raspberries anymore. My pleasant and

lighthearted self had disappeared, and in its place was a snarling and
angry 19 year old wondering what the hell I was doing on a spec of a
Maine Island in the middle of July.
Actually I was picked up in a 20 foot motorized whaleboat but you get the picture

Early the next morning I was picked up and a chocolate bar was
shoved into my hands along with a big roll. No one tried to speak to
me, as they knew from experience to let the savage eat first before
trying a chat.

I did not recover my taste buds until later that evening when my brain
sent the all clear to my stomach and to my mouth. What an
experience!

The point of this rambling is that my 72 hours stay on my little rock

taught me the difference between brain hunger and stomach hunger.

Once you know and understand this simple difference, you will only
eat when you are stomach hungry and not brain hungry.

A Brief Discussion About Your Brain

As I said, your brain has to be reset in order for you to learn the
difference between stomach hunger and brain hunger.
Your hypothalamus is the controller and that’s where the action is.

(This is a photograph of the hypothalamus. Can you see anything? )

Of course, your 50 trillion cells of your body are all interconnected

and chatting with one another constantly, so your stomach lets your
brain know that food is needed by sending a ghrelin hormone signal
out to your hypothalamus.
It’s known by medical science that the hypothalamus is the overall
master controller of body weight and appetite but no one knows
exactly how it works.

The hypothalamus manages sensory processing and it most certainly

managed to cut off my taste bud processing.

On my little island, my stomach was very busy sending non stop

signals, courtesy of my ghrelin hormone to my hypothalamus that I
was in need of food and which my brain then intellectualized into the
words, “ damn, but I am hungry!“

Somewhere during my third day of my adventurous stay on my tiny

island, the non stop signals between my stomach and hypothalamus
reset my brain beginning with the signal from my hypothalamus to my
mouth taste buds that cut off all taste sensations.

That was then followed with the order: “ eat cooked Brussels sprouts,
and anything else you can find.”

That is the moment I learned the cutting difference between real

hunger and simple brain hunger. To this day, I only eat when I know
that I am hungry and I pay attention to my stomach signaling my
hypothalamus “no more food is needed at the present.”
Learn the difference between brain hunger
and stomach hunger. Once you have
learned the difference, you will only eat
when you are truly hungry.
How do you do this? Just find a small island and set up with water
and shelter but no food except what you can forage. Arrange to be
picked up early on the fourth day and that should do it.

Can’t find an island nearby? Then try for a Friday through Sunday
night with only water and a handful of dried fruit… and only a handful.

Like this.

Keep going until you know that you can easily eat the meal that you
dislike the most.

Once you can eat that specific food without any hesitation then you
know that your hypothalamus has been reset and now you are aware
of the visceral difference between stomach hunger versus brain
hunger.

A Follow Up Corollary

Stop eating before you are stuffed. Is this ever you?

This is a simple rule and accomplishes two goals. The first is that you
do not get the “stuffed to the gills” feeling by over eating and the
second goal you accomplish is to keep your weight balanced.
A Third Follow Up Corollary
Just moderate exercise sir and madam. Keep moving, whether its
walking a mile a day or moving up every stairs that you can find to the
second floor instead of taking the elevator, although sometimes
finding the stairs is next to impossible and in that case, take the
elevator so you don’t end up lost in the back end of the building.

So, stay slender and fit by simply

stopping eating before you are full and
only eating when you are stomach and
not brain hungry.

Stay active on a daily basis and take the

stairs whenever they are reasonable to
climb.

And Oh yes, if you’re not sure if you are

truly stomach and not brain hungry, then
wait until you hear a few gurgle
announcements from your stomach that
its all clear to eat and to not gain weight.
Follow these simple guides and your
brain and stomach and body will thank
you.
Copyright August 2007: Hughes Creations Enterprises