Hunger. Everyone experiences it, just like everyone experiences pain, tiredness or unhappiness. But I think it's useful to distinguish the different types of hunger. They are not all the same. It is possible to feel full and hungry at the same time. Knowing the cause of why you feel hungry can help with deciding whether to eat or not. Here's my list:
- An empty stomach: your stomach contains sensors that knows how full it is. This signal is sent to the brain, and you can easily feel that your stomach is empty. Or when it's full. I try to ignore this feeling, when it's empty. It really doesn't mean anything. Having a full stomach is a nice feeling, though. It's a major reason why I gave up on a low carb diet, as I wasn't eating any fruit and I missed that full stomach feeling.
- Tiredness. I am tired 99.9 percent of the time. I've been this way for nearly 20 years now, and I attribute my weight issues to tiredness (when I'm not watching my weight, I put on about 1 kilogram a month, about an extra apple a day). The more tired I am, the hungrier I am. I can be ravenous when I'm exhausted. This is caused by hormones making you hungry. I guess it's a short-term mechanism to give you a spurt of energy to keep going. When I have a nap, and I'm not (or less) tired, what happens? I'm not hungry.
- Your body is lacking in food. This is the only reason why I should eat. When I have my "perfect" eating days, this is why I eat. Ideally, you try to not get really hungry and over eat. It is also possible to feel full (having just eaten a few apples a minute or two ago) and still be hungry, as your body hasn't digested the apples yet.
- A stimulating environment. Have a filling meal and then walk into a supermarket. Feel hungry? This is probably just psychological (ie it all takes place in your brain) but it is hard to resist. This is the reason why I try to not go to the supermarket too often. I have to go roughly every 5 days (most of my food can last a week, the exception is bananas) which is bad enough as it is.
- Unknown reasons. Pain, tiredness and sadness can happen for unknown reasons, and the same happens with hunger. Who knows what the cause is. Does it matter? If I am eating consistantly, I know that it shouldn't be there, and will probably go away soon.
- Food anxiety. This was discovered recently, I drove to work, and 3 blocks away from home, I realised that I'd forgotten to take my food. I could turn around and get it but I absolutely hate being late for work. Anyway, there is a food vending machine at work. Yes, a very dangerous thing. I knew that I could buy a cookie for lunch, and if I was hungry at the end of my shift, maybe something else. I start work. What happens? I'm hungry for 3 hours. I'd just eaten before leaving work, so my body didn't need food. I was just anxious, either eating too much or too little. Ironically, about half an hour before I was about to eat the cookie, my hunger went away.
That's my list. I guess there might be a few different ways that I haven't discovered yet, or different ways of interpreting things.
I really enjoyed this post. Did you just think of your different types of eating or did you read an article or anything? I related to everyone of them. The last one, food anxiety, is particularly interesting, ie if I know I'm not going to eat a square meal for a few hours I am likely to have a snack because of the fear of being hungry. Sometimes I think we're afraid to feel hungry. I think I will have to think of my types of hunger. I may blog about them as well. Thank you for a really interesting blog and making me think x
ReplyDeleteHey John - I know you wrote this a little bit ago, but wanted to let you know that I enjoyed this post. You are so right about so many of these issues surrounding hunger.
ReplyDeleteHey there! Great post. I think it's a good idea to analzye all the different reasons why we might be thinking we're hungry. I completely relate to food anxiety. I struggle with this one the most and it's been the primary reason I failed on every diet I ever went on before I had the surgery. I would start to feel anxious about not being able to eat and it created panic. I would literally have a panic attack over not being able to eat a cookie! I would try to reason with myself that not eating a cookie now doesn't mean I can't eat one later. But my brain would go insane! I'd be practically having a meltdown over it in my head. To quiet the crazy voices in my head, I'd just eat the cookie. that got rid of the anxiety but it also ended my diet. I really like how you laid it all out there . Some I hadn't even thought of like getting tired!!
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