Seven Types of Hunger
2nd June 2021
I have already mentioned in my previous blog that the hunger is the most critical point of the diet.
Hunger leads us to give up dieting as we don’t like the feeling of it, we don ‘t like changes and we don’t like the failure.
When we speak about hunger we can identify 7 types of hunger. Let ‘s see, what are these 7 types of hunger?
Hunger is physical and intuitive motivation for eating.It affects our feelings,thoughts and our body’s physical symptoms. The key to avoid hunger is a good, well balanced diet and understanding the reason of being hungry, understanding our body.
There are 7 different types of hunger, but as I mentioned it earlier not all of them is real.
Malnutrition:
Here the hunger is the result of a poor nutrition which doesn’t supply the healthy amount of nutrients to our body.
For example: one day you eat 3000 kcal from fast food and biscuits instead of your ideal 1600 kcal. Your body will feel that didn’t get enough minerals and nutrients so the hunger is going to send signs to your brain that go and eat something due to lack of nutrients. Lack of nutrients will make you feel that you are hungry and you need food.
If we haven’t got the knowledge of the nutrition content of the food we eat, it is very easy to fill ourself with empty calories which doesn’t provide the necessary nutrients to our body.
Thirst:
The first sign of the dehydration comes with hunger. We don’t even realise that the reason is thirst, wevjust feel that we need something and our brain associate this feeling with hunger.
When you feel hungry ,first always have a glass of water before you eat. Provide 2 literes of water to your body daily.
Craving:
Our body feels the comfort if we provide food which is high in calories, mainly fatty and sugary food.
Like that we are able to store energy for later and we also get a good source of energy from the sugar rapidly.
In the old times people were following this type of diet with high calorie food. They needed the energy as they were living much more active life than us.The modern society is not that active at all. Many of us sit 8 hours a day front of the computer, we exercise only about an hour a day followed by sitting front of the TV and relaxing at home.
The activity level has changed but the prefered food is still the same. If we see a nice slice of cake or a burger with chips we feel the hunger straight away.
This isn’t real hunger. If we you follow the mindful eating pattern and we know about the necessary nutrients the body needs and the amount of the required daily food, it is easier to avoid the craving.
Low blood sugar level:
Low blood sugar level cause hunger but we can avoid it if we made good food choices during the day.If we eat sugary, starchy food and you stuff yourself with empty calories there will be a rapid increase in your blood sugar level, increased amount of insulin production followed by a sudden decrease. The symptoms of hunger,craving, tiredness, dizziness comes with the decrease of the blood sugar level.
Emotional hunger:
Emotional hunger is simply a psychological problem. It is not related to our nutrition or our physical needs. Hunger comes with our emotions. The reason of the eating can be happiness, sadness, lack of self- confidence , stress.
The brain automatically offers food as a reward or to try to make you happy and satisfied.
Sleep deprivation:
Sleep deprivation has many side effects. I have written about it in one of our prevoius blog post already:
If we speak about the relationship between the sleeping and the hunger, the main problem which cause hunger is the reduced level of leptin when we suffer from lack of sleep.
Leptin is a hormon which is responsible for the feeling of fullness.If you did not have enough sleep and you Have the most perfect nutrition, but the leptin is not producing due to the lack of sleep and the brain doesn’t get the sign that “ I am full,the food was enough”
We are able to eat 3-4 times more than normally until we realize that actually we are not hungry.
The reason of overeating that body to compensate the lack of energy. The body feels that we are tired , we need energy so we try to get it from calories which will be transformed to energy.
When we just feel that we are very tired behind the screen our brain is searching for food which is high in sugar,fat, calories and supplies you energy without us realizing it.So it is very normal to reach sugar in this case but as I mentioned it about the low blood sugar level, after sugar intake our energy level will be even in a deeper level due to blood sugar rising and dropping.
Empty stomach:
This is real hunger.
We need 4-6 hours after eating to digest a main meal, 1-3 hours to digest a small meal like snack.
When all the food have been digested and the stomach is empty we feel hunger and the gastric acid will start hurting the wall of the stomach insted of digesting the food. The most ideal eating pattern is to have some food in every 3-6 hours. We need to listen to our body’s bioritmic too. The empty stomach does not necessarily mean that we need to eat , only if we feel it in your physical performance.
You can understand that if you have a good , well balanced diet and you are well hydrated , you have enough sleep , some self contol and you can understand your body a little bit , you are definetly not going to be hungry.
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