Or one day after a sleepless night, you feel like cooking for a whole platoon or you can barely control the urge to go out and order everything you see on the menu.
When you go to the supermarket, you feel that you are hungry when you see food displayed on the shelves, no matter if you have just had a meal.
Often, you will give in to this unreasonable hunger but have you asked yourself if you are really hungry? Have you tried to identify if what you are experiencing is true hunger or not?
Never go shopping on an empty stomach. For sure, you have heard this one before and you will keep hearing it in the future but in some instances, you may be surprised to feel hunger when you walk through rows and shelves of food no matter how full you are.
Most of us confuse wanting to eat with needing to eat, and learning to tell the difference between the two is important to break the “eat-feel guilty-repent-eat again” cycle, according to Dr. Michelle May, award-winning author from Arizona who is the founder and CEO of the popular “Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating” workshops.
How to tell if you’re hungry
Dr. May said maybe, you never feel hungry because you eat regularly, or maybe you ignore hunger until you are starving and then you eat anything you can get your hands on. May lists the most common signs that you are hungry:
• Hunger pangs
• Growling or grumbling
• Gnawing
• Empty or hollow feeling
• Slight queasy feeling
• Weakness or loss of energy
• Trouble concentrating
• Difficulty making decisions
• Light-headedness
• Slight headache
• Shakiness
• Irritability or crankiness
May said that hunger is physical — not a thought, a craving, or a rationalization.
Using hunger or your fullness as a gauge can help in setting your eating habits straight, May said.
For example, if you are full, you will eat less and will more likely choose nourishing foods. If you eat because you are bored or stressed, just imagine what kind of foods you will stuff into your mouth.
When you are hungry, food tastes better and you will feel more satisfied. The best advice is before you eat, check your fuel gauge just how much food you really need to satisfy your hunger.
Take a few deep breaths and look for the physical signs of hunger stated above.
Experts at the www.WebMD.com stated four possible reasons you are “fake hungry.”
The experts said that people’s appetites can be pranksters because it fools people to think they are hungry, when often, they may be suffering from something completely different.
Here are the four possible reasons for your hunger:
1. Eating the wrong food. The symptoms for hunger caused by eating the wrong food include craving for high sugar foods and you feel “hungry” even you have just consumed a heavy meal. This happens if your meal consisted only of carbohydrates and no fiber and proteins.
2. Emotional Hunger. The experts said that when people are bored, scared, stressed, lonely or anxious, their appetites may run out of normal order. They recommend that you divert your emotional feelings like going for a walk, writing a journal, listening to music or reading, and other diversions but stay away from places where you will be tempted to eat.
3. Hunger due to sleepiness. The www.WebMD.com experts said that people who are tired oftentimes overeat and overload on high sugar, nutrient-poor foods to get an extra surge of energy. The experts recommend going for a walk or drink a cup of tea if you get hungry especially during the late afternoon.
4. Hunger caused by thirst. Do you feel really hungry? Try drinking a glass of water and ask yourself again after. People often mistake thirst for hunger, according to the www.WebMD.com experts. If the physical symptoms are still there after you drank water, then eat.
On a final note, Dr. May and other experts said that it is important to eat regularly to keep your energy levels elevated. Don’t ignore hunger but try to include fruits and vegetables at each meal.
For more information and helpful tips, check out www.AmIHungry.com, www.MichelleMayMD.com. or www.WebMD.com.
