What is hunger and how does it happen? What diseases cause constant hunger?

It is important to learn not to overeat if you want to become slim. Babies do not suckle milk until their ventricles are completely filled, which causes discomfort, wouldn’t you agree?

The desire to fill the stomach with food develops later under the influence of social factors or examples from relatives.

Babies eat until they have enough nutrition, but not too much. They eat food until hunger prompts them to do so or until a pleasant sensation arises in the stomach.

Feeling of a full stomach- this is a signal that you have overeaten.

Typically, overweight people eat until their stomach is full. At the same time, they eat an amount of food that exceeds the size of their fist.
So you were once a baby and didn’t pass it on. And as time passed, they began to eat a lot until they were full. In our Age of Consumption, when the shelves are “strewn” with all kinds of food, it is difficult not to overeat.

Hunger is our friend

You need to understand that hunger is good. Not appetite, but hunger.
It is natural for the body to experience hunger; it is bad if it does not feel it.

If a wild animal loses the ability to feel hunger, it will die from exhaustion.

Hunger— significant thing, because it tells us it's time to eat.
When your stomach feels hungry, it's time to eat. For some it happens three times a day, for others it may be more or less often. Some people have different frequency of hunger pangs every day.
It is harmful to do anything to avoid feeling hungry. We must be hungry to know when it is time for us to eat to sustain life.

It may seem like we have no control over our hunger. Most often this is not the case. Rather, you have denied it or ignored it for too long that you have forgotten how to clearly recognize it. You can rely on real feeling hunger experienced by the stomach. However, there is a False Hunger. The cause is stress or anxiety, and sometimes artificial stimulants such as alcohol, or lack of sleep. That's how false famine: It does not come from the stomach, but rather from the mouth's need to chew or from thirst.

How to recognize a feeling of hunger?

Rumbling occurs as a result of contraction of the stomach muscles. When food is in this organ, muscles move it towards small intestine. When your stomach is empty, you may feel contractions and hear a “rumbling” sound. This is usually a sign that you are hungry and it's time to eat.

How to feel hungry

Hunger — unpleasant feeling, occurring somewhere above, below, or behind your navel. Different people They feel hunger differently.

Some - how muscle contractions, others like a feeling of emptiness in the stomach.
To get to know your hunger sensation, don't eat until it hits. For most people, this occurs 2 to 5 hours after eating.

Pay attention to your hunger. Determine where the physical sensations originate. Listen carefully for any bubbling or rumbling sounds. You may feel funny at the thought of “listening” to your stomach, but it is very important to learn to recognize your body’s signals.

What prevents you from feeling hungry?

It is extremely important to listen to your body's hunger signals if you want to achieve your ideal size. Unfortunately, for many of us, certain conditions prevent us from “hearing” them.

Most often this is:

Low level blood sugar. If you miss a bout of hunger and instead feel dizzy, weak, and irritable, then you need to eat. This may mean a drop in blood sugar levels, which suppresses the feeling of hunger for at least at first. If you get enough proteins, fats and carbohydrates at each meal, you will begin to feel hunger pangs more clearly.

Painkillers. If you take painkillers, you may lose your ability to feel hungry. Other medications, such as anticonvulsants, may also interfere with your hunger sensations. If* this happens to you, be sure to read the “A Fistful of Food” section later in this chapter.

Nervous stomach. If you experience anxiety as a pain in your stomach, you may mistake the pain of anxiety for hunger. If this happens to you, read the “A Fistful of Food” section later in this chapter.

Excessive busyness. If you are too busy doing something, you can easily not notice your hunger. Set a clock or alarm to remind you every hour to ask your stomach if it's time to eat (if it's hungry, of course).

Lack of experience. You may have spent most of your life ignoring your body's hunger messages. You don't know how to distinguish between them because you have no experience. Some people, however, never let themselves get hungry. If this happens to you, take the time to listen to your body's weak and timid hunger signals. The more time you spend on this, the stronger the signals will become. Gradually, hour by hour, day by day, they will become louder and clearer.

Smile when you feel hungry. This means that you are not always transmitting. Reward yourself with a little tasty food!

Satisfying hunger

As already mentioned, the baby stops eating as soon as his hunger is satisfied. How will he know about this? The answer is like in the fairy tale about Masha and the three bears. Masha chose a cup, a chair and a crib that suited her. The same goes for the stomach and the feeling of satisfaction. Satisfaction means that the stomach is neither hungry nor full. It feels exactly right.

Feeling of satisfaction- this, one might say, is the absence of any feeling. You are not overcrowded, and the hunger pangs have stopped. You can take a deep breath. The belt on the trousers does not cut into your body. You have enough energy to go for a walk or do some activity. This is not satiety, this is satisfaction. People with overweight tend to eat until completely full.

It is very difficult to give up such a habit. By the end of this chapter, you will learn how to control and change your behavior, but it helps to start by looking at your own habits.
Act like children and don't put pressure on them!

Often we want to feed the child until he is full at lunch, but there is no point in doing this. The child himself regulates his need for food. Instead of forcing your child to eat the entire portion, teach your children to eat a little at a time.

What do you prefer: satiety or satisfaction?

Answer the following questions:

1. Do you usually take a supplement with lunch or dinner?

2. Do you prefer super portions in fast food restaurants?

3. Do you have to loosen your belt more than once a month or change into looser clothes after eating?

4. Do you eat dessert after meals, even if you are already full and have eaten a lot?

5. Do you usually drink more than one glass of beer or wine with meals?

6. Do you usually eat everything put on your plate as a member of the clean plate society?

7. After lunch, do you usually sit and watch TV or do any other sedentary activity?

8. Do you eat more than one piece of bread with your main course?

If you answered "Yes" more than once or twice, you may have a habit of eating until your stomach feels full, beyond what is necessary for satisfaction.

If you're aiming for your ideal size, change your habits so that the answer to all of these questions is "No."

Hunger is defined as the feeling of needing food. However, this sensation does not always develop during malnutrition. People with disabilities eating behavior may feel hungry after eating, or not feel hungry at all. It is reliably known that over the past 50 years, the amount of calories consumed by humans has increased by 100-400 kcal per day. People began to eat more processed food and move less. Obesity has become a global problem and controlling hunger is topical issue in dietetics.

The mechanisms of hunger development are more complex than it might seem at first glance. The sensation of hunger and satiety occurs in the hypothalamus. There is a so-called food center there. It has two sections - one signals the need for food, the other is responsible for the feeling of fullness (calorizer). Roughly speaking, we feel hunger with our heads, where signals come from the stomach and intestines through nerve impulses and blood.

Entering gastrointestinal tract, food begins to be digested and absorbed, absorbed into the blood. If you compare the blood of a hungry and well-fed person, then in the latter it is more saturated with digestive products. The hypothalamus is sensitive to changes in blood composition. For example, we may feel hungry when...

Researchers are still studying the processes of hunger. It was opened only in 1999. It is produced in the stomach and sends a signal to the brain about hunger. Second significant hormone leptin, which influences the formation of the feeling of need for food, is produced in adipose tissue and sends a signal to the brain about satiety.

There are several types of hunger: physiological, psychological, forced and starvation.

Physiological hunger is born in the stomach. It occurs when there is a lack of food in the form of gradually increasing discomfort. The sensation can be described with the words “rumbling in the stomach”, “sucking in the pit of the stomach”. Many sufferers overweight people do not wait for this moment, satisfying earlier. This type of hunger can be tolerated. For example, when you feel hungry on the road, you do not try to satisfy it, but agree with yourself that you will eat upon arrival.

Psychological hunger cannot be felt by the stomach; it is born in the head and has no connection with the feeling of satiety. It can be felt after eating or when faced with food temptation. Emotions prevent you from enduring psychological hunger. They also make it difficult to determine the arrival of saturation. That is, a person cannot understand that he has enough. Some people overeat to the point of cramping or a feeling of fullness in their stomach. Psychological hunger can occur for certain foods. Then people say they are addicted to them. After eating, a person experiences embarrassment, guilt or shame. On a diet, people often satisfy psychological hunger with other foods. For example, a strong craving for chocolate appeared, and a person suppressed it by eating a kilogram low-fat cottage cheese. This does not change the essence - the psychological hunger was satisfied with another product.

Forced famine can affect a group of people. History knows many examples. The last outbreak of mass famine was recorded in 2011 in East Africa, where 50-100 thousand people died from starvation. This phenomenon may have economic, political, religious or violent causes. The hungry themselves do not have sufficient resources to meet their food needs.

Fasting is voluntary. It can be absolute - a person does not eat at all, or relative - he is malnourished. Fasting is also called a condition of the body that arises due to a lack of nutrients. It is known that a person can live for a maximum of two months without food. If some types of relative fasting, like or are capable of bringing some benefit to the body, then long-term fasting affects the psyche, changes the work internal organs, reduces functions immune system and must be stopped immediately.

Forced mass starvation is a global problem of humanity, and voluntary starvation belongs to the class medical problems. We cannot solve them, but we can control physiological and psychological hunger.

Control physiological hunger is key for weight loss. To make losing weight more comfortable, you need to:

1. Determine for yourself.
2. - diets where the protein intake in the diet is 1.2-1.6 per kilogram of weight are easier to tolerate than diets with low protein intake.
3. - mixed nutrition helps maintain a feeling of satiety.
4. Eating solid food allows liquids to be absorbed faster.
5. - fats slow down digestion and promote long-term satiety.
6. Reduce sugar consumption to a minimum - sharp effects on appetite.
7. Give up strict diets - low-calorie diets force you to constantly fight hunger and...

Having provided all the conditions to control physiological hunger, it is necessary to take care of psychological hunger. This will help:

1. Refusal of strict restrictions - include “harmfulness” in small quantity into the diet. During active weight loss, their share should not exceed 10% of calories.
2. Talk to yourself - ask if you really want to eat it, how full you are, why you are eating and why you continue to eat when you are already full. Question yourself about your emotions and desires. Often behind psychological hunger there is anxiety or a desire for other things. Contact a psychologist if you feel like you can’t cope on your own.
3. After each meal, determine the time for the next one - your task is to hold out until this time without putting a single crumb in your mouth. Be sure to set the composition and amount of food in advance so as not to overeat.

The feeling of hunger brings discomfort. When reducing weight and caloric intake, it is completely normal to experience slight discomfort (calorizator). When the discomfort becomes unbearable, breakdowns occur. Do everything in your power to do so, because the more convenient the diet, the less harm it does to health and the easier it is to achieve results.

When our stomach begins to “growl” and we clearly feel the need for food, we often say: “I need to eat, otherwise my stomach is completely empty.” We say, and don’t even think about it, that this is fundamentally wrong. We experience a feeling of hunger not at all because the food that entered the stomach at the last meal has gone away and it has become empty. The impulse that the body needs reinforcement is transmitted to us by the brain and this is preceded by a complex chemical process, in which it is not the stomach that takes part. What kind of process is this? How does the feeling of hunger occur? Why, even with a “full” stomach, can we still feel hungry? Getting answers to these questions means learning to understand your body and correctly satisfy its needs.

So, let's start with the fact that our body is always in a state of retention metabolic balance, i.e. controls food consumption and its subsequent processing. Only the amount of food we need is processed. It happens something like this: the hunger center, which is located in the brain, conditionally transmits a signal to the stomach and intestines so that they suspend their activity at the moment when the required amount of nutrients enters the body. And vice versa, when there are not enough nutrients, the brain “turns on” the work digestive tract. By the way, as a result last process and that same “rumbling” in the stomach arises, we hear how complex mechanism food processing began its work.

It turns out that we experience hunger not because empty stomach, but due to lack of nutrients. Thus, hunger is not always caused by the need for food; very often, simply drinking is enough to satisfy it.

Our body also experiences an urgent need for food when blood sugar levels drop. When this happens, we often first begin to think “how can we eat something so delicious?”, and then, after some time, hunger becomes simply unbearable and we begin to eat everything – sweet, salty, spicy. As soon as food containing carbohydrates enters the body (everyone knows that sugar is a carbohydrate), a feeling of satiety occurs.

However, there are also pitfalls here. If you have eaten a lot of a wide variety of foods or satisfied your body's need for sugar fast carbohydrates(high-calorie cakes or sweets), they will be digested very quickly and very much will immediately enter the body a large number of Sahara. This will be followed by a response from the pancreas - it will urgently begin to produce a lot of insulin. Insulin, in turn, will take sugar from the blood, its level will drop again, and you will feel hungry again. To prevent this from happening, you need, firstly, to take small snacks before you are overcome by the feeling of hunger (i.e., avoid “hunger” attacks); secondly, you need to satisfy the body’s need for sugar not quickly, but the right carbohydrates. Good foods for this include apples (they contain fructose), a variety of vegetables (raw), bran, as well as nuts and dried fruits.

It also happens that we do not experience a real feeling of hunger, but simply succumb to habit. For example, the time has come at which you usually have lunch (although today you had lunch a little earlier, and ate quite heavily) or you are in the buffet or cafe where you usually eat. At this moment it begins to seem to you that you are hungry, but do not rush to succumb to provocations. Listen to your body and try to understand whether you really need to eat right now?

If you feel hungry all the time, there may be many reasons for this:

Psycho-emotional mood (very often stress contributes to changes hormonal levels);

Unbalanced diet (in particular, food poor in proper carbohydrates);

Chronic fatigue, lack of sleep (the amount of the hormone leptin produced in the body decreases, to compensate for the lack of which you always want to eat food with high content Sahara);

Lack of B vitamins (in this case, there is a constant need to eat flour products);

Some disorders at the genetic level (the hunger center, which we talked about above, begins to transmit incorrect signals).

Finally, I would like to remind you once again that the center of hunger in us is not in the stomach, but in the head! Only a competent approach to nutrition will allow you to properly meet your body’s needs for nutrients and sugar, which means feeling hungry as little as possible!

In fact, for hunger, which is physiological or psychological feeling food needs.

If you recently ate, but after a while you feel hungry again, there are reasons for this. They can be quite unexpected and compelling. In fact, this will not be to blame for the too small portion that was served to you, for example, in the canteen, or the fact that you only ate soup.

In reality, hunger, which is the physiological or psychological sensation of needing food, can be influenced by factors such as hormonal changes or a person's depressed state. You will constantly feel hungry if you are a pregnant woman or suffer from any disease that causes unhealthy eating habits, for example, bulimia. What else can interfere with the satisfaction of satiety?

1. Depression and stress. When you are stressed, adrenaline is released into your bloodstream, and you will forget about food for a while. But stress then begins to provoke the production of cortisol, which, on the contrary, will make your stomach “ask” for food with greater force. Both of these hormones make your body think it is in danger and therefore needs extra energy. Depression, boredom and sadness can also cause hunger. And you will try to eat bad thoughts delicious buns and cakes.
2. Thirst. The confusion is that you want to this moment drinking or eating occurs in the hypothalamus of the brain, where satiety centers are located. Sometimes a simple thirst can contribute to the craving to eat something. Without food, the amount of nutrients in the blood decreases. “Hungry” blood flows to the nuclei of the hypothalamus and excites nerve cells"center of hunger" The feeling of hunger coincides with periodic contractions of an empty stomach. If you drink water, then after a few minutes you may feel full, as your stomach will be full. If this does not happen, then you are really hungry and the body requires replenishment of energy.
3. A sharp decrease in blood sugar levels. When you eat sweets, insulin enters the blood in large quantities to process glucose. Foods rich in carbohydrates, such as candy, cause increased secretion insulin. At the same time, sugar levels may drop sharply, and the feeling of hunger may increase. Sweet dishes are rich in fast carbohydrates, which are empty calories. They stimulate the appetite, but do not saturate the body with nutrients.
4. Diabetes. With this disease, the synthesis of the same insulin by the pancreas is disrupted. His body simply doesn’t have enough. Diabetics often feel thirsty and weak. The feeling of hunger occurs due to the fact that a small amount of insulin leads to insufficient absorption of glucose by the cells, and they begin to experience “glucose starvation.” Alarm signal enters the brain and results in appetite diabetes mellitus increases sharply.
5. Pregnancy. Hormonal changes in a pregnant woman's body cause her uncontrollable feeling hunger. The body requires additional calories necessary for the development and growth of the fetus. The expectant mother literally has to eat for two. Most often, a woman’s desire to eat all the food in the refrigerator is “ interesting position"Occurs in the first trimester of pregnancy.
6. Quick food and snacks on the go. You need to eat for at least 15-20 minutes, chewing your food thoroughly. It is during this time that the body realizes that you have satisfied your hunger. Swallowing poorly chewed pieces, practically “on the go”, creates a situation where food receptors do not have time to transmit information to the brain that a person is full. As a result, having eaten a large portion of food in a hurry, you will continue to feel hungry without being satiated with food and satisfied with the taste of the dish.
7. Delicious pictures. You can eat not only with your mouth, but also with your eyes. In a figurative sense, of course. The mouth-watering photos of beautifully presented dishes are sure to make you want to try them. And a large number of images of gastronomic masterpieces can excite incredible feeling hunger, even if a person has eaten recently.
8. Wrong food. Protein is a must have in your daily diet. Its lack can cause an irresistible feeling of hunger, which will be difficult to suppress. Protein-containing foods, such as meat or eggs, are high nutritional value and charge the body with vigor and energy for the whole day.
9. Medicines. Some medications can cause significant weight gain. This is especially true for reception hormonal drugs. Antidepressants, steroids and contraception they also have, among other things, by-effect in the form of increased appetite. Accordingly, taking these medications, you will begin to experience hunger noticeably more often.
10. Bad dream. With a lack of sleep, the balance of hormones in the body that are responsible for the feeling of hunger is disrupted. If you sleep less than 7–8 hours a day, and even more so if you go to bed too late, then night trips to the refrigerator and a rumbling stomach are guaranteed. Researchers believe that bad dream disrupts the production of leptin and ghrelin, and also increases the amount of sugar in the blood, which leads to the development of high appetite and hunger.

Instructions

Try not to think about food, because thoughts about your favorite dish will clearly create a desire to snack. But you still can’t eat at all, you’ll have bad feeling, and the body will go into “sleep” mode, and accordingly you will not be able to work or do household chores. You can only fight with excessive appetite.

Drink a glass of lemon or grapefruit juice. Acids will begin to break down body fat, and you won’t feel like eating for a few hours. Instead of natural juices, Apple vinegar, diluted with water (2 tsp per 200 ml of water). But don’t get too carried away, the feeling hunger will pass, but it will have a detrimental effect on the stomach.

Eat some ground cinnamon and drink water. Gradually the feeling hunger will leave you. Coffee beans can also replace cinnamon, chew a few fruits and drink a glass of green tea. If you can't eat coffee beans or cinnamon, just drink a few cups of strong coffee - the desire to eat should leave you.

Make a few physical exercise, for example, squats, push-ups or press exercises. During physical activity the body begins to process its own reserves, the appetite goes away. This will not only help you, but also bring your figure into complete order. If you do not exercise during periods of fasting, your skin will begin to sag. Of course, you will lose a couple of extra pounds, but appearance This won't make it any better.

Contact an endocrinologist. After a short examination, the doctor will prescribe you medical supplies, reducing appetite. Usually they prescribe "Xenical" or "Reduxin", as well as "Siofor", but this is only if, on top of everything else, your blood sugar level is elevated.

If you don’t feel well during a hunger strike, then it’s better not to suffer, but to have a snack low-calorie foods. You won't be able to eat at all anyway, and this can lead to anorexia, which often ends in serious health problems.

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Every diet is a ban, a refusal to eat any food, a time limit for eating food. All these measures lead to an increase in hunger. Constantly overcoming this feeling is stressful for the body and for nervous system. Most often, stress leads to breakdowns and violation of prohibitions, which results in overeating and even greater weight gain.

To avoid this vicious circle, when you are constantly losing weight, overcoming yourself and experiencing suffering, I recommend reviewing your diet during the day and accustoming yourself to some simple rules.

What you eat?

For slim figure Low-calorie foods are important. Let you eat often, but at the same time eat something with a minimum of calories. Low-calorie food does not mean “not tasty”. For example, instead of fried meat, sausages and cutlets, you can eat boiled, low-fat meat (rabbit, chicken). It is best to choose vegetables as a side dish for the main dish. This approach in combining products is close to the techniques " separate power supply". There is a lot on this topic on the Internet. For any meat, instead of a side dish, you can prepare a light, spicy and very delicious sauce. Also, any vegetables, cereals can be eaten separately without meat dish using the same seasonings and spices. I love it fatty fish You can always replace them with less calorie types, they are also healthier. As a snack, it is best to eat all kinds of bread and bran. If you want sweets, then the most the best choice- marmalade (not in), toffee (one “Kis-Kis” toffee contains only 25 kcal, “Meller” toffee = 17 kcal). Learn to eat one thing with one glass of tea: one candy, one piece of bread, etc.

What are you drinking?

Tea, coffee - do not contain calories at all. They can be drunk in unlimited quantities. Do you like coffee with milk? Reduce the amount of milk or use skim milk. Train yourself to drink tea and coffee without sugar. Believe me, it's about loving the true taste of these drinks without sweetening it. Reduce as much as possible, or better yet, avoid drinks such as Coca-Cola, energy drinks, and hot chocolate. If you are struggling with temptation, then imagine what harm these drinks do to your stomach, how they kill healthy microflora and “corrode” healthy tissue. Consequences - ulcers, gastritis, heartburn, colitis.

How do you eat and drink?

People often eat behind a monitor or in front of the TV. At this moment, they don’t even notice how much food they “swallowed.” They could not get enough of it and enjoy it, because... the brain was busy with other work. Try not to do anything while eating. Before eating, enjoy it the way it is. Create some food rituals for yourself. For example, come to the office, brew yourself aromatic coffee, smell it, warm your hands on the cup, and get ready for the new day. Try to eat as often as possible, following all the principles described in this article. Don't let long breaks between meals, this can provoke an increase in appetite, and in this state it is difficult to be responsible for one’s actions and actions. In the morning, eat within the first hour of waking up. If you really want to eat in the evening, don’t deny yourself. But let it be boiled egg or a cucumber with a piece of cheese, bread with a thin layer of pate or a small marshmallow for tea. In any business you need a habit. By gradually creating nutritional rules for yourself, you accustom your body to them. By acting in a soft evolutionary way, you can achieve sustainable results without much effort. At first it is easy to follow the rules, but at some point you will want to give up everything and return to your usual lifestyle. These are turning points when you understand how difficult it is to constantly be on alert and control yourself. At such moments, you need to try not to concentrate on your “grief”, distract yourself, but not with food. I recommend going to the cinema, taking a walk, cleaning, getting a manicure - whatever will bring holiday to your soul and help you forget. Good luck and health to you!

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