True and “false” hunger and how to recognize it. How to distinguish hunger from appetite

Hunger is a forgotten feeling, an unsaved mechanism. Many people eat without feeling hungry or have forgotten what it is. Learning to eat when we're hungry and listening to our bodies can be the hardest part of natural eating.
Hunger is a manifestation normal functions body, and all these functions bring joy to our body. For example: urination, sleep, sex.
Why then do they talk about the discomfort of hunger, that it brings pain? It is true that some people feel discomfort, but these are all signs that toxins are being released from the body. A person who has stopped drinking coffee or smoking experiences discomfort and a similar feeling from detoxification.
I want to emphasize the difference between true and false hunger.
False hunger appears and disappears quickly, then appears again and passes again. On the other hand, true hunger remains and becomes stronger. So to distinguish them you just need to wait an hour or a little more. At the beginning, hunger will be weak. But as we wait, our true hunger only grows stronger.
“All the painful symptoms of false hunger that I have described are strikingly similar to the reaction of a smoker after quitting cigarettes or a person who has stopped drinking tea or coffee. These symptoms that appear are false hunger - they are symptoms of cleansing.
Obviously, if a smoker or drug addict takes poison again during detoxification, then unpleasant symptoms cleaning stops. But we should never stop the cleanse from alcohol, coffee or junk food. “ Painful symptoms false hunger is identical to the feeling when a drug addict is deprived of his usual pills.”
Of course, the symptoms of drug addiction are much stronger, but food addiction and the habit of eating at a certain time end in food intoxication and gluttony. They create their own symptoms, which we mistakenly perceive as hunger.
When thousands of people, including doctors, described feeling hungry. They noted following symptoms: feeling of emptiness in the stomach, pain, fainting etc. But these are all feelings of appetite, not hunger. They appear due to poor nutrition.”

Sometimes it happens that appetite is accompanied by a feeling of discomfort, weakness, depression, rumbling in the stomach, nausea, headache and others. pathological symptoms. But real hunger can be distinguished from false hunger in the following way: you are hungry and feel good. And vice versa - if you feel hungry and feel bad, then this is a false feeling of hunger.”
When eating fried and denatured food, a person digests only 20%, and the rest is excreted in feces the next day. However, when proper nutrition- live food - 90% is digested, and the feces will then be well formed, odorless and in small quantities. So a change in diet creates a strong need for food until digestion improves. IN in this case hunger will be a symptom of malnutrition.
Hunger is a sacred principle in our lives - it must always be respected. People who ask to smell food to make their choice are actually ignoring hunger and looking for appetite! The most common and worst mistake is to fill our bellies at the usual dinner time, either because the doctor told us so, or society tells us so.”
When we eat not at the call of nature - great benefit no from this. This is similar to when a person breathes unnecessarily when diving deep, or drinks when he does not feel thirsty. This way of eating turns the body into a fertilizer factory.
True hunger indicates a natural need, moreover, it indicates that food will be effectively absorbed. When we smell food before tasting it, we are trying to increase our appetite. We only absorb part of what we digest.
Eat only when food is needed by the body, and not out of habit or because it’s lunch time! Only that food will benefit the body that was eaten during true hunger!

Among the reasons causing excess weight, overeating still occupies a leading position. Any person has two types of hunger - healthy and psychological. Depending on which one you satisfy, the body either assimilates the food or stores it on its sides in the form of the fat you so hate. Therefore, there is only one recipe for being slim: don’t eat when your nature, and not your stomach, requires it.

Healthy hunger is the result of the body's need to replenish its resources. You worked a lot physically or mentally, you were sick for a long time and are coming out of a crisis, or you simply haven’t eaten since the morning - it is natural that in this case the body needs food. And he signals about her in the usual way - by sucking in the pit of his stomach. A pleasant effect of satisfying such hunger will be pleasure from the taste of the product and a surge of strength afterwards. Please note - healthy hunger brings satisfaction from food. It is important!

Psychological hunger arises as a result psychological trauma, an unsolved problem. experiences, prolonged stress, dissatisfaction with oneself and irritation with others, as well as a way to close off and suppress the beginning psychological process(for example, thinking about your behavior in a given situation). As you become full, hunger as such does not go away, but discomfort from an enlarged stomach is added to it. There is, as a rule, no sensation of taste of foods and pleasure from eating, or taste qualities highly distorted. Psychological hunger can occur at any time of the day and regardless of how long ago you last ate.

There is no person who does not have bouts of psychological hunger from time to time. So, for example, to improve our mood, we often start in the winter, dark time year, but we give up this habit - in the warm summer. Therefore, if such attacks are typical for you, first of all, forgive yourself! It's not your body's fault that you have no other way to cope with yourself. But you can think about what doesn't suit you in your life and try to change something.

Sometimes it's better to eat than not to eat. It's right! Psychological hunger, no matter how unpleasant it may be, affects the body and psyche protective function. When internal tension excessive, no more simple way getting rid of it is like snapping your jaws. So, whatever one may say, we need this feature. If you want to get rid of psychological hunger pangs, you will have to find another way to burn off the energy of dissatisfaction. For example, dancing, singing, sports or sex, creativity, walking, etc. If you are not ready to do this, you will have to throw yourself on food from time to time.

But be aware that you can get poisoned with such food! It is not for nothing that body therapists believe that tension in the jaw area arises as a result of suppressed aggression (as in nature - to show your teeth!), and by making chewing movements, we achieve relaxation of the facial muscles. It turns out that we chew our anger along with food!!! It’s no wonder that food swallowed as a result of psychological hunger often makes you feel sick... maybe even vomiting. If you eat because you are angry, let the anger out, and then start eating.

For example, crumple and tear a napkin, hit the table with your fist, and ultimately break a plate. True, this is the way emergency assistance. Frequent use of it will bring you nothing but a reputation as a hysterical person. It is much better to learn to react appropriately right away. Allow yourself to evaluate the actions of others and gradually eliminate from your circle the people who make you angry, and simply not react to random manifestations of rudeness.

For this to happen, you need to learn only one thing - awareness!

Awareness of suppressed feelings significantly reduces hunger. But the feeling that lies on the surface is not always the main and true one. Understanding why you eat takes time and courage! When you feel a pang of hunger, close your eyes and look inside yourself. First, you will understand what thoughts are possessing you. Then thoughts will be replaced by feelings. There will be a reason behind the feelings; don’t be surprised if it lies on a completely different plane than thought. And once you realize the reason, you will understand what needs to be done about it!

To always eat only for health, follow these tips:

Don't rush into food right away. Even if you are very hungry, sit down, calm down, relax, do deep breath-exhalation and listen to yourself. Are you really hungry? Start eating slowly, savoring each bite and listening to how you feel. Stop eating as soon as you are full;

If there is some feeling next to hunger, mentally push it aside, promising yourself, like Scarlett from Gone with the Wind, to “think about it later”;

If you have already stuffed a lot of food into yourself and suddenly realize why you did it, thank yourself and mentally send a command to your body to use food for its benefit. All it takes is a team to make it work, but you have to believe in what you're doing.

Sometimes it is enough to endure an attack of psychological hunger for it to be replaced by healthy hunger. This usually takes from ten minutes to half an hour. Don't think that if you eat little or even just drink a glass of water when you're mentally hungry, you won't gain weight. The body will create a reserve in any case, and not because it needs these reserves so much, but because it is simply not able to digest it. Therefore, it is better not to eat, but to work with feelings. Having realized the reason that caused your hunger, you can eat even a kilogram of ice cream and not gain an ounce of weight.

Be grateful! It makes sense to thank psychological hunger. By its very appearance, it signals that something is wrong with you. It is much easier to listen to the voice of the body than to wait until the problem develops into a disease and completely destroys you. Learn to read body signs and it will have a positive effect on your emotional life and figure!

In most cases, one of the reasons overweight is that often along the way we ignore the body's signals about feelings of hunger or satiety. However, our body supplies them, but we stubbornly do not hear them.

The ability to recognize these signals will help you normalize and maintain your weight.

What is hunger?

Hunger cues tell you when to eat, what to eat, and when to stop eating. There are three types of hunger signals

Hunger is a feeling (rumbling in the stomach, hunger pangs) that causes the desire to eat. It is partly controlled by an area of the brain - the hypothalamus, blood sugar levels, the fullness of the stomach and digestive tract and certain hormonal levels in organism.

Satiety also called saturation. It's a feeling of satisfaction. Nerve endings The stomach sends signals to the brain that it is already full. Increased level blood sugar, hypothalamic activity and the presence of food in digestive tract promote a feeling of satiety.

Appetite- is it a desire or increased interest to food. It is associated with vision, taste buds and thoughts about food. Appetite can suppress feelings of hunger and fullness, for example when a person continues to eat even when the stomach is full. There may be no appetite even in case of hunger, which usually happens in stressful situations or during illness.

Why is it important to recognize hunger signals?

Young children automatically follow these cues. When their body sends hunger signals, they begin to fuss or cry, notifying adults that they need to eat, while they are well aware of when they are full and refuse to eat.

Adults are constantly distracted by something

As we grow older, we deviate from our natural dietary patterns.

Most of us can find food anywhere—grocery stores, markets, coffee shops, and many other places. It is very difficult to follow the feeling of hunger throughout the working day.

You often skip breakfast because you woke up late, and by 11 o'clock you are extremely hungry and eat more than you should.

Watching TV, reading or working on the computer is also accompanied by eating. This activity distracts attention from the signals that the body gives, and you no longer know what you ate, how much you ate, and when you should have stopped.

You often rush while eating, before you even have time to taste it, and do not pay attention to whether you are full or not.

Stress or other emotional experiences make us eat even if we are not hungry, since eating promotes relaxation.

Many people are attracted to large portions. Research shows that the larger the portion, the more you eat.

All this leads to you ignoring signals own body and you don’t pay attention to the feeling of hunger or satiety, and over time you generally lose the ability to recognize them. The ability to feel hunger and satiety helps to normalize weight and maintain it. You just need to learn to listen carefully to your body again.

How to learn to recognize hunger signals?

Determine where you are now

First you need to understand what drives you. Record signals in a special journal for the first 2 weeks or more. Write down not only when and how much you eat, but also what you did and felt immediately before eating. Use the hunger chart below and write down where you were on it before eating and where you went after.

By reviewing your meal records, you will discover certain eating patterns. For example, you most often have lunch in front of the TV and have a snack in the evening even if you are not hungry. You eat when you are bored or in stressful situations, although in reality the feeling of hunger is not that strong.

Develop a hunger table

This table will help you understand the difference between natural and provoked hunger. Psychological hunger is a feeling of hunger caused by emotions, namely stress, boredom, sadness or joy. When you feel hungry an hour after eating, check your notes and determine what caused it. If hunger appears immediately after eating, think about what provokes it and what you feel at that moment. When hunger occurs, rate your level of hunger on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being extreme hunger and 10 being overeating. A grade of 5 or 6 means that you feel normal (there is no feeling of hunger or fullness).

– great desire to eat, weakness, dizziness

– want to eat, lethargy, lack of energy, rumbling in the stomach

– moderately hungry, slight rumbling in the stomach

- feeling of hunger

– satisfaction (neither hungry nor full)

– half full, pleasant feeling of fullness

– minor discomfort

– feeling of fullness

– discomfort, stomach ache

– excessive overeating

To eat normally, as children do, start eating when your feelings correspond to point 3 or 4. Do not wait until your hunger reaches level 1 or 2. An enormous feeling of hunger leads to overeating. If you are following a meal schedule, stop and think about how hungry you are. If you feel a little hungry, eat less food than usual. Stop eating if you feel the same as points 5 or 6.

Make healthy food choices during meals

To fully saturate the body, you need to eat a balanced diet. This means that each meal should consist of:

carbohydrates: grains, fruits and vegetables;

proteins: meat, fish, eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, dried beans and nuts;

fats: fish, Walnut, flax seeds and linseed oil(they contain omega-3 acids); olive, peanut oil, as well as canola oil, avocado, olives (contain monounsaturated fats); corn, sunflower, soybean and cottonseed oil (rich in polyunsaturated fats);

Your diet should include what you like to eat and what you like. This is what contributes to satiety.

Learn to stop eating

Try to stop eating before you feel full. A full stomach causes a feeling of discomfort. Eat in moderation and remember the stages of saturation.

Before eating, relax and eat slowly. Remember that the stomach will report saturation only after 20 minutes.

Eat a quarter of it and listen to how you feel. If you are still hungry, continue eating, but stop again and check your hunger. You should not follow your parents' advice to leave your plate clean (to finish eating).

Determine the serving size. We are used to the ones served in restaurants, but they contain much more food than necessary.

Don't deny yourself

Many people think that healthy eating does not involve desserts, French fries or eating your favorite foods. But they are wrong. A huge desire to eat sweets or other unhealthy foods is strong signal body. In order not to overeat, you need to satisfy the body's needs. If we follow a diet that excludes unhealthy foods, we will surely fail. In fact, we are more likely to avoid these diets and eat our favorite foods.

It is important to understand what is driving you: appetite or hunger. Understanding the nature of the signal will help you control what you eat. If you adhere to healthy regime nutrition and listen to these signals, then you can eat a piece of birthday cake or fried potatoes. During the holidays, you can eat your favorite foods, but you just need to listen to your body's signals and eat enough to feel full.

Food provides our body with energy, but that's not the only reason you go to the refrigerator. For many people, emotional hunger has important. For example, you might eat because:

Happy (birthday cake!).
Upset (who hasn't indulged in ice cream after a bad day?).
Feeling stressed (you eat chocolate in the office during your break).

Food by emotional reasons often leads to overeating, since you were not truly hungry at that moment.

Sometimes overeating is not a serious problem. But if it happens all the time, you may have a disorder. eating behavior.

Signs you're feeling emotionally hungry

Here are some clues that your desire to eat is purely emotional:

As soon as it happens stressful situation, you immediately want to eat. True hunger doesn't depend on things like a fight with your spouse or problems at work.
A strong desire to eat something occurs suddenly. Real, physical hunger increases slowly. You shouldn't go from normal condition to hunger in an instant.
You want one specific food. When you're physically hungry, you may have preferences (you're in the mood for a hamburger, for example), but you'll also be open to other options. If you want, say, only chips or ice cream, then your desire to eat is purely emotional.

Still not sure if your desire to soothe your senses with food may be leading you to a dangerous point? Here are some misconceptions about emotional hunger and the eating disorder binge eating.

Myth #1: Craving food because you're upset or anxious means you have a disorder.

It's true that people who overeat frequently do so to numb emotions such as sadness, pain, or Bad mood. But most people who reach for food when their emotions are in trouble don't actually have compulsive overeating disorder. We all have our “comfort foods,” says Randy Flanery, Ph.D., director of Webster Wellness in St. Louis, Missouri.

If you overeat, you eat much more than others would. similar situation. People with this disorder also feel like they have no control over food when they overeat. They usually feel guilty and ashamed because they can't stop. If this sounds familiar to you, visit an expert mental health For correct diagnosis and treatment.

Myth #2: If you eat a lot of food in one sitting, it means you're a glutton.

Eating a significant amount of food at one time is indeed defined as gluttony. But you can only do this occasionally and not suffer from this disorder. Many people (by some estimates up to 80%) overeat at times. Just remember such holidays as New Year or Christmas, says Russell Marks, MD, chief Researcher National Eating Disorders Association. Many people do this from time to time, especially in holidays. But if this happens to you all the time, especially when you eat alone because you're embarrassed, see your doctor. These are signs of compulsive overeating.

Myth #3: People with compulsive eating disorders overeat because they are focused on food.

Often the opposite happens: people tend to pass on not focusing enough on what they eat. They don't realize how much they've eaten until they're done. Often they can eat almost automatically without paying attention to it special attention, says Flanery. Later they stop and themselves cannot understand why they did it.

If you're worried about your eating habits, keep a journal. Write down in detail how you feel before, during and after eating. Pay attention to what you eat and how much. This can help you become more mindful of what you eat.

Another tip: don't watch TV or read a book while you eat. Instead, cook dinner, sit down and really enjoy the tastes and smells.

Myth #4: You should wait until you feel your stomach growl before eating.

A rumbling stomach is a sign of physical hunger. But for many people, the body does not signal that it is time to eat until many hours have passed after the last meal. A growling stomach may mean it's been too long since you last ate, making you more vulnerable to overeating. Also in this case you are more likely to choose not healthy food With big amount sugar, fat and salt.

If you tend to overeat, eat healthy foods on a regular basis (on a schedule every 3-4 hours). As a rule, this really works. This schedule will help you avoid the temptation to snack at inappropriate times when, for example, you are feeling stressed.

And again awareness will help us! We have all seen the wonderful phrase on the Internet: “If you want to eat, eat green apple“If you don’t want a green apple, you don’t want to eat it.” Great, but it doesn’t work for me)). What works for me?

Be aware, scan my body, mind and soul every time before I'm about to eat something. This, in fact, meditation will take only 10 minutes and will allow you to maintain your figure, health and strengthen your ability to feel your true desires. And the ability to feel your true desires is an invaluable skill that moves mountains and puts exactly what you want at your feet.

So, let's follow the Buddhist monk Fra Sinlapache Santicaro, who outlined these 7 steps through awareness of the 7 types of hunger to a healing meal. Place the food you are going to eat in front of you. The quantity does not matter: both a set meal and one green apple will be carried through awareness. For the first time, do this meditation alone with yourself.

Look at the food and ask yourself, “Who is hungry in me?” Take a deep breath, relax and listen to yourself.

Perhaps you feel...

HUNGER OF THE EYES.

Take a good look at the food in front of you. See its shape, color, glare of light, its aesthetic component. After this, ask your eyes how strong your eyes’ hunger is for this particular food. And rate it on a 10-point scale, from “not attractive at all” to “I want it, I want it now.”

NOSE HUNGER.

Smell your food through your nostrils. Move away and get closer to her. Either weakening the smell, then strengthening it. Either refreshing your perception, or sharpening your sense of smell on food. Ask your nose how strong its hunger is for this particular food. Again, rate the hunger of your nose on a scale of 10.

HUNGER OF THE MOUTH (TONGUE).

Ask the same question to your tongue. Direct all your attention to the sensations of the taste buds located on the tongue, how much they want to try this dish. Rate it using our scale.

HUNGER OF THE STOMACH.

Rate your stomach's answer to the same question on a 10-point scale: is it hungry for this particular food. Is he ready to eat now? Or are we going to give him work without feeling the real hunger in our stomach?

CELL HUNGER.

Ask your body, every cell, if your body needs exactly those nutrients, which we now want to offer with this particular dish. Focus on the body as a whole. What will he answer on a scale of 10?

HUNGER OF THE MIND.

It's time to listen to the voice of consciousness about this food. Usually it says with the following phrases: “It’s good/not good for me to eat this,” “I should eat something else.” Following the reasoning of the mind, we usually forget about the desires of the nose, mouth, stomach, body. But they are the ones who help living organisms make best choice from possible food - to maintain health and activity. What does the mind say? Rate his answer on a 10-point scale.

HUNGER OF THE HEART.

Assess your feelings: are you upset or happy, do you want to “plug up” the emptiness and loneliness with food. It is this type of hunger that most often underlies eating disorders. We have heard more than once about the desire to “eat stress.” This behavior is formed in early childhood when during breastfeeding we felt a connection with our mother, her warmth and safety. Question your heart. Is it hungry now? And rate the answer on a 10-point scale.

Having walked in this way through all parts of your body that participate in general process hunger, you realize the need to eat this particular food right now. Post 7 Questions on the refrigerator. Ask yourself these questions every time you eat. It is important: to observe your individual type of hunger, without trying to change, criticize or control it. Just notice, observe, realize. This is the softest and friendliest path to change.