Written by: Natalie Pirolli, MS, RDN, LDN | March 22, 2022 | Updated August 12, 2024
One of the 10 principles of intuitive eating (IE) is honoring your hunger. We’ve covered a few aspects of IE so far: what IE is, why satisfaction with eating is important, how joyful movement vs. exercise makes a difference, and how to reject diet mentality and quiet that inner food police voice in our heads.
When it comes to recognizing hunger, you might think: "That’s easy, stomach growls = time to eat." But it’s not always so simple. How many times have you felt hungry but put it off to finish a task? Or put it off because dinnertime, or the next time your diet said it was OK to eat, was X hours away? Or because you “shouldn’t” be hungry yet because you just recently ate?
What complicates things more, is we often view hunger, missing meals, and eating very little as a badge of honor. We say things like "Ugh, I'm so hungry I haven't eaten all day" before eating dinner as if we have to prove to others and ourselves that we deserve this dinner. This can ultimately make the person you're eating with question what this means for them— "Should I eat less than my friend because I did eat today?" Or we let others know we "didn't have time to eat today" translation: I'm super busy, which is good because society tells us we should be super busy and put our needs last.
Then there is the issue: what if you don't feel hungry often? What if you don’t experience that stomach gurgling? Or feel like you forget to eat?
I’ll get to these questions but first, I think it will be helpful to learn a little more about our hunger cues.
Biology Drives Us to Eat
Our bodies are truly incredible. They can sense when we are in need of energy (calories/glucose) and send off signals that nudge us to eat. For instance, ghrelin (known as our hunger hormone), is a hormone that is released in response to an empty stomach to increase our sense of hunger. Typically, the body will continue to release ghrelin until we eat, meaning levels will continue to rise making us feel more and more hungry. The longer we put off eating (I’m looking at you, intermittent fasting!) or deprive ourselves of enough foods (all diets in general), the more ghrelin we produce.
Eating enough of a satisfying meal is what will switch ghrelin off, signaling that we are full. But what’s interesting is this doesn’t seem to be the case for chronic dieters. Ghrelin levels can actually remain high after a meal, preventing them from feeling full or satisfied and encouraging them to continue eating. This faulty ghrelin switch is a result of having been deprived of food and can last for up to a year after dieting or weight loss. Other factors like inadequate sleep and body composition can also impact ghrelin regulation.
What we often chalk up to “willpower” i.e., someone not eating or not eating much in the day, is actually someone who is ignoring their biological cue to eat, which can (physically and mentally) trigger overeating down the line.
What we often chalk up to "willpower" is actually someone who is ignoring their biological cue to eat, which can (physically and mentally) trigger overeating down the line.
Ghrelin seems to peak around 7PM, especially for those who haven’t eaten enough during the day. This likely contributes to that end-of-the-day “witching hour” where you just want to eat everything in sight. (Stress and/or having an unsatisfying “light” lunch during the day will contribute to this as well).
And what do we crave at that time, or really, most of the time? Carbs. Carbs in all forms— bread, chips, pretzels, cookies, candy/sweets… This can be in part because of the messaging we get to avoid them and can be compounded when we are following a low-carb diet (forbidden foods = more alluring), but there is a biological reason, too. Ghrelin stimulates a chemical messenger called neuropeptide-y, which causes a craving for carbohydrates.
Why? Because this delicious little macronutrient quickly and effectively increases our blood sugar levels, which we are desperately in need of when we haven’t eaten or eaten enough all day and are running on E. Simple carbs are especially quick at increasing blood sugar levels which is why we can crave those easy to digest foods like chips, crackers, sweets, etc. Some other signs of low blood sugar (and hunger/need for energy) include: irritability, fatigue, low motivation, lethargy, and faintness. Makes perfect sense why the couch, Netflix, and a bowl of chips or cookies sound so appealing after work.
We’re meant to meet our body's needs—period. This is in part why diets and diet mentality, i.e., I’m just going to eat a little bit now so I can eat more out at dinner later… don’t work. Especially long-term. Our bodies will literally send off signals to try to get us to stop dieting and start eating.
But what if I never feel hungry?
A number of things suppress our hunger like stress, distractions, or a learned response to ignore it. Diet culture teaches us “tricks” to curb our appetite like drinking water instead of eating, or loading up on coffee, or (historically) chain smoking cigarettes. We’ve been taught to fear our hunger or try to avoid it, which we now know will ultimately make us eat more at some point. And if we’ve been ignoring that cue, it may not be as clear to us as a gurgling stomach and can become harder and harder to detect. (Note: like the feeling of extreme thirst with dehydration, a growling stomach is often one of the last signs of hunger, when we're at the point of feeling starved/depleted).
It’s also important to note that when someone has been in an extreme calorie deficit, their body may stop signaling hunger (along with ceasing other things, like a monthly period), in an attempt to conserve energy.
Here are some less obvious signs of hunger:
Stomach aches, pain, or nausea
Faintness, lightheadedness
Shaky hands or body shakes
Inability to focus
Irritability (“hangry”) or lack of patience
Low energy, fatigue, lethargy
Low motivation, lack of enthusiasm
Moodiness or “blah” feeling
To tune back into your hunger, it helps to start eating more consistently throughout the day. A great place to start is breakfast. If you begin eating breakfast around the same time each day, eventually you’ll notice you’re waking up hungry and ready for it. (Added bonus: this will also help regulate blood sugar and cortisol levels improving your stress response!)
To tune back into your hunger, it helps to start eating more consistently throughout the day.
This can feel scary. There can be a sense of accomplishment or peace with not feeling hunger (if I’m not hungry, I won’t eat and I will lose/won’t gain weight). But consistently not eating enough can ultimately lead to weight gain and cause more metabolic harm than good. (Refresher on those side effects here and here).
What if I feel hungry all of the time?
There are several things that impact our fullness from a meal; eating enough being one of the more obvious, but not always so easy to determine. I've worked with clients who "pick" on food throughout the day, never really eating a balanced meal or balanced snack, just kind of grazing on easy-to-digest foods like crackers, granola bars, low-calorie yogurts, sweets, fruit, etc. This may be causing them to not only undereat in terms of calories, but miss their macro- and micronutrient needs as well. Both the volume and complexity of our meals and snacks affect satiety. We tend to digest simple carbs in about an hour or two, whereas meals that also contain protein and fat can take longer, like 3-5 hours. Fiber also delays digestion, increasing and/or extending those feelings of fullness. Therefore meals and snacks that contain all three macronutrients (and a source of fiber like fruits, veggies or whole grains) keep us fuller longer.
Satisfaction also plays a big role in satiety. When we're unsatisfied with our food choices, it can actually signal to the body that we're not done eating. This is part of the reason why we can find ourselves picking in the pantry after a bland meal or when we ate something we thought we "should" eat over what we really wanted. It's helpful to incorporate foods we enjoy and a variety of tastes and textures to help us feel both satisfied and satiated. Giving ourselves permission to eat foods we enjoy and being kind to ourselves when (and after) eating them is also important because, interestingly, guilt can block our feelings of pleasure, making that satisfaction piece not register (or not register for long).
Is it OK to eat when not hungry?
Short answer: yes! This is especially important for those who feel like they don’t experience hunger. Generally speaking, 3 meals and 1-3 snacks per day are needed to meet energy needs (depending on how long you are awake and several metabolic factors). Just because you don’t feel it, doesn’t mean your body doesn’t still need energy and nutrients. There are exceptions, of course. For example, if you are feeling sick and physically cannot get enough food in, you have to honor that, too. What you will also have to honor is the increased hunger you’ll likely feel over the next few days after you’ve recovered. That’s the body making up for lost time and nutrition (it really is so brilliant!).
Another exception or area to notice is emotional eating. If we're not physically hungry but are using food to cope with boredom, unpleasant emotions, etc., we may benefit from exploring what is driving our "hunger" and how we can get those needs met outside of eating. (Emotional eating may also be what drives that all-day hunger/never-satisfied feeling). Emotional eating might be a sign we're in need of some pleasure, support, excitement, fulfillment, or a number of other emotional needs.
For some, it can be a slippery slope down into the dark valley of yo-yo dieting and weight cycling if we only eat when we’re stomach-gurgling hungry. This would make us miss out on things like: getting ice cream cones with a friend, having dessert after a meal, or enjoying popcorn while watching a moving. We’re often satisfied from dinner when it comes time for dessert or a movie on the couch, but unless we are uncomfortably full, we shouldn't deny ourselves of these enjoyable aspects of eating when we're in the mood. And as you know, denying ourselves of the foods we enjoy can lead to overindulging later.
For some, it can be a slippery slope down into the dark valley of yo-yo dieting and weight cycling if we only eat when we're hungry.
For example, say if we were to come home to some freshly baked cookies but told ourselves we’d wait to try one when we were hungry, what do you think would happen? Would we try one or at least six to tame our growling stomach? (Remember how our craving for carbs/sweets increases as we let hunger go on?).
Don’t Fear Your Hunger
Bottom line, ignoring our hunger often does more harm than good. It biologically results in more reminders to eat and crave simple carbs. It also counteracts the result we’re often trying to achieve by ignoring it—whether it’s weight loss, curbing cravings, or avoiding certain foods. Honoring our hunger helps us learn to trust our bodies, which can allow us to reject diet mentality and become more in tune with our needs.
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