Question for those of you who have been doing this for a while:
How have you learned to tell the difference between true hunger and craving?
I am struggling with night time hunger....not sure if it's become in the last four days I have radically reduced my calories while radically upping my exercise? I want to be careful not to metabolically injure myself.
Interesting. But yes. Hunger is physical. You feel it in your stomach. You feel weak. And sometimes a little light headed.
Craving is all in the head. Thinking "I'd like one of those".
I don't get hungry any more because I have got my diet right. But the odd craving comes along every now and again. Mostly I resist but sometimes life happens...
The best cure I have for night time hunger is to go to bed. If there is one thing I enjoy more than eating, it's sleeping! And I don't feel hungry when asleep. And if you are exercising, you should be falling asleep on a dime. I know I do.
I've spent a lot of time on this because I really have trouble with cravings, but I can manage hunger just fine.
Here are some of the cues for me:
Cravings:
1. My mind tends to dart to a specific food or type of food. There's cake in the house- I want a piece, I want a piece...or if not a specific food, then toward binge foods-- sugary stuff, sweets, baked goods, chips.
2. The craving is not affected by whether I'm hungry. I can crave right after a meal.
3. Cravings can be triggered by seeing something... like if I open the cupboard and see Oreos, I might really want them. Or if there are Oreos in the break room at work, I might really want one. Cravings can also be triggered by a situation--like popcorn at the movies. Or by stress-- I'm so stressed out, I think I'll buy a pint of Ben and Jerry's.
HUNGER:
1. I feel irritable and if really hungry, then shaky.
2. I can ignore it if necessary. (this is weird, but I find it very hard to shut down a craving, but with hunger, I can say -- wow, I'm really hungry, but I'm going to wait until I'm done cooking to eat.)
3. When really hungry, I know that a handful of chips probably won't take care of it-- I want real food.
It's a good question and one I spend almost all my efforts on. As an emotional eater I take no craving at face value. But I was so used to stuffing my face all the time that I didn't really know what real hunger was. So I experimented a bit and let myself go hungry for long periods of time just to get acquainted with the physiological component of hunger. It's different for everyone but for me it's an empty feeling in my stomach followed by irritability and fatigue and lack of concentration. Hunger is not emotional. It's easy to ignore and easy to deal with. But my hunger is specific and I'm never hungry enough to eat a carrot it whatever. I mean I'd have to be starving for 3 days before I'd eat something I didn't feel like eating and yet I know when my body is in physical need of food.
However, whenever hunger strikes I do question it and give it time to manifest. My triggers are all emotional and I respond to stress and anxiety with cravings. So I try to address those needs with appropriate responses and the more I do so the less cravings I have. Lets face it, if eating a bunch of cookies when we're sad actually got rid of sadness there wouldn't be a problem but since emotional eating doesn't do anything to quell our emotions then it's not a logical solution. I treat my cravings as if they are important indicators of what might be going on emotionally with me.
For me, when I am really hungry I can physically feel it in my stomach. I don't know how to describe it, but it is a particular feeling, not the same as nervousness or anxiety.
Like some others, I think about it for a minute or three before looking for something to eat. If I am uncertain, I glance at my food/exercise log and see if that can give me a clue.
And even sometimes when I get that feeling in my stomach, it is just that I am thirsty. If I suspect that might be the case, I'll have a seltzer and see if I still feel hungry 15 minutes later.
I feel like there's a third thing that should be added here...in my opinion, there's physical hunger, there's mental hunger, and then there's cravings.
For me, physical hunger is the tummy growling and feeling empty. Since I've been playing around with intermittent fasting for so long now, I can actually experience this hunger and let it pass until I am ready to eat. It was really, really difficult to realize that I was not going to die or pass out if I did not feed my hunger! I just gulp down the water and wait until it is time - the grumbles usually go away in about 10 minutes. But most people feed their hunger and that, in fact, is a good time to eat!
Mental hunger is when I think, "I'm hungry" mostly based on what time of day it is. It isn't for anything specific, just that hey it is lunch time, I want lunch. Again, it took me a long time to realize that I was not going to die if I ignored this mental hunger. I don't eat breakfast anymore, and mental hunger was the biggest hurdle here. I'm never physically hungry in the morning, but the mental hunger took a few months to really get past.
A craving is for something specific, whether or not physical or mental hunger exists. It's hard for me to ignore. If I want something with buffalo sauce, I will probably have to eat something with buffalo sauce within the next day or two, or else I will start eating everything else in order to try to fill that void. For me, learning to feed those cravings in a healthy way has been a tough lesson learned. In the end, I've realized if I am having a serious craving it is best to have a small amount of whatever it is I am craving rather than trying to avoid it.
Anyway, now that I'm done rambling. For night time hunger (whatever kind of hunger that may be!) I agree it's best to just go to bed. Or at least start by brushing your teeth!
Last edited by nonameslob; 07-17-2014 at 09:11 AM.
Awesome....ok....great tips. Thanks ya'll....great stuff to think about.
I am going to pay more attention to my hunger signals based on this imput.
I am also wondering if the body actually craves carbohydrates at times or if this is just bacterial/yeast, etc. That's another thing I'm not entirely sure about...but am going to be paying attention to.
Hunger or Craving?
