I think there's alot more variation in hunger signals than is often assumed. I don't think stomach hunger is always present or the most reliable. Even when I was eating only on weekends, I didn't always feel hunger in the stomach.

My youngest sister (thin all her life) also doesn't get stomach hunger, she says her first signal that she's hungry is that she starts thinking about food, and if she ignores the craving, she'll get a dull headache.

When I'm eating very low carb, I often don't notice hunger signals until it reaches a woozy stage. My husband notices before I do (apparantly irritiation and a hot temper preceed woozy).

Wikipedia has an interesting definition/description of hunger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger

I think it makes the point that there are several sources of hunger, and included cravings as a type of hunger. As is appetitie. Actual hunger pangs (which as wikipedia points out) don't occur generally occur until 12 to 24 hours without food, and some people may not experience them at all. I used to think that cravings were 100% mental (especially when I would feel them only a short time after eating, when my stomach was still full, sometimes obviously full), but when I found that on very low carb eating, cravings and all other desire for food is so diminished that when they do pop into my head, I can quickly change the mental "channel." That doesn't work when I'm eating high carb, every "channel" in my thoughts and on the tv become a food channel. When I'm eating low carb, even watching the food channel and recipe shows do not inspire a strong desire for eating.

I don't think everyone experiences hunger in the same way, and yes even that some of us may have been born with defective, or have destroyed through crash dieting, the natural hunger signals and the natural response to hunger.

I also think that the modern diet does not lend itself to a natural response to food. One can't rely on hunger when eating foods that are so removed from nature (and when our activity level is also so removed from the natural state as well - couch potatoes don't survive in the wild). Even fruits and vegetables are higher in sugar and starches than any of their wild ancestors from which we cultivated. Even zoos are finding that they have to change their formulas every few years for feeding the animals because a 2009 apple is so much sweeter (and more caloric) than an apple from only a few years ago. Animals were getting fat, and zoo staff didn't initially know why (I believe the trend was first noticed in the late 70's or early 80's).

I think that caloric monitoring is a much more reliable method of calorie restriction than decreasing one's sensitivity to hunger for many people. "Mindful eating," doesn't work very well for everyone (whether you mean responding to hunger at the first sign or at some delayed point of your choosing).

I think hunger works very well when you have to work to get your food. A craving and actual hunger are more easily distinguished, because "how badly do I want to work for it," comes into the equation. In the natural world, calories are fairly hard-won. The more calories in a food, the rarer or more work it requires to obtain. Non-grain plant foods are relatively easy to harvest and eat, and they're relatively low calorie (the sweetest are only available for a short time and there's lots of competition for them). Protein foods, particularly animal proteins require a lot more work to obtain.

If you can lose weight by choosing to eat at a different point in the hunger spectrum, more power to you. I think that caloric restriction is the more reliable path for most people, and that some have to go further and change what or how they eat to transform their hunger. If you can shrink physical and mental hunger, that makes caloric restriction that much more manageable, but bottom-line it's mostly the calorie restriction.

I do seem to lose weight more rapidly on the same number of low-carb calories than high-carb calories, which to me doesn't say that calories don't matter. Rather, only that the source of the calories may somehow affect the equation, but it still boils down, not to hunger, but to calories burned and calories consumed. That I find (for myself) that lower carb eating reduces cravings, appetite and all aspects of hunger, and may increase metabolism or reduce water-retention is just "bonus."

If you can use hunger as a tool, then do so, but if it doesn't work so well for you, there are plenty of other tools at your desposal.

for me food tastes better when I'm hungry for it, the working up an appetite. funny, I've used the word starving, but from a real definition of that word I can safely say I never truly have been starving!!

I've never forgotten to eat, and doubt I ever will.

and for me, there's some psychological satisfaction that effects hunger when the food is more tasty. when I eat something that I don't really like, or is a disappointment, or gross, it's so unsatisfying. (I love my mother, but she was an awful cook and hated doing it; we'd eat so much of it too, so the experience was eating a large volume of food that tasted pretty bleck.)

I think for me it's going to have to be give & take & a LOT of planning to not be hungry. Mandalinn82 is a great inspiration for this. She decided she wanted to lose weight but not be hungry, so she researched good recipes that are healthful. She's still my inspiration. suchaprettyface

I've been having this same thought, I love how she's embraced making her calories be such an enjoyable experience. I want to do this more, and I think it would help me with the extra eating that I struggle with.

I really, really appreciate and ENJOY, thoroughly ENJOY everything that I eat. --rr
just read this: one of my goals, and I think it's important for me

the above is less to the point of Kira's original Q, which I really like. but I'm so chatty I couldn't resist putting it in

one last thing for anyone who was hearty enough to make it through this tome of a post, when I first went on WW as a teen, it felt like torture going to bed after not eating once I'd finished dinner. I was HUNGRY. This was going on a 1200 calorie diet after having a regular diet of I wouldn't even be able to guess how many calories (think big number). that had to shape how I looked at hunger (probably for decades to come). hunger was deprivation, physical discomfort, and beyond discomfort, it had moments when it felt seriously distressing, since food had become something that mentally made me feel better.

some of us struggle with things that bounce off of other people.

well, as rr and other very smart ladies here have said, you work through whatever it is, and find a solution.

I was first gonna post that I probably have never felt real hunger but then I remembered this -

Scott picked me up in Tennessee on a sunday. I didn't eat anything from the moment he picked me up until tuesday night when we got to his house in New York and I had a single serve veggie tray from a grocery store. I was rather hungry, I believe. Did it scare me? To an extent because I was afraid I would shove my head in a vat of grease filled yummies and never been seen again :rofl:. But that didn't happen :D

yes, I think all my binge/overeating and dieting totally threw out of whack the hunger/full dynamic. I can mindfully eat, so to speak, and pay attention to the hunger/full, but I still have to calorie monitor. part of that is all the urges, cravings stuff, part is I think I just would "naturally" eat more, and more foods of higher calories that are less physically filling (ie goodies).

plus, calorie restriction means eating fewer calories than my body "requires" because I'm trying to lose lbs. there's a certain amount of constant "hunger" I feel like I have to deal with because of that.

I eat more frequently now. I used to easily go all day without eating and be ravenous around 4 p.m., willing to eat ANYTHING to make the shakiness go away. I think it was low blood sugar.

I am not diabetic, but I read somewhere if a diabetic's blood sugar dips too low to eat a small pack of raisins as the sugar goes pretty directly into the blood stream. Now when I get that really shaky, jittery feeling I have a small pack of raisins (which I keep in my purse) and "poof" it goes away. It is like magic.

I am not at all afraid of being hungry. Hunger is not my trigger to eat. Food is my trigger to eat.

I don't think I am afraid to be hungry. I have starved myself in the past to lose weight(dummy, I know). My problem is mindless eating...not even thinking about if I am hungry or not. I stuff food in my face simply because it is there.

I did an exercise on hunger that is supposed to put you more in touch with your body, have you feel what hunger really is. It was interesting. It's easier to tell the difference between "I want some fries" and "my body needs something." I can forget to eat sometimes, if I get really wrapped up in what I'm doing. If I go too long, then it does make it harder to make good choices because I want fast and high-cal.

i know that i am afraid of being hungry. I have been for years. When i was a child, we were DIRT poor. We often didn't have enough food, so when there was food, i needed to make sure i got some. My parents would eat what we had with little regard for me or my siblings, so i would eat more out of fear it would be gone later. it took me many years to realize that things are no longet like that for me, and that i have the money to go to the store and buy cookies or fruit or anything i wanted. (which is another problem for me). but that mentality hurt me for a long time; being hungry is a lousy experience, and i never want to feel it again in a negative, long term way.

i've learned how to stop when i'm full, although i am far from an expert at it. and being hungry for this meal doesn't mean i will be hungry forever (i'm working on that one too)

dcapulet, kudos on learning what 'full enough' feels like!
Your story is why I can never say I know what 'real hunger' feels like, because real hunger, in my mind, goes with the kind of fear and powerlessness you're talking about.

My food issues are childhood related - I was (for the times) a little under weight at birth and, apparently, not a good eater, so mother frantically stuffed me with anything she could get me to eat. I suppose feeling stuffed became normal.

Then my brother was born, and the story is told that I was very good with the new baby, unphased until I saw him being fed with what I took to be MY bottle. Apparently I cried - and was rewarded with food.

So the imprint in my consciousness, which I try very hard to erase but it never quite goes away, is of not being good enough or just enough somehow, so being replaced by someone I'm supposed to be nice to, and the consequent feelings to be dealt with through food. To this day, if I'm queueing for something and people mill around behind me, I get panic-stricken that they might push in past me, because I know I'm programmed not to object to being supplanted. (I'm OK once they join the queue.)

I am blessed with nausia as my hunger pain. I hate to feel like that. I know some people just feel the rumbley tummy. I feel like I will throw up. Has always been that way. So I try never to get too hungry. Wish it were different.

I am the same way, or at least similar. I get horribly shaky, headache-y, woozy, etc.. There are ways around it. One CAN lose weight and keep it off and STILL not be hungry. I eat very frequently and very nutritious, satiating and voluminous foods. You have to know yourself and do what's right for you. Certainly I'd prefer to not feel this way when hungry, but there's no use fighting it. You've got to work with what you've got - and what you haven't. :smug:

Ya know, I don't know whether or not I'd say I'm afraid of hunger. Hunger for me has always been kind of a burden more than anything else. Just like Kaplods, from the time I was about 6 or so, whenever I'd say I was hungry, my father would immediately answer, "Good! That means you're losing weight!" So, since then, whenever I've felt hunger pains it has always been a depressing sort of "oh no, here we go again" kind of feeling.

My dad hated that I was a chubby kid. He put me on an extremely low calorie diet. This didn't start til I was around 8, but from that point til I was about 16 I was only given very small portions of food, like two soy sausage links for breakfast, and half a sandwich and 6 potato chips for lunch, that kinda "small".

Anything else I ate was food that I sneaked when I was not being watched, which was where the "burden" part comes in. I was a really honest kid, and I hated lying or sneaking around or disobeying my dad. So, whenever I was hungry, I would get irritated because I felt like I had to do something dishonest and "bad" and that I'd have to jump through hoops to be sure that nobody saw me do it and that nobody would find out I was (ch)eating. (Which was never easy when eating lunch in the same cafeteria with two step sisters who were dying to catch me doing something wrong so they could tell on me!:lol: )

So even now, this kind of thought persists with me. I don't fear being hungry, but it really irritates me when my body bothers me for food. lol

Thank you very much for asking this question Kira, it succeeded with it's goal as a springboard for self reflection because until just now, I've never EVER thought about this pattern of mine consciously before. I never noticed that I get irritated by the thought of having to eat until I started writing this post, nor had I any clue why I would feel that way. lol! It's amazing the things you learn about yourself when you aren't expecting it!

This gives me a much better perspective on what I need to work on.

Thanks!! ... And thanks to all you beautiful women who have been responding to this thread too! It makes me feel so much better to know that I'm not the only one who was raised to have a "disorder" manner of thinking toward food!