I have low blood sugar, and have symptoms like others have said. My husband just plows through it, and I have to remind him to eat to take care of himself at times.
BUT, the other thing that happens with hunger, is that I overeat when I eat!
Its a real binge trigger for me, so I fear it in terms of weight loss and need to keep on plan.
I'm not really scared of the "haven't eaten in 4 or 5 hours" type hunger. I actually prefer my stomach empty rather than full as it feels more comfortable to me. So, if I'm cooking dinner and my stomach growls and dinner isn't going to be ready for an hour, I have a glass of water and continue on with cooking and just wait until everything is done to eat.
On the other hand, I have not eaten in days before, I think my longest was 4 days, and I drank nothing but water, coffee, and tea. On day four, I felt nauseous, dizzy, lightheaded, I was trembling like a maniac, and I almost passed out a work. That hunger scares me. Needless to say I don't plan on putting myself through that again.
There's a quote in (I think) Tom Venuto's new book that I liked and wrote down: "Hunger is not an emergency. Hunger is the sound of fat cells shrinking."
It kind of put a spin on the feeling of hunger for me, putting it in a positive light re/ weight loss.
I also find those times when I get hungry (stomach growling hunger) and can't eat right off that the feeling passes within about 15 minutes.
I've been hungry. When I was a grad student, I could only afford bulk white rice, garlic, and olive oil (the good stuff! I splurged on my oil), cereal, canned beans, and occassionally chicken (when on sale).
There were days when I had to skip meals because I was out and couldn't afford to buy food. I worked a catering job just to make sure I got regular meals.
Now, I make a lot of money and can afford food. And I'm fat, LOL. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be a poor, struggling student again.
If I allow myself to get really hungry I'm more likely to binge or overeat. I try to get some food in me every 3-4 hours cuz of this- I won't skip meals, even if I only have enough time to eat an apple I'll do it- just so SOMETHING goes in my stomach.
The kind of hunger that dieters experience - it doesn't bother me at all, except if I sit gurgling in a quiet meeting; even then, it didn't/wouldn't bother me if I was thin(ner), it's the picture of this mini man mountain, well, woman, daring to sound hungry that makes me cringe. .
me too! in high school i was much thinner, and i was talking with some friends, and they knew that i had been heavier before..well i told them that i would keep my water with me because it kept my stomach from growling-they couldnt understand but i explained that i didnt want people to hear it because they would be like "man shes hungry? i bet she eats all the time"...i dont know if anyone ever really thought that, but thats how i saw it..
Hey tigerente....sounds like you are having fluctuations in blood sugar. You can improve that by choosing low GI foods like oats and wholegrains which release energy slowly and steadily. Try googling 'GI diet' or 'low GI'...
I feel the same way when hungry as tigerente described, thanks for the tips!
I fear what hunger brings to the forefront in me. Hunger clouds my judgment. The rational part of me shuts down temporarily & I make bad decisions. I'm needy, greedy & mindless. I think only of what the quickest fix would be, and often I'll choose things that must have been on my mind for several days, things that I said "no" to when I was in better control of myself, things that really don't satisfy me afterward. I think that hunger for me is sort of like lust for some other people. To paraphrase what's said of men who let their lust control their actions, I think with my stomach, not with my brain.
Yeah, what Saef said. That sums it up perfectly for me.
As for ever having felt true hunger, probably a couple of times in my life. The most memorable was as a senior in high school, at a rugby tourney in Dubai. We played all morning, and in the afternoon sat and drank Smirnoffs and watched our men's strings play. We didn't eat anything all day. Then when we got back to the hotel in the evening...my wallet was missing and my friend didn't have money exchanged. It took us hours to find a place to exchange money, and we were seriously ready to keel over with hunger. When we finally did exchange, we went to McDonald's and bought the most enormous amount of food ever. And ate pretty much all of it. -_- At the time I was quite thin, too. *sigh*
