Hunger.....

Donna R · **Joined:** Fri Oct 20, 2006 1:28 pm **Posts:** 905

Debbie, don't feel guilty for being hungry! it's how we know to eat to stay alive.

I eat every 3 hours, or more if I feel hungry. if you have 5 meals of 300 calories that's 1500 calories for the day. or 3 meals of 300 calories and 3 snacks of 200.

you don't have to count calories but it may help to know about how many you consume. and part of the whole point of this way of eating is so we don't get hungry!

you will do well like you have before!

Melinda · **Posted:** Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:07 pm

My experience of hunger is always in my stomach, and then if I am REALLY hungry, my experience is like that of Pinkrose's. I don't think that all people experience hunger in the same way. I've always been slim, but I do notice that if eating too much sugar, that I get hungry faster, probably due to the insulin response, when your body releases extra insulin to deal with the sugar. I don't find that Dr. Fuhrman's explanation of toxic hunger is appropriate for me. Geneen Roth teaches that everyone experiences hunger in different ways, and I accept that.

Ginger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 27, 2010 4:38 am **Posts:** 275

I can't help but wonder about the effect of infant feeding on our programing. In the US the recommendation for infants has pretty much been every 3 to 4 hours. In other cultures babies are breast fed pretty much whenever they feel the need. I lived in SE Asia for many years and it seemed that most people were slim and not anxious about meal times. Really, as long as food was available, they didn't seem to have any problems around eating. Nobody looking in the fridge every 30 minutes to see if anyone per chance had put something interesting in there !!

Just a thought from a compulsive analyzer!

SweetPea · **Joined:** Tue Mar 27, 2012 1:31 pm **Posts:** 413

In the last few days I've begun to fill up more quickly at mealtimes. Normally I would "eat through" that signal, but now that I know I can choose to eat more food whenever I feel hungry, I feel less inclined to stuff myself. What a relief!

Then I usually have a snack of my leftovers a couple of hours later. So I'm now eating two meals and two snacks for the most part. It's funny, it feels like a lot more! :lol:

When I was younger, I used to graze (eat when hungry) and seemed to maintain a healthy weight effortlessly. After I gained a lot of weight (while generally eating two meals a day), the plan that helped me lose it the first time recommended eating several times a day and I remember so enjoying that feeling of relaxing about food. "There's more to come--no need to overdo it."

I went back to the two-meals-a-day thing in recent years and maybe not wholly coincidentally gained that weight back.

I don't mind feeling light and empty, but when it becomes a sinking feeling (maybe energy plummeting? ha!), it's time for munching and then all is well again. If I go too long after that, the cravings monster starts dancing in front of my eyes.

rickfm · **Posted:** Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:37 am

Some very intriguing information here:
Hunger And Appetite.
It's long, three parts, links for subsequent parts are at the end of each page.

I came across that from a post in Jeff's forum on the topic of Eating Between Meals.

I think that's some of the most profound reading I've done on this subject. I haven't read any of Dr. F's stuff, but it sounds like his "toxic hunger" is what this article calls "morbid sensations."

TL;DR conclusion...

Quote:

As everyone who has had an extensive experience with fasting knows, true hunger is felt in the mouth and throat and is related to the senses of taste and smell. It is indicated by a watering of the mouth for plain food--even for a crust of dry bread. As almost everybody knows from personal experience the gnawing sensation or other sensation that is commonly thought of as hunger usually comes on at meal time, or when the stomach is empty, and subsides after an hour or two, if no food is taken. As we see in thousands of cases of fasting, these morbid sensations subside and completely cease after two or three days of fasting, not to recur after the fast is broken.

For over a hundred years Shew, Graham, Trall, Page, Dewey, Oswald, Haskell, Macfadden, Carrington, Eales, Tilden, Weger, Claunch, Shelton and hundreds of others, who have had extensive experience with fasting, have been calling attention to the fact that hunger is a mouth and throat sensation rather than a stomach sensation, but the professional physiologists have persisted in ignoring their work and their testimony and have accepted popular superstitions about the sensation of hunger and have "confirmed" these by limited experiments on sick men and women. Cannon, Pavlov, Carlson, etc., have all based their conclusions on inadequate data and on experiments that are too short to be conclusive.

Certainly if one is ever hungry, he is so at the conclusion of a long fast. Fasting experts insist that hunger is invariably manifested at the conclusion of a long fast, like thirst, in the mouth and throat. We employ this fact as a complete and satisfactory test of the sensations observed during a fast--it reveals whether it is true hunger or morbid sensations. Never under any circumstances following a fast, is hunger felt in the stomach. Always it is manifested in the mouth and throat and always there is an entire absence of distress or of morbid sensations associated with the stomach.

I'm very interested in learning true hunger. I'm currently not working and spend most of my time at home. I graze throughout the day, sometimes eating every hour or less. It may only be a few bites of potato, but I know I'm more than likely just eating out of boredom.

So, I definitely feel compelled by this article to really examine my own feelings and sensations with respect to food and hunger.

Wild4Stars · **Posted:** Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:55 am

Getting overly hungry is a real danger zone for me. On the days that I work from home I rarely eat when most people would call a meal. I'll eat a banana, couple hours later a handful of baby carrots, couple hours later throw some salad stuff in a bowl, couple hours later maybe a cup of soup - - on and on the whole day. Those are actually my best food days. When I feel a little bit hungry, I eat a little bit of food. On the days that I'm on a more rigid schedule I tend to be really hungry by lunch and dinner and then it's a battle to not overeat. AND if I'm away from home I'll be tempted by off plan foods.

For me, one of the blessings of eating this way is that I don't have to let myself get hungry, there's always something I can eat. The key I think is to eat until you feel satisfied full, not STUFFED full. I can do that much easier when I graze, when I don't let myself get overly hungry.

I think every person is different and the nice thing about having such a simple way of eating is that you can make it work for you.

If you tend to overeat when you get too hungry, don't let that happen. If that's not an issue, then maybe regularly scheduled meals is the way to go. There's really no right or wrong with timing in my opinion.

Debbie · **Joined:** Tue Dec 20, 2011 5:09 pm **Posts:** 1471

Thanks Rick for that.

So i wonder how they would explain to me how ive never felt hunger in my throat? Nor have I have drooled/salivated at being hungry? I didnt eat for 4 days just this past fall and never once did I feel any of those symptoms. My stomach growled on day 4 as it did on day 1. But I remember the plain toast I ate on day 5 when I began eating again tasting very good. I think the closest I have ever had to a mouth/throat feeling was the growling sensation from my stomach, I could feel it in my lower esophagus, just under my sternum. But thats it.

It appears Im not the only one who doesnt feel it in the throat/mouth. I think if I would wait for that sensation I might lose weight in a hurry since after 4 days of no food didnt produce it, I might lose 20 lbs in a month, since Im not eating ;-)

I find this interesting though. I'll just assume that I shouldnt eat any earlier than every 3-4 hours and leave it at that. And maybe try to stretch it out some from there.

rickfm · **Posted:** Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:52 pm

I don't know, Debbie. I'm trying to understand this myself. I don't know if I'm feeling something in my mouth/throat or stomach or whatever. I only know that I'm going along through my day and suddenly... I just want to eat something!

Could it be that we are just so accustomed to our over abundance of food that we only recognize those "morbid sensations" or "toxic hunger" and just don't get the mouth/throat thing? Maybe it's something subtle and takes time to recognize. A growling stomach does not necessarily mean hunger.

As for the four days you didn't eat, wasn't that because of severe emotional stress? That article I posted keeps mentioning the difference between sick and healthy people and the perceptions of hunger being affected by that. If you were under stress then your body may have been reacting differently than under conditions of a deliberate fast during normally healthy times. Just a thought.

Debbie wrote:

I find this interesting though. I'll just assume that I shouldnt eat any earlier than every 3-4 hours and leave it at that. And maybe try to stretch it out some from there.

In that post I linked to in Jeff's forum he repeats several times...

JeffN wrote:

Some people just can't maintain a meal plan with fewer meals and some just can't maintain a meal plan with more frequent meals. I am one of the latter, and so, I keep a more limited meal plan but would not insist on that for someone who felt more comfortable with more frequent meals as long as the overall dietary and nutritional pattern is the same.

I guess that means... figure out what works for you.

Wild4Stars · **Posted:** Fri Jul 13, 2012 2:19 am

I don't understand the need to feel true hunger. True hunger I guess I am interpreting as really, or very hungry. For me, it's safest if when I start feeling hungry, eat something. If it's 2 hours or 5 hours after I last ate something, so be it. That's the beauty and simplicity of this way of eating. We've all been on diets with all the rules, and timing, and weighing and logging and... and... and... What's the point? I like it simple, that's why I love this WOE.

rickfm · **Posted:** Fri Jul 13, 2012 1:33 pm

I think I experienced "throat hunger" today.

The last two days I've put off eating a first meal until at least 10 hours have gone by since I last ate. I have a habit of having a late night snack, and I've only been sleeping about six hours at night, so I frequently only have seven or eight hours of "fasting" before break-fast.

Late this morning, when coming up on that 10 hour mark, I was just busying around, doing some house hold chores and I was suddenly aware of a feeling that I wanted to experience the sensation of swallowing something. It was subtle, but obvious. Kinda' weird. Once I recognized it, I became more aware that my stomach was empty.

Maybe there is something to it.

ETeSelle · **Joined:** Tue Jan 02, 2007 11:09 am **Posts:** 5010

I really object to this whole "toxic hunger" thing. It is NOT a McDougall concept at all--Dr. McD tells us to eat on-plan food when we are hungry, period. IMO it's detrimental to feel guilty about a perfectly natural impulse which is there to keep us alive! Just be more careful about what you eat. Sticking w/ MWL makes it much easier b/c you really can eat pretty much all you want. It's when people eat things like nuts, avocados, bread, processed food, etc. that they get into trouble.

Wild4Stars · **Posted:** Fri Jul 13, 2012 2:00 pm

ETeSelle wrote:

I really object to this whole "toxic hunger" thing. It is NOT a McDougall concept at all--Dr. McD tells us to eat on-plan food when we are hungry, period. IMO it's detrimental to feel guilty about a perfectly natural impulse which is there to keep us alive! Just be more careful about what you eat. Sticking w/ MWL makes it much easier b/c you really can eat pretty much all you want. It's when people eat things like nuts, avocados, bread, processed food, etc. that they get into trouble.

Thanks for saying what I was trying to say in an earlier post. What's this big thing about "toxic hunger" or "true hunger" and where you feel it? The beauty of this plan is that it is so simple, this seems like making it complicated!

MDraine · **Joined:** Wed Jun 02, 2010 3:05 pm **Posts:** 238

I also object to it. What is the point of experiencing "true hunger" or "toxic hunger" if you're waiting 10 HOURS for it? That's not exactly the ideal time between meals, and if you choose to eat every 10 hours, you'd be eating larger portions to make up for that time difference anyway. So, um, why?

Why would "true hunger" take so much time to feel, exactly? It seems unreasonable. Hmmm.

rickfm · **Posted:** Fri Jul 13, 2012 2:41 pm

MDraine wrote:

I also object to it. What is the point of experiencing "true hunger" or "toxic hunger" if you're waiting 10 HOURS for it? That's not exactly the ideal time between meals, and if you choose to eat every 10 hours, you'd be eating larger portions to make up for that time difference anyway. So, um, why?

Try reading a little closer. Did you not see the word "break-fast?"

The ten hours is not unreasonable. I mentioned it because of the low amount of sleep I've been getting lately and the need I felt to monitor myself a little. If your last food for the day is an hour before bed, and you sleep a "normal" eight hours (and many people live in a state of sleep deprivation without even knowing it), then don't eat until an hour after getting up... that's 10 hours. Nothing unusual.

I know I eat out of boredom and not just when I'm truly hungry. It's part of the learning process. Maybe, in the end, it doesn't matter, but I want to know how to understand what my body is telling me. Not just hunger but also what it means to be "full." I don't feel like I have that awareness yet, so I want to explore it.

MDraine · **Joined:** Wed Jun 02, 2010 3:05 pm **Posts:** 238

Ah, my apologies. No, I was a little quick in my browsing and did not mean to make an attacking post, but see the mistake now.

However, for some people, "true hunger" does seem to take numerous hours or even days of fasts. This is very interesting, considering that your situation is much more reasonable. Shouldn't one generally expect to be truly hungry at mealtimes or a little after the time you should be eating on a regular basis? I'm simply a bit concerned that others are going on fasts and still cannot determine their true hunger cues.

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