What is HUNGER feeling for you?

Hi all!

I just wanted to know how you feel when you are hungry?

Sometimes i feel 2 different types of hunger - stomach hunger - which is real, i guess, - emptiness in your belly, and second - "chest" hunger - when you just want to eat something because you "feel" like you are hungry.. do you feel the same?

have you ever seen the movie "the pianist" w/adrien brody?  hunger ravages through that movie, and i get chills remembering specific scenes.  i'm a hungry person in general. 

hunger for me is, firstly, empty stomach.  it moves outward from my stomach, as if i'm sinking in.  it moves up through my throat.  secondly, i get highly irritable and anxious.  if i don't eat enough, i start crying bec i'm like a wild dog in search of food.  thirdly, i get sweaty.  actually it used to be worse, and i'd binge all the time.  i try to eat more normally so that my hunger doesn't repossess me.

After I ignore the hunger signals from my belly for long enough & no longer notice them, I start to feel like my fingers are hollow.

That's cool. Thanks for sharing... I have another question - How do you know if it is hunger or craving? My mom used to say if you dont want to eat oatmeal with the "tbsp of fish oil" you are not hungry:))) meaning you can eat everything when you are hungry. What do you think?

Do you like feeling hungry - a little bit! I LOVE IT! - but very frequently can not get to it:(( always snack on something. Is it healthy to feel hunger? Or is it essential for weight loss?

Share, please!

My mother participated in a weight loss program for a while that actually seemed to work for her; she lost quite a bit of weight and has kept it off. Unfortunately, the founder of the program started her own church and it has since become somewhat cultish (!).

Anyway, when the weight loss program was just a weight loss program and not a cult, one of the things they focused on was getting people to re-learn what hunger actually feels like. I remember thinking my mother was crazy when she told me about that, but now I think they were on to something.

I've noticed that whenever I get tired of being fat and resolve never to eat again ( :-) ) , the first time after that when I feel hungry, actually hungry, I realize that actual hunger isn't a feeling I've had in quite a long time.

When I fall back into my poor eating habits, it's all about wanting to eat; it's all about fighting boredom, stress, whatever, but rarely about fighting hunger. Most often, I eat because I want to experience the taste of food, the feeling of eating, the enjoyment of a good snack. Actual hunger barely factors into the equation at all for me.

What's stupid about it is that when I am dieting and I begin to experience actual hunger again, it's amazing how much better I feel. I can eat a meal and not feel bloated and draggy. And the satisfaction of eating when you are actually hungry is greater than when you're just eating for eating's sake. So yeah, I would say I like to feel hungry...not starving, but true, normal, actual hunger is nice.

i rarely ever feel hungry. whenever i feel inclined to munch, i snack on something to avoid feeling hungry.   i also hate feeling full though, so i avoid both extremes.

sometimes when i brush and mouthwash at night, i will end up staying up and getting hungry, but out of stubborness/laziness i don't want to brush my teeth again so i won't eat.  i might end up feeling a stomach hunger pain for a little bit but it goes away, i fall asleep and eat first thing when i wake up.

adamc,

You are quite right! Exactly what i feel! I am going to try and experience hunger more often! It is great feeling, isn't it? And you enjoy food much more! Who is with me?

How many times a day did you feel a little bit of real hunger today? - I felt it once - I was really hungry this morning - hope i wont snack till my lunch, and will eat my delicious salat with real little hunger.! Let's see:))

Good luck to everybody!

hunger comes and goes for me. sometimes it will actually be uncomfortable enough for me to actually eat something. it's a "gnawing" sensation i can't really describe.

If I am paying attention to my body, I can feel when I get hungry, but if I'm running around like a crazy person (this is my modus operandi) I don't notice at all.  It goes like this:  stomach growls, and may feel a little crampy if I let it go.  Then, after a few hours have gone by, the hunger goes away, and my stomach feels kind of heavy, like I swallowed a rock.  After about a day, I may feel headachey.  Finally, a few days into no eating I get a floaty, very zen-like feeling.  I feel calm, focused and centered, and can see why some of the more hardcore yogi's use it for meditating. 

Just to cover my butt...

I definately don't want to encourage any pro-ana ideas with this post, and I do eat (5" 135lbs).  But I have been curious in the past, just to know what true hunger feels like, and went a couple of weeks without eating.  I didn't feel bad at all, but I wouldn't try it again, it probably wasn't good for me.

I don't actually get the grumbling stomach. Or I've learned to live with it. I don't know. I do know that signs of hunger for me usually start with a feeling that I just have no energy or motivation to do anything. Then I start getting lightheaded. If I don't eat, I'll start getting shaky. I start obsessing about food. At first, I'll be very particular.. I want a specific food only. Usually around this time I'll also get snappish and irritable. Then if it goes long enough, I will eat anything at all... pickiness flies out the window. I may start to feel frantic too.

A perfect example was yesterday. We have no groceries in the house at present moment. (I've been trying to eat down the contents of the fridge before we go away on Tuesday for T-day). I had a very busy day at work. I ended up skipping breakfast and having a smoothie for lunch around noon, then I was on conference calls or taxing children around the rest of the afternoon with no time to eat anything.

Since it was friday, we were planning to do the pizza and a DVD thing we normally do. But then my DD had plans so to make a long story short, it wasn't until 7:30 that my DH could get out for the pizza and DVD.

Around 5pm (5 hours since the 300 calorie smoothie - the only thing I'd eaten all day - NOT good!), I started getting lightheaded and shaky. I started obsessing about pizza. I could've eaten a snack, but I got really picky and nothing appealed, not with the thought of pizza in my head.

By 6pm, I was very snappy and irritable.

By 7 pm, I was so starving I broke down and munched my way through half a bag of potato chips, a cup of baby carrots, and a dish of olives.

The pizza finally arrived at 8 pm, I was still starving enough to have two slices!

That was a very  ill-planned day and hopefully I can do better today!!! (And yeah, I'm going to the grocery store... screw it... )

I fasted for 48 hours on outward bound and it did definitely make me feel pretty clear headed like sundari describes. tho i also spent some of that time making a list of my favorite foods.

 my favorite time to feel hungry is when i am about to go out to eat at a restaurant. it just seems like such a waste if i have plans to go out to dinner and when its time to go i don't really feel that hungry. i went on a cruise last winter and i remember my least favorite thing about it was that whenever it was time for dinner i would never feel hungry. i also gained weight on that cruise big surprise there. 

I have no idea.  I very seldom feel real hunger.  I have always LOVED food and had a HUGE capacity to eat.  On top of that my parents fed us nothing but instant and fried and junky food all the time and told us to "clean our plates", so I learned young to overeat, and really lost all sense of what "hungry" and "full" were.  I mean, there is some sensation of an empty or full stomach, but I never feel like my stomach twisting for food, and I never feel really "full" until I'm stuffed and getting horrible heartburn etc.  I used to try to estimate what was a healthy amount to eat, but doing that led to me being 100 lbs overweight, and that's when I decided to start limiting my calories on a systematic basis.

It's worked great for me, and my stomach is no longer distended, so I do kinda get "full" easier.

 

But in answer to your question, I really only get the emotional cravings for things I really like.  But there are times when I'm really busy, and at like 3 pm it dawns on me that I haven't eaten all day, and I'm still not hungry at all but I make myself eat.  It's really weird.

 

So even aside from the weight loss aspect, I'm grateful for counting, because it has made my whole digestion much more regular and comfortable.  I used to get gas, diarrhea, heartburn, constipation, etc. fairly often, but since I've been counting, almost NEVER.

 

Sorry for the extra info - LOL 

when I was staying slender one time as I got on the scale I thought..........I'm always a tiny bit hungery.  It is a constant state for me to be at a good BMI.....but that sounds a little  sad to me.

What I just realized is that at night my hunger sabotages all resolve I have.........so now I'm on GUARD against that.

I go to the kitchen and my head says, "the heck with the diet........eat whatever you want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  and it says it in a very bossy, mean voice........and I do it.  Then later realize it was a trick.  Sorry........this makes me sound schizophrenic.

One thing about hunger.....the simplest food taste so good.

i get all sorts of hungry

even the, "food tastes so good, i just wanna taste it hungry"

When I feel hungry I usually have like an empty feeling in my stomach, and it feels like my stomach is like shrinking. Also it'll feel like my stomach is like "growling" at me. I honestly love the feeling of being hungry. It makes me feel healthy almost. I would prefer being like, starving than feel completely full. I don't have an eating disorder or anything, I just have a huge fear of getting sick, haha.

I eat 5 to 6 times a day so I don't usually get really hungry, I may feel some emptiness once it's been long enough. Even when I used to eat only 3 main meals, I still didn't really get hungry. I guess it's not really part of me. But for some reason, I'll get hungry at random. Like today, I woke up at around 8:30am and I had some fruit, a couple of hours later I had some more fruit. But lunch time came around and there wasn't anything yet, so I ate a tangerine to try and keep my hunger at bay, didn't work. I felt so hungry that it hurt. It was an awful feeling of cramping and it felt like my stomach was sinking in. It was horrible. And that's what I feel whenever I am truly hungry. Sometimes my stomach will growl but I'm not really hungry, then. I only pay attention to it when it's the cramping and the pain because it really isn't nice. If I ignore it, it'll stop for a little bit but it keeps happening until I eat.