What Type of Hunger are You Feeling?
What Type of Hunger are You Feeling?
As a dietitian, I speak to people all day about food, nutrition, hunger, and all things related to health. And in my opinion, there are three types of hunger: physical, mental, and emotional.
Physical Hunger
This is when we feel our tummy rumble, when we are hangry or when we feel low energy. This type of hunger happens at certain times in the day because daily our body needs fuel and how it gets the fuel it needs is by producing a hormone called Ghrelin.
Hunger can stress us out, especially since sometimes we don’t feel hungry or we feel un-ending hunger. If you experience going the whole day without feeling hungry only to feel un-ending hunger at other times, it is important to know that these types of feelings are early warning signs of metabolic imbalance such as insulin resistance.
Mental Hunger
Mental hunger is when we think something sounds tasty or when we see something and instantly want to eat it or when we are craving or we are in the mood for something. Think of this as habit hunger. And yes, they can all get mixed up and it can be difficult to distinguish between the differences.
Emotional Hunger
In a nutshell, there are two main reasons we emotionally eat, to detract from an uncomfortable feeling and/or to enhance a good feeling. Eating to enhance good feelings such as celebrating a job promotion with a fancy meal doesn’t usually cause us stress; rather, we feel the worst, when we are eating to soothe uncomfortable feelings.
Getting stuck in a cycle of eating to soothe uncomfortable feelings that we feel bad about, is very easy to do. But do not fret; it is possible to get unstuck. Yet, if food becomes your only tool for managing emotions then, food can become overused and cause unwanted health consequences. Instead of being stuck, answer this question when you are feeling emotional: what else can I do right now to help myself feel better?
Making Sense of Hunger
The downloadable Hunger Worksheet will help you figure out what type of hunger you are experiencing. Just fill it out during a few episodes of hunger and eventually, things will start to make more sense.
Gaining awareness feels very empowering. But exactly what and how much you can be aware of and manage really can vary day-to-day and season-to-season. If you try to control strictly, it can lead to feeling like a failure when “something” happens that throws the plans off course, and “something” always happens, so stay understanding and flexible and go into this process with an open mind.
