If you are slim are you regularly hungry

[Spaghettihulahoops]

Prompted by a thread about weight training and weight loss. A poster stated that they are always hungry on the days they train. They said they put up with this to stay slim.
So if you are slim do you experience and ignore hunger on a regular basis?

Depends what you mean by slim (I'm a 10-12), but yes I feel hungry a few times a day coming up to meal times but consider it normal to feel hungry at times.

The only time I eat when I'm not hungry is maybe a piece of chocolate or a handful of haribo after dinner. I don't tend to snack during the day unless I'm really hungry and the next meal is a way off. I keep nuts and rice cakes and such in my office drawer for those times.

Hunger is an odd thing. The more you eat, the hungrier you feel , the less you eat, the less hungry you feel, in general.

so for example you have a large meal on Monday evening. On tues morning, you will likely feel very hungry. You have a small to moderate meal Monday evening, you feel not so hungry the next day. In general as I know there are always folks who are outliers.

the longer you go eating small amounts, the less hunger you feel. And the more you ignore hunger, the more it quietens down to a low background noise.

i have a friend who controls what she eats and ignores her hunger. Most of the time I think she doesn’t even recognise it any more. But put a plate of food in front of her and she will want it but strictly limit what she eats. Put it in front of her when she’s had a couple of glasses of wine and she wants it all. She’s clearly starving and you can see it, and the wine reduces her will power, revealing it.

but if she didn’t have the food in front of her, she’d just carry on and not eat.

No, I eat good healthy food that my body needs. I might feel hungry just before I eat but I don’t go around feeling hungry all day.

It’s not a case of slim = hungry and angry, fat = sated and happy.

That’s a bullshit narrative I read on here.

And yes, feeling hunger is normal. Mealtimes are an arbitrary human construct, it’s not actually what our bodies need really.

I’m not sure where you read it. But it wasn’t on this thread?

There was a similar thread posted recently and there was a bit of a divide created. Some people who said they were hungry sometimes before meals were jumped on by ones who never let themselves get hungry ever, like it was some kind of 'gotcha' moment that the hungry ones were depriving themselves and of course that's why they were slim.

There were a few vocal posters who seemed to connect the word hunger with starvation/anorexia and the thread went to shit.

Are hunger and a blood sugar spike and crash the same thing? I am wondering if some of the more difficult reactions people have to hunger are due blood sugar crashes rather than the actual hunger?

Since I adjusted to a healthier eating habit I do feel hungry as lunch and dinner time approach but it’s an awareness that my stomach isn’t full. I don’t feel tired, headachey, angry etc. in fact it makes me feel a bit energised, as if my hunting instinct (if I have one) is perked up.

(BMI middle of the green band)

I'm size 8 and 175cm tall, so pretty slim. I don't feel hungry until I start eating my meals and then I realise I am actually hungry at that time. I eat 3 meals a day and don't snack, but I do eat chocolate when I'm premenstrual. I also like to keep active. I think genes make it harder for people to maintain a healthy weight.

Ah ok. Food does seem to be an issue on here to be honest, with folks taking issue with how others eat when it comes to weight management or loss.

I had a low normal BMI of about 19 until about mid 40s and then it was rare for me to get hungry outside lunch and dinner times, in fact I could forget to eat if busy. Now after chemo etc with menopause I have put on weight, and as weight went up got hungry more, body adjusted to bigger weight. Now trying to lose it again and felt shaky sometimes when starting but seems to be blood sugar so eat something like a banana helps. I remember Solzhenitsyn discussing this about being in prison and saying stomach seems to shrink it's desires and adjusts to little food after initial painful few days.

100% this.
Hunger is not blood sugar spikes or getting jitters and headaches - people who eat to tackle these symptoms should actually look at what and when they are eating.

Hunger and fasting (but eating plenty of nutritious food in the eating window) is extremely beneficial to the human body - it starts cellular autophagy.

Im currently 17 hrs into my fast and honestly am at peak cognitive shape. As soon as I break fast at 11am I’ll have reduced concentration.

Fasting is most certainly not disordered eating.

People are over weight because they won’t put up with periods of feeling hungry. It’s normal to feel hungry.

I disagree, I was slim til my mid-thirties and I didn't feel hungry all the time, I felt completely fine, unless I hadn't eaten for hours. Since second child, and now especially in the menopause and on beta-blockers, I feel much hungrier. You might be right though, I'm not prepared to walk around permanently hungry to be a size 10, and that's my choice! I prefer to be a bit heavier, do some exercise, eat some nice food, more of a middle-way. Being hungry all the time sounds miserable.

Being hungry is perfectly normal.
Feel hungry -> eat -> stop eating -> feel full

Then later on the day you will hungry again so you eat again. It’s pretty basic level humaning.

@PyongyangKipperbang - I had a friend like the one you describe (ate masses but struggled to put on any weight) and she was diagnosed with coeliac disease relatively late in life. It transpired that she physically wasn't absorbing calories from her food and had suffered quite a lot of damage to her gut.

Now she's on a strict gluten free diet and her gut is recovering she's had to restrict her intake to stop herself ballooning! I'm not suggesting your friend has the same condition, but it's worth knowing that there could be something medical going on.

“I eat a load of crap and I'm unfit so I'm not sure being slim is really anything for me to be proud of.”

I’m glad you said this @BertieBotts it’s interesting how some equate thin with being healthy.

I ate a lot of crap too for a lot of the time I was thin, and generally ate too much considering I’m a 5ft 2 woman, yet colleagues used to almost praise me for eating so much yet remaining slim. “where does it all go haha” etc when I was hoovering up all the m&s cakes the manager would buy for the team.

It’s actually shown me that people rarely care about “health” when they criticise overweight people because if they did they’d go after the thin people who live on processed food and don’t exercise just as much.

The first time I ever had a colleague hint I was eating too much was in a job 4 years ago when I’d gone up to a size 12/14. . And this was in a place where they didn’t even have office snacks much so it’s not like she was concerned I was not leaving enough for others. It was a pack of crisps I’d bought myself from the canteen vending machine. She said “have you seen the calories in that you better not”.

Also had another colleague say “if I was you I’d go to the gym every day “when I challenged her she tried to cover it up as if she meant saying if she had the same amount of spare time as I do, but I think it was actually a dig at my weight.

I’m glad I WFH now 🙄

It’s been interesting to hear from everyone, thank you. I deliberately didn’t put a bmi or fat percentage on the OP as I think slim is very subjective.
I think the posts that chimed most are those saying when they have over indulged this leads to increased hunger the next day. I think this is so true. The hardest part of any lifestyle change is the first week.
One problem it has made me realise I have is that I feel really happy when I am over full. Lots of people on here have talked about hating feeling full and not minding the odd hunger pang. I know if I binge on 1000 calories of biscuits I will have a happy buzz for the rest of the day. Not saying I do this often but that is my reality.
I do all the right things most of the time. I home cook from scratch with lots of veg and very little UPF. I do 16:8 fasting as this helps with hunger.
I’m also grateful this thread hasn’t become a fat v thin bun fight. I didn’t read the deleted posts but most people have given a positive spin to their own views.

The hardest part of any lifestyle change is the first week.

Yes, and part of that is re-adjusting your appetite. When I resolved to exit the orange / red zone of the BMI and adopt healthier eating I did it one adjustment at a time.

Stopped the less healthy snacks first. Ate only planned snacks of a modest / healthy nature.

Then I paid attention to portion sizes, weighed a few portions of pasta, sweet potato wedges etc, rowed back from our household norm which was geared to male teens and set my own portion of anything higher calorie, while increasing veg and salad.

Then I cut alcohol to 2 nights a week at a modest intake ( had usually had a glass of wine or beer every night).

Once I had cut the sugar craving and got used to smaller portions (about 4 days) it was pretty easy.

Now I occasionally slip into eating more than I need, put on a couple of Kgs and pay attention again for a month or so to re-set.

Eat when I'm hungry. Just don't feel hungry that often and especially not after exercise. And lucky not to like sweet things after giving up sugar in my teens including cakes, puddings. Also lucky enough not to feel hangry or dizzy like other PPs. Dislike feeling over full. DH however has a massive appetite and gets angry when hungry as do DC. All have a tendency to put on weight. In the genes, I guess.

Today’s food with no hunger felt between.
B at 7am -a small avocado smashed onto a piece of granary toast, Tabasco, pumpkin seeds, tea.
L- at 12pm- tuna salad, apple

Snack at 4 after work- 1 rice cake with hummus and cup of tea.

D - at 6 cod coconut curry with rice and spinach, satsuma

Just water all day at work, tea at home and now sparkling water as doing Stoptober.

i eat if I’m hungry. Always breakfast as I’m starving. Lunch then if I’m not hungry at tea time I won’t eat just because the clock says “tea time”. I might have toast or cheese and crackers if I’m peckish.

when i ran marathons i was always hungry but now i dont so metabolism changes.

lots of times people think they need food but infact its thirst

That wouldn’t work for me at all, my food today (which is a typical day) was:

11.30am
3x buttered toast topped with eggs and bacon rashers
tomato and cucumber on the side
some pineapple

4.30pm
big steak & ale pie
carrots, broccoli and peas on the side
apple, plum
half a bar of dark chocolate

I feel infinitely better with few, but substantial, meals. Grazing is so unsatisfactory to me.

@7worfs I’d rather do a brunch plus dinner but doesn’t work around my job. I often eat a later brunch when I’m not at work.

If I'm hungry I will always have a snack - I'm 8 stone and sometimes get light headed if I don't eat when I'm hungry. The difference between me and the overweight people I know is that I can't eat a huge amount in one sitting. So I'll eat whenever I'm hungry but I don't ever eat huge portions that many people now seem to view as normal.
I do eat 3 meals a day though - I just snack inbetween if I'm peckish.

Same here. I let myself feel hungry, it won’t kill you. People seem to be so scared of feeling hungry. Just distract yourself