Learning to be ok with hunger

[MarcieBluebell]

Basically I can't remember feeling hungry. I eat as soon as I feel peckish. Most of the time I am overly full.

I need to learn being hungry (not starving myself) is normal for humans. I need to stop eating all day long.

Anyone else eat as soon as they don't feel full. How can I improve this?

I'm ill so can't excersise which used to help loads with my metabolism.

Me! I also can’t stop eating until I feel stuffed. I constantly have to remind myself that hunger will not harm me and how proud I will feel at the end of the day if I just restrain myself

Drink a glass of water every time you feel hungry - I read somewhere that often when we think we are hungry, we are thirsty. Drinking water will help you to feel full, and help you get your hydration target for the day!

I used to eat in case I got hungry later. So without ever feeling even slightly peckish.

I've lost 8 stone since then. Allowing myself to be hungry was one of the most significant factors in the early days of weight loss. I decided two things:

(1) I would only eat at meal times. I would eat as much healthy stuff I wanted at meal times, so was happy to allow myself big portions. But these must be breakfast, lunch or dinner. No snacking between meals whatsoever.

(2) I would only eat a meal if I was hungry and would stop when I wasn't hungry.

When I was very big, I discovered that I could miss both breakfast and lunch without being hungry. I'm not advocating this long term, but when you have vast, VAST amounts of body fat your body can manage easily by burning the fat stores it already has. This may not work for someone with 4 or 5 stone to lose, but morbidly obese people need not feel they "must" eat.

Realising how infrequently I needed to eat was a massive revelation to me. As time and weight loss progressed I started needing lunch. But this was because I recognised I needed to eat lunch rather than just eating just because society said I should.

I continue to not usually eat breakfast (my BMI is now healthy). I tend to find I'm thirsty in the mornings so drink a litre or two of water/squash and several coffees through the morning. This is despite the fact I run around 10km every morning, 7 days a week.

As a daily runner, there's another load of society expectations about food I have to dispel. "You need to eat more when you're doing that much exercise". No, I don't. I listen to my body. "You need more carbs with that much exercise". No, I don't unless I'm doing a particularly fast or very long run, neither of which I do very often.

I think people give this bad advice to make themselves feel better. They think they'd want to eat more if exercising, so project onto me when I don't. They'd want to eat loads of bread and pasta if running, so project onto my hummus and veg sticks lunch. I also get loads of "you need to be careful about anorexia" which is especially insulting given I'm only 1/2 stone within the top end of healthy BMI. All projection I think.

But back to topic. Learning to listen to your own body and not being scared to not eat when society says you should is a big revelation.

I completely agree with pp FATE . Being brought up to clear my plate and believing breakfast is the most important meal of the day really impeded my weight loss. An easy way for me to kick start weight loss is to listen to my body when it says coffee for breakfast is enough and small healthy lunch and dinners too

I disagree. No one should feel hungry ever. Eat when your body tells you, just don't eat crap. This is why diets don't work. People starve themselves then eat the wrong stuff when they can't stand it anymore. You need a healthy approach to eating.

I see feeling hungry like needing a wee. We don't always go straight to the loo when we need to, but wait until a better time.

When it comes to hunger, it's not a bad feeling, but what a pp said about making worse choices when hungry is accurate.
Either plan plan and plan some more, so you have lunches prepped for every day or don't take money to work for snacks.

It's easy to go the whole hog when it comes to resolutions, but make a small change each week.
Week one can be a packed lunch every day. Week 2, more protein for breakfast etc. Small changes are easier to manage and add up to something huge.

Work out your triggers. What's your cue to eat? Is it because it's 12? Is it because someone else is? Decide what you'd like it to be.

Drinking water when I'm peckish makes me feel hungry! I can feel the water sloshing about!
Maybe eat something that takes a while to eat. Whenever I have a meal with chopsticks, I rarely finish. But eating an egg sandwich with chopsticks makes you look a bit odd!

I have lost 2 stone recently over a period of 4 months and am now a healthy weight. I plan what I am going to eat and have it all calorie-counted the night before.

Actual empty-tummy "hunger" has been a bit of a novelty for me, it really only happens an hour before dinnertime in the evening (not every day either) and I wholeheartedly embrace it. I never enjoyed my food as much as this when I was fat!

But "psychological" hunger has been much more common for me, usually at work when I am bored or feeling like I need a bit of a "gee up". I have a cocoa late afternoon and that helps me through.

Thanks for replies. Glad not only one and definitely trying to snack less. I think with hunger planning is key. I'm going to try to have volumous meals with lots of vedge and salad and protein. Sugar is definitely a factor and I need to reevaluate portion sizes. My body has excess fat so I'm trying to listen to my head rather than body that would like a constant top up of chocolate!