How much of hunger is psychological?

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #1

So yesterday, I ate a BIG healthy breakfast at about 8am. And planned to take a dinner break at around 4 or 5pm. Well, it turned out to be really busy, and I didn’t get to eat dinner until about 8pm. But the thing is, I was really hungry by 4 or 5… And I was freaking ravished by 8pm ! Like I was ready to chew somebody’s arm off :astonished:

But here’s the thing… Every Sunday, I have a big breakfast, and I already know, I won’t eat another bite of anything until Monday morning. But what’s weird is, when I’m not expecting to eat, I don’t seem to get so hungry ? I haven’t had any problems whatsoever, with a 26-30 hrs fast every Sunday-Monday, for at least 12 weekends…
Not that I haven’t thought about food on a Sunday night, just that when I do, I immediately remember, “Oh yea, no more food today” then I just immediately skip to some other thought.
I guess what I’m saying is, if I have a choice, I have a really hard time. Whereas, if it’s already set in stone, it’s easy peasy :wink:
Maybe this is just part of my all or nothing “disorder” ?

For me, the deciding (flipping that on off switch) is the tough part… The doing is super easy.

Your thoughts ?

(Prancing Pony) #2

I found a similar thing when I was fasting but also noticed the type of day I had made a huge difference too. So I imagine it was more about your busy/higher stress day than just knowing you planned to eat.

I think I read somewhere that there are 28 hormones that effect metabolism so I’m going to guess even the psychological part drives hormones :joy:

(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja ) #3

All of it, for me.
Once your body is entirely fat adapted and you do not cheat, you do not think about food, or feel hungry.
I have not ‘felt hungry’ since April 2018 when I first adapted, since then I have not felt any hunger pains, no hunger signals, tummy gurgles, NOTHING. I eat because I like eating and am obviously addicted to food, lol.

(Alec) #4

You guys have hit the topic I wanted to talk about. I have been off the wagon for a fair while, and regained a lot of weight. The interesting thing is that I have not really felt hungry for months. Most of the time I have felt stuffed/fat/bloated, and I ate pretty much entirely for emotional reasons.

I am an emotional eater, and I am not proud of it. It is stunning what stress will do to an emotional eater. An interesting change I think that has happened since going keto and losing a lot of weight (originally) is that my body is now distinctly uncomfortable being at a higher weight. I feel that my body does not want the weight.

I am now just not hungry. Today I wasn’t hungry at lunch, just didn’t eat. Tonight, not hungry, just didn’t eat. It wasn’t my intent to do a 36hr fast today, but it has just happened.

Do I feel better not eating? Oohhhhhh soooooooooo much yessssssss. I cannot describe to you how much better I feel when I don’t eat. That empty stomach feeling is just wonderful. Brain running on ketones? Probably.

(Erin Macfarland ) #5

@ava_ad0re you absolutely still get hungry once fat adapted…the closer you are to an “ideal weight” or body composition, the hungrier you will feel. And it’s not psychological. The good thing about using fat as a primary fuel source is you don’t really get the “hangry” feeling like when you are running on primarily glucose. But at almost 6 years doing keto, I get clear signals that it’s time to eat :grin:

(Edith) #6

I know I am hungry when I start thinking about food and it gets in the way of other thoughts. I don’t get hunger pains or headaches. Sometimes I will still get shaky, but without the gnawing pit, headache, or hanger.

(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja ) #7

I’ve been Keto for 1.5 years and I don’t get hungry or hunger pangs. Each to their own :slight_smile:
I’m 62kg at 165cm so close to my goal weight. I wish I did feel hungry, it would make life easier. Maybe it’ll come in time.

(Jim Letourneau) #8

I am an emotional eater as well and can mindlessly eat the worst things at the worst times if I’m not careful.

I was just thinking today about how FULL I feel some of the time on keto. So full that I can’t finish my plate (and not a second plate either). That never used to happen. I can look at food shows, food pictures, be around cooking smells and I am not hungry. That is a huge help in sticking to the plan.

However, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. In the hard part of a fast between day 1 and day 2, I can be triggered by any kind of stress. An irritating phone call or a small problem. I’m pretty fragile then so I try to take some salt and drink lots of carbonated water. I now know through personal experience that I can skip a day or two of eating and come out the other side unscathed.

Like @FishChris, if I have a mental commitment to not eating in a specific time frame, I have an easy go of it. If I’m just coasting to see if I might extend a fast by a few hours or overnight, I’ll succumb to what is in the fridge or an opportunity to go out for dinner.

If my wife asks me if I’m fasting and I say YES, I’m probably going to complete that day fasted. If I waffle I’ll probably eat at the first sign of a hunger signal. Specific intentions are a useful tool. Thanks for bringing this up!

(Erin Macfarland ) #9

Activity level and body composition will also affect hunger signals…I can’t fast for longer than around 24 hours, being lean and active. I immediately feel better when I get some good fatty meat, as soon as I start feeling my energy levels and focus decline

(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja ) #11

That’s probably what it is
I had a major seizure and haven’t been able to work out
I’m mostly sedentary but I do try and get 10k steps a day in.
I’m not allowed to lift heavy objects until I receive treatment. I’m sure once I start working out again my appetite will definitely increase but until then I’m just humming along.

(Bunny) #12

What is so interesting about the psychological processes and the bodies need for food is that we respond to food and start beginning the process of digestion before we even actually eat it.

We create a wide array of hormones during this process of phallic digestion and start to activate the salivary glands to start digesting.

There is a strange phenomenon that effects people who work in the food industry; they say being around food all day made them not hungry when they finish there work shift and they ate less food and lost weight. (some of you that have worked or work in the food industry may know this?)

I once worked in a Mexican food restaurant and I would hose down the entire kitchen with a high pressurized hose (it was a water a proof kitchen) suspended from the ceiling on rollers and all the food the chefs would throw on the floor (high speed cooking…lol) would collect into baskets and then into drains in the floor but when all this food mixed together, it resembled the process or smell of human digestion (butyrate?); before doing this I would be ravenously hungry every night but after spraying everything down which was fun…lol I was not hungry anymore because the smell was so disgusting it made me gag just thinking about it! (resembled the smell of human feces but worse) I lost a lot of weight when doing that and I do mean a lot of weight.

Was that smell effecting my hypothalamus, ghrelin and leptin ect. signaling?

Was my brain and olfactory nerves associating food with something bad? (was my hunger in-fact psychological?)

I wonder?

Psychological (emotional) hunger vs. Natural hunger pangs?

I also wonder if eating resistant starch has something to do with my experience above by feeding the butyrate producing bacteria in the gut that satiates the hormonal signaling and makes me want to eat less long-term?

(Mother of Puppies ) #13

Some of mine has been a brain fuel issue.

Since taking MCT, I don’t have as many random cravings

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #14

Thanks again to all. So glad I asked :slight_smile: This has been quite interesting. I see that its different for a lot of folks… but the same in some respects, for a lot of folks too.

One other thing I wanted to throw in, was that logically speaking, I would think that if I were hungry after 8 hrs without eating, Id be starving by 12 hrs, and dead by 16… But instead, I’m often hungry at 8 hrs, but over it by 12 ? Like last Sunday, at 8 hrs I was thinking, “Geez, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do this…” Then my hunger just kind of went away, and I was good until the next morning.

But then again, I guess this might be more physiological than psychological, which is what my OP was about…

(Susan) #15

I find even when I am fasting, the only times I really feel hungry are during my normal feeding times.

My body expects to be fed at 1pmish and 4:30pm. During fasting, I get hunger pains during those times, I eat some salt, and drink water and/or tea, and it goes away. So, I feel that that is more psychological hunger. I think when I am fasting for a few days and feel the hunger pains, sometimes it is actual hunger pains, but I do the salt/water and it diminishes.

When I am not fasting, I have to often remember to eat at 1pm or I forget to eat… then the day turns into an OMAD and I really struggle to get enough calories and macros for the day in one meal, so I try to avoid this. TMAD works better for me. I am not always feeling hungry at the 1pm time, but I find that it is better for me to eat at that time, to divide my meals in two is all =).

This is very true Chris! All of us are indeed unique and individual; what works for one person, may or may not work for another! That is why it is very helpful for lots of people to reply to posts to get a nice cross-reference for us all to read and get ideas from!!

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #16

TY Susan :blush:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #17

My n=1. Although I have had and still have favourite foods, I have never experienced food cravings. I have always considered food to be fuel even while I ate SAD. I feel nothing emotional about it. In my SAD life, I could ignore food unless I felt hungry. Even then, my goal was to get the eating over with as quickly as possible and get back to my life. I often jokingly describe my attitude towards food as like a driver who’s running out of gas on the highway views an upcoming service station. I want to get in, get refueled and back on the road again. The service station is not my destination.

Now, well post-SAD, I usually feel very little to no hunger. In fact, before I feel hungry I will usually feel cold or even weak. Those two signals are very strong. Interestingly, in my ongoing ‘tests’ of ginger root’s effect on my metabolism, initially and for a couple months or so, I felt hunger in the morning after a day of consuming a modest amount (10-30 grams) of ginger root. This in fact is what prompted me to extend my testing of ginger root, since that morning hunger got my attention! After 6+ months of intermittent consumption of ginger root I can now report that it no longer stimulates morning hunger. If I undershoot my daily macros and/or calorie target for 2 or 3 days in a row, I will feel slight hunger in the morning regardless of any ginger root consumed the previous day. Or, if I consistently miss my daily targets I will start to feel cold, although during the warm months even this seems less noticeable. ‘Weak’ is more noticeable in warm weather, ‘cold’ during the colder months.

BTW, I’m back to daily ginger root because it does seem to help me avoid getting sick. I am exposed to sick people constantly both to/from and at work.

(Neil) #18

For me, hunger is almost always entirely psychological. I’ve written about it a few times in my personal accountability thread. Here’s one recent reflection on the topic:

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/neils-extended-fast-tracker/85327/261

Here’s a more detailed reflection from June:

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/neils-extended-fast-tracker/85327/119

(Bob M) #19

Interesting. My hunger is almost never psychological. Sometimes, if people are eating, it will be. But it’s mainly physical.

#20

I believe that most of my hunger is psychological…mostly boredom and nerves.
Sure, I probably get hungry sometimes, but nearly as often as my head telling me I would feel much better if I stuffed my face with junk :wink: I’ve learned to recognize those signals though, so it’s much easier to deal with now.