What I want to know is, is this an actual physical sensation for people? Is it actually painful? My experience of hunger is an intense and urgent craving, a physical longing and desire, for food. But for me it’s not precisely a sensation, and it’s not painful, it just feeling of hollowness and a mental shout that overwhelms everything in the room. Eat! Eat now! I want to eat now!
I’m happy to report that keto has made this more of a memory than a current issue, but I’m still really curious about it.
Well we are generally cut off from our feelings and live in our heads in our society, so that makes sense. I agree I no longer feel hungry, which for me manifested in thinking about food.
I used to feel that way in the beginning but the longer I went the less it happened. Hunger now is definitely a physical feeling but is nothing as intense as before keto. Now it is a dull mild pain in my stomach and I can attribute a lack of energy with it. If I don’t feed it, the stomach discomfort passes pretty quickly but the energy level stays low until feeding. I have been able to use this as a guide to my caloric intake and ability to be satieated between meals comfortably. Overall though it is maybe 1/4 of the discomfort I used to get when burning glucose.
I skip breakfast 6 days a week and eat nothing one day week. I feel more hunger the hour or two leading up to lunch then I do during the entire day when I eat nothing. It’s all in your head. it gets easier over time. It’s practice like anything else.
If I’m well-fed and properly hydrated, I do not get hunger pangs, even when fasting. I do have the feeling that I really want to taste a particular food, but that is mental.
Yes, I still have that occasionally, that’s what I think of as a craving, but not much any more. I’m really just wondering when people talk of “hunger pains” if they really mean pain, or they mean something that’s mental.
My ‘hunger pangs’ are a real pain. I get affected in so many ways: stomach growls, hollow feeling, incredible mental desire to eat something that takes all my attention, saliva in my mouth, and a painful stomach sensation that varies… sometimes even feels like acid burning my stomach. My body does intense things to try to get me to eat. Crazy. When I was a sugar burner I could not resist, everrrrrr. I did think something bad would happen if I didn’t eat. And I would get a splitting headache too. And it usually had to be something incredibly carb-y like candy, pasta, bread, and so much if it because there were no real satiety signals eating that stuff. But now, when I’m in the right frame of mind I can overcome all of it. I listen to Dr. Fung’s talks and it helps me get in the right frame of mind. Even writing that brought on the growls and the hollow feeling. Doesn’t help that I’m in hour 56 of my weekend fast. I just ignored it and now it’s gone. The body and mind are terrible tricksters. But now that I know what I know, I feel in control for the first time in my life. I thank God for Keto every day.
Fascinating. I have never had actual physical pain from hunger, even in my sugar burner days. Now I don’t even have cravings very often, let alone a mind-stealing mental tsunami pressuring me to eat. Thank you, Keto!
Personally I never had real ‘pain’ so to speak. I would have discomfort, and acid type burning in my gut, but for me I found that drinking an 8oz glass of water diluted the acid in my stomach and the feeling went away. Since I stared my keto lifestyle in Sept 2016, I have fewer times when I feel hungry. Usually what I encounter is the psychological feeling that I need to eat food, but have no physical cravings. Getting over this psychological “hunger cravings” took some time, but eventually I was able to tell the difference for the physical hunger and the psychological hunger.
Do I still have the occasional stomach grumbling, yes. But not like before I went on Keto. Right now I still have the occasional grumble most often at normal eating times because my brain thinks it is time to eat. But they are not as strong as they were before. Right now I am on hour 72 of an 88 hour fast, and I am feeling almost no hunger. But when I do have a twinge, I drink some water.
Yes, my desire for food on a fast is extreme around dinner time on the first and second day. Once The Eating Hour is done, my agitation about food disappears.
I’m going to guess the gut biome has a lot to do with it. Candida wanting its fix or something. IF and EF helps fix the gut biome.
ava_ad0re
(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja )
#18
I get rumbling gas pains, they linger for 15-20 minutes.
If I don’t eat and I am actually hungry, it turns to nausea very quickly.
It’s a fine line between being that hungry, then feeling nauseous that I can’t actually eat anything.
I find carbonated soda water works really well with stopping those grumbles.
The first sip, it’s like music to my stomach and halts all cravings then and there. Miracle shit.
I get that hunger pangs to nauseous feeling too, but if I drink a glass of water or two it will stop that nausea. I consider the nausea another little dirty trick the body plays on me to try to make me eat. Now if I’ve done that water and also some salt if I’m not already good on salt, and I’m still nauseous, then I will reconsider. But sometimes I have 3 glasses of water.
ava_ad0re
(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja )
#20
Nausea is just your grehlin (hunger inducing hormone) on it’s meal timer reminding you to eat soon, fight past that feeling for roughly 15-20 minutes and it’ll go away again.
I just ignored it and now it’s gone. The body and mind are terrible tricksters. But now that I know what I know, I feel in control for the first time in my life. I thank God for Keto every day.