Eat When Not Hungry? Yes OR No?

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  • fitmom4lifemfp
    fitmom4lifemfp Posts: 1,575 Member
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    JustynaJustice wrote: »
    If meal time comes along, do you still eat if you're not hungry? Yes or no? Why or why not?

    My meal time IS when I am hungry. If I'm not hungry, I am not going to eat. That's what made me gain in the first place.
  • FitCurves1818
    FitCurves1818 Posts: 90 Member
    edited February 2017
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    I don't always make great decisions when I'm hungry and I've found that eating my pre-selected, pre-logged meals and snacks at set intervals throughout the day keeps me from getting hungry in the first place, so almost all of my meals are eaten when I'm not hungry.
  • Heartisalonelyhunter
    Heartisalonelyhunter Posts: 786 Member
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    No I would never eat if I wasn't hungry
  • Snowdusk
    Snowdusk Posts: 36 Member
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    I'm always hungry RIP
    Jk
    No I just wait until I'm hungry, I'm in a deficit so that time will certainly always come xD
  • JeromeBarry1
    JeromeBarry1 Posts: 10,182 Member
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    I always eat when I'm not hungry because I only get hungry when I skip a meal and then Katy bar the door.
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
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    Yup all the time. Less so when I am cutting but definitely when I am bulking
  • RandiNoelle
    RandiNoelle Posts: 374 Member
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    I have a pretty set schedule during the work week. I plan and pre-log all of my meals/snacks to make sure I'm getting enough nutrition throughout the day, as well as enough energy to push me through my workouts that take place after work.

    On weekends when I'm home and not as active, I only eat when I'm hungry but I still do a little planning meal-wise.
  • lulalacroix
    lulalacroix Posts: 1,082 Member
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    I really try to listen to my hunger cues now because I used to not have them due to overeating. So no, I don't usually eat if I'm not hungry.
  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
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    To quote one of my favorite internet writers Jeff Kay:

    "There's not a moment of the day or night when I couldn't eat a full meal. And that includes immediately after eating a full meal."
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,214 Member
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    Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »
    goldthistime wrote: »
    I still eat to hunger levels and track alongside. Often when I'm full but have calories left I wake up in the middle of the night remembering some snack I'd forgotten to log. IOW, my appetite is often better than my memory.

    This is why prelogging your diary is usually better.
    Its been proven that people under estimate how much they eat if they log the food at the end of the day, or even after they ate it. People forget the little things.. often forgetting conditments or cooking methods used, or in your case, snacks they ate..

    I can see the benefits of prelogging for some people and have seen lots of success stories where people used prelogging, but I would say it's "better" only in certain circumstances.

    If my appetite/satiety signal isn't broken, why not use it? Using it now, in conjunction with the info that logging gives me, IMO, gives me a better chance at continuing to maintain without logging at some later date. And if you're curious as to how I gained weight without having a broken appetite, I gained it by choosing to ignore my appetite signals.

    But really I came back to this thread because I was thinking that I answered the thread title, but not really the first post itself.

    It's rare for me to not be hungry at all when mealtime comes along. If I switch to a lower carb diet on a particular day (which I do on occasion), I can get to dinner time and not want to eat. Let's say that if I don't eat, I'll be under in calories for that day. Personally, I'd go with appetite and not eat dinner. But I have no recent history of consistent undereating, I generally aim for a small deficit, and my seven day average wouldn't be off by much.
  • tahxirez
    tahxirez Posts: 270 Member
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    Depends on how long it will be until I'm allowed to eat again. I.e. if I'm at home with unlimited access to food, no I do not. But if I'm at work, in a conference, or a class where I will not be able to eat for the next X number of hours yes I will eat now and avoid the hanger and mozzarella sticks that would be in my future.
  • tahxirez
    tahxirez Posts: 270 Member
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    madair801 wrote: »
    No, you should never eat when you are not hungry - whatever you are eating will turn into fat because your metabolism has slowed down and it will not burn up the fat. I went through a program called Naturally Slim (www.naturallyslim.com) and they say you can eat a snack between meals. Very good program and it works if you follow it.

    No.

  • nicruns
    nicruns Posts: 201 Member
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    I'm struggling with this very topic right now!
    Went to yoga at lunch. Was hungry before I left, but am not now.
    Just thirsty.
  • lmew91
    lmew91 Posts: 88 Member
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    Sometimes I think that I am ravenous and could eat a whole lot, so I plan for a lot of food (within my caloric budget.) But, sometimes when I sit down to eat, I feel full before I've finished the meal. I don't force myself to finish the meal just because I've weighed/measured/logged it, or just because it's there and I've got the calories. I stop when I'm full. Sometimes I will come back and eat some more of it later, sometimes I'll just save it and eat the rest as another meal the next day.

    As others have mentioned, if I found myself feeling really full on too few calories, on a regular basis, I would look at the matter differently.
  • BrunetteRunner87
    BrunetteRunner87 Posts: 591 Member
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    Depends. If I'm at work and I'm not hungry I'm not going to eat until I am. Or if my mom randomly offers me food at a weird time and I just ate then I won't eat. But if 3:00 creeps up and I don't feel hungry yet, I'll eat my lunch because it takes me a couple hours to digest before my 6:00 run and I'm going to have to eat eventually. Or if I come home from work and I'm not hungry really but my fiance wants to eat I might eat because eventually I'm going to need to eat dinner.
  • troopertits
    troopertits Posts: 2 Member
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    I always eat to my calorie goal. If I didn't, and waited until I was hungry I would never eat dinner. My worry is that I wouldn't eat enough calories and my body would get used to a low calorie restriction every day.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,750 Member
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    If I don't eat, I quickly (as in before I have a chance to eat sometimes) go through hunger and out the other side into a state of nausea and light-headedness and the longer it goes on, the worse I feel and the less I want to eat. The only way out of this is to make myself eat something, which causes the appetite to come back and I feel better. I understand the thinking behind intuitive eating, but hunger is not a gospel guide to whether I need food. It comes and goes somewhat randomly.
  • sawyergarden13
    sawyergarden13 Posts: 15 Member
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    Yes. I believe in structured eating. 3 meals and 3 snacks a day.
  • kenyonhaff
    kenyonhaff Posts: 1,377 Member
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    Mostly no.

    But I'm an educator, and sometimes you can't just whip out a protein bar any old time. Sometimes I'll eat if I know I'll run out of gas before lunchtime otherwise.

    I will admit to sometimes eating because "it's time" rather than actually being incredibly hungry. After-school, for instance. But since I have a range of snacks that will almost always fit my calorie plan for the day it's not a big deal.
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
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    Sometimes I'm still full from a previous meal because it was either large, full of protein, or both. In that case, if snack/meal time comes and goes, I won't eat if I'm not hungry yet, but in most cases like that, I treat it as banking those calories for a larger dinner or after-dinner snack, so it all evens out.

    I also prefer to skip breakfast and first eat around noon or 1pm. I'm usually not very hungry before 11, and I push it a couple more hrs to condense my calories into a smaller timeframe (IF). If I eat breakfast I end up getting hungry again sooner, so why eat breakfast if I'm not hungry for it and it will increase my appetite anyway?

    I rarely go under my daily calorie goal by more than 50 calories, but if you're consistently under eating, then eating when not hungry is probably a good idea.

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