Eating only when hungry

bjkoziara

Depends entirely on you. If you think you'd handle it well and still reach your goals, go for it. If I did that I would end up binging, so that's a no for me. I eat at specific times instead (10:00 breakfast, 12:30 snack, 2:30 lunch, 4:30 snack, 6:30 dinner)

lemurcat2

I'm pretty much hungry (as in happy to eat, not ravenous) at regular meal times (in the morning before work, around noon or 1, and when I have dinner, which tends to be around 9). I am often somewhat hungry before dinner (late afternoon when I planned to stay at work late used to be my danger time for mindless snacking, usually to procrastinate), but if I am I know dinner is only a few hours away so I just wait and it goes away if my mind is on something else. If I have an extra hard (from a calorie burning perspective) workout I might eat something outside my normal plan if feeling extra hungry, but generally not. I don't force myself to eat when not hungry, but that normally happens when I am sick or occasionally if I have to leave before I get hungry and then I might just skip breakfast and eat lunch earlier (and usually more for lunch). But really my appetite is pretty in tune with my regular meal times (and tends to adjust to when I normally eat).

I know it works for some, but the idea of eating based on when I'm hungry makes me think of walking around thinking "am I hungry?" "am I hungry yet?" "hmm, I might be a little hungry, am I hungry enough to eat?" or "hmm, hungry! must ditch my dinner plans later and eat right now!" All that thinking about it seems too much for me, I like just eating at mealtime (and eating less if I'm not really that hungry, maybe). I'm probably overthinking this, but then I'm prone to that, which is why the "am I hungry?" thing wouldn't work for me.