What does hungry feel like?

Gnawing, gurgling, crampy feeling in your stomach, the organ not the general abdominal area. It is an actual physical feeling not a mental "OOHH, cheesecake!" feeling. It doesn't go away with distraction or water. Keeps getting stronger, can actually almost be a sick feeling when it gets strong. My stomach will announce hunger with a series of loud noises if I ignore it.

One way to feel true hunger is to fast for 8 hours or so with nothing but water. Anyone who can't distinguish true hunger should give that a try.

You wanna... ya know... ate!

You can't really explain that just like you can't explain how colors looks to blind man. Well, I will try. So, when I'm hungry I think about the food and I wanna ate it. Mouth full of saliva when I think about it. Tummy feels empty, sometimes it even makes sounds like begging for food. It's kinda like something missing and I just wanan fill it up inside there in my belly.

Tired, weak, headaches, and pain in upper abdominal area.

For me it starts off as a pain in my stomach, but if I go too long between meals, I tend to get burpy. That's when I know I need to eat something right away. If I still don't eat at this point, I later become cranky and dizzy. At that point, after I eat, I tend to get sleepy.

I can feel myself getting more tired, unfocused, and sometime extremely irritable before the tell-tale stomach gurgling and aching starts to happen. I find it hard for myself because I can get those feelings every 2 hours sometimes :noway: It must be the quality of food I'm eating I'm guessing - and water normally deals with that pretty well until I feel like I'm going to pass out from hunger

I'm pretty sure I've never felt hunger in my entire life. For me, it's a mental/boredom thing.

It looks like I killed your thread -- sorry, OP!

I get a pain in my stomach. I can't really describe it as anything but a hunger pain.

For me, ridiculously close to thirsty. So, I usually make sure I drink water first and then rethink.

That feeling of having a hole in your belly is a sensation I get with thirst, hunger, boredom, and stress, so I can't go by that alone.

Interesting question. Like one of the posters above, I think in the past I have rarely let myself feel or contemplate true hunger because I was always trying to stave it off or avoid it. A pretty lucky situation to be in, all things considered.

I recently read a really interesting book called "How to Have Your Cake and Your Skinny Jeans Too" by Josie Spinardi.

http://www.amazon.com/Have-Your-Skinny-Jeans-ebook/dp/B00B9JKNBC

She talks about hunger being a warm, energizing feeling in the upper abdomen. It's open to options (ie, you're not just "hungry for pizza") and comes on slowly (as opposed to a sudden desire for donuts). I have been trying to cultivate this and I do feel it sometimes. Based on the responses to this thread, everyone seems to experience hunger slightly differently though.

Try 5:2 intermittent fasting to find out. That's a regime where you eat 500 cals on two non-consecutive days per week and at maintenance on the other days to build in you calorie deficit. If you are the type of person who psychologically copes better with occasional extreme deprivation that constant low level deprivation it is a helpful eating pattern.

When I was doing this last year, I found that physical hunger did not get progressively worse during the day but came in waves. Also I learned that while physical hunger is slightly unpleasant, it doesn't kill you. I also enjoyed the ketosis taste in my mouth (that's the metallic taste you get when your body is metabolizing fat). It also taught me the difference between feeling peckish and physical hunger. So even if intermittent fasting was not for me in the long term, I think it helped me.

The physical sensation to me is kind of odd. It almost feels like a dull pull. It gets stronger as time wears on and it lets up after I've eaten a certain amount.

I'm trying to get used to the feeling as I don't really eat any more to the point where that entirely goes away. It's unpleasant, but I consider being my former size even more unpleasant.


Emotional hunger on the other hand is a funny thing for me. At first, I lose all appetite and sometimes even feel like I want to be sick, but about an hour later, I become completely and utterly obsessed with food and want to eat everything in sight.

To me it feels like a "hollow" sensation in my abdomen and sometimes some gurgling. LOL
Psychologically it depends on whether my hunger is planned or unplanned whether I get irritable with it.

I do 5:2 so I have intermittent fasting days. Planned hunger feel easier to me psychologically because it's "part of the plan" rather than something that's imposed by outside circumstances.

I used to eat when not hungry (bored etc) and not stop when technically I should have been full. It's as if I could no longer read my own body.

I love IF because it helped me to re-educate my body and understand it's signals, and re-discover my "I'm full now" sensation.