What do YOU do when you feel hungry (but know you're not)?

If you feel hungry, you are hungry. Dieting is all about resisting your hunger so you can lose weight. I know, I know, everyone on mfp likes to pretend they aren't dieting, which is just silly. You are dieting to lose weight, but you can call it a lifestyle change if you like. It's a lifestyle change called "not eating in spite of being hungry so that you will lose weight".

You have to accept the fact that while losing weight successfully you are going to be hungry if it is working. You will be hungry a fair amount of the time. You have to find ways to cope with that. Some suggestions have already been made here: chewing gum, drinking water. Many forms of coping with hunger include distracting yourself - playing a game, reading an absorbing book, watching tv or a movie, or even exercising more. For the hardcore motivational methods there are options like looking at your progress bar to see how far you've come and how far left you have to go, weighing yourself, looking at yourself in the mirror and asking yourself if you really want to sabotage your progress, and so on.

If none of this works, you can decide what form of healthy food you want to eat, then eat that and not binge, then record it carefully in your diary. It might help take the edge off. Try a 100 calorie snack with a lot of water, an apple, banana, or one of those salty 100 calorie snack packs if salt is one of your things and you aren't a salt avoider. Just keep the calories low and controlled. Then wait a little while for your body to get the message you ate some food. Do something with your hands. Try all of the methods above again. Ask yourself if you're really serious about losing weight.

to Ravenstar25:
You nailed the advice to the head. That's how its going to be. I am even still in the process of accepting the hunger feeling. Some supplements help acutally, since they expand in your stomach with enough fluids of water. This sometimes helps me as well to stay on track.
I grew up hungry and I was tired of it, since I can now affort to feed myself without being hungry, but it may cost me my job (the military has weight limits/or inch limits of body measurements). So I got to suck it up, if I want to stay in "business".

Your comment really spilled it out, how its going to be and I personally appreciate it, for not being kind and political correct.

Thank you!

I think it may be the fat cells telling a person "eat more! we're hungry!" when in fact a person may not be hungry. The "losing weight" phase is hard, but once you're there, the fat cells will shrink (hopefully) and just sit idle waiting for the fattening foods to feed on, so they can multiply once more. It's hard not to listen to those fat cells, but you gotta do it to lose weight.

A couple of questions first, then some possibilities: When you're hungry, are you craving something in particular? A specific food or specific macro (carbs, fats, etc.)?

(1) Lack of Specific Nutrient
If you're craving a specific food, it's possible that you're not getting enough of a specific nutrient -- so your body craves a food with that nutrient in it, even though you don't need more calories per se. I find that when I eat more nutrient dense foods and make sure to get my micros (through food and vitamins), I don't tend to have these types of cravings anymore.

(2) Carb/Glucose Issue
If it's cravings for sweets or carbs, it's possible that you have something off in your glucose metabolism. For example, if you have insulin resistance, this is a very common symptom because your body is spiking your insulin to get the glucose into the cells (because they're insulin resistant), but that also lowers blood sugar triggering a hunger reaction. Sadly, it's estimated that over 40% of US adults have this issue at either diabetic or pre-diabetic levels -- many of whom don't know it at all. You could be one of these people (I learned that I was).

If you find your hunger is more of this nature, you can do two things. One, go to the doctor and get your blood tests -- a simple A1C test will show this. Also, many find that if they restrict carbs this helps because it keeps their insulin from spiking so much. However, how much of a restriction varies by person. I personally keep mine below 100g per day and avoid grains, getting most of my carbs from veggies, an occasional fruit and dark chocolate. Some can go higher, some need to keep lower.

(3) Psychological Issues
Do you notice the hunger associated with any emotions -- whether frustration, sadness, anxiety, anger, etc.? Sometimes we have a psychological or emotional lacking in our life and we attempt to soothe that issue with food -- it's super common. I know I have definitely done this in the past -- I could feel my stomach being totally fine, but I was still craving food. Knowing you're full/satiated and still craving to eat something is a crazy combination.

I eat 6 times a day and drink/sip water in between:

breakfast/snack/lunch/snack/dinner/snack

Each time I eat, I try to have a carb and a protein. It will get me through 2-3 hours until my next meal/snack

2-3 drops of Young Living grapefruit essential oil in a large glass of water and drink it down in about 15 minutes or less. Really helps curb the hunger.

When you are used to eating a certian way and used to your stomach feeling "full" it's easy. If someone used to eat 3 waffles, 2 fried eggs, a hashbrown, and 5 pieces of sausage for breakfast, and then they are trying to get fit and healthy and change it to 1 waffle with 2 scrambed eggs and 2 slices of turkey bacon, it's less food and they don't feel that "fullness" they felt before which could lead them to believe they are hungry. I believe it's one of the reasons people are so overweight. We don't eat portions, we eat til we feel stuffed, instead of "full"

I don't understand how someone can feel hungry but not be hungry... totally baffles me. I'm either hungry or not.

sleep

Eat slower. It's one of the best tips I can give you.

A few weeks ago I started this trick with myself, I've dubbed it the cucumber trick. I decided on cucumbers because although I don't necessarily dislike them, they are usually one of the last things I'll pick up to eat if I have it laying around.

It goes like this:
If I think I'm hungry, I'll think of a cucumber, tossed with some balsamic & pepper or something (one of the few ways I like it.) If I think "no, wouldn't eat it", then I'm really not actually hungry. If I think to myself "yeah that does sound kinda good" then I know I am lol

Maybe weird, but it totally works.

A few weeks ago I started this trick with myself, I've dubbed it the cucumber trick. I decided on cucumbers because although I don't necessarily dislike them, they are usually one of the last things I'll pick up to eat if I have it laying around.

It goes like this:
If I think I'm hungry, I'll think of a cucumber, tossed with some balsamic & pepper or something (one of the few ways I like it.) If I think "no, wouldn't eat it", then I'm really not actually hungry. If I think to myself "yeah that does sound kinda good" then I know I am lol

Maybe weird, but it totally works.

Hahaha when I was a kid and I'd whinge to my mother that I was hungry she'd say "do you want a carrot?"...."no"...."well then you're not really hungry are you".... Haha you just reminded me of that all these years later!! :flowerforyou:

I don't understand how someone can feel hungry but not be hungry... totally baffles me. I'm either hungry or not.

You're lucky. I find that often when I'm not physically hungry, I'll be obsessively thinking about food constantly. It's distracting and often leads to binge eating even when I've physically had enough good food. I have been told it's possible that I have ADD that is manifesting itself in a binge eating disorder, though.

That's not hunger. That's cravings. Totally different thing. You're asking the wrong question (to which unfortunately I have no answer, I still deal with cravings all the time).