Can you trust your appetite and/or hunger/fullness cues?

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  • mathandcats
    mathandcats Posts: 786 Member
    arditarose wrote: »
    No. I always want to eat.

    This is me. Even after almost 600 days of logging.
  • ariana_eatsandlifts
    ariana_eatsandlifts Posts: 197 Member
    For me, no. I'd like to think I could stop counting calories once I reach maintenance, but it would only be a matter of time before I was 200 pounds again.

    I've been calorie counting off and on for over four years, and I am still occasionally surprised by how fast food can add up if I don't pre-log.
  • dutchandkiwi
    dutchandkiwi Posts: 1,389 Member
    edited November 2015
    emily7kg wrote: »
    Everyone maintained their weight before the advent of modern processed food.
    Seriously not true for everyone before the advent of modern processed food.
    Roman history is full of references to leaders, senators and other elite that grew lazy and fat.
    Rubenesque refer to the (very) full figured women in the paintings from Rubens 1577-1640. . Henry VIII was rather fat in his later years. The clergy and their excesses in food and other things gave rise to church uprisings. History is full of references to gluttony. Even in the early medieval times (Tomas Aquinas)
    Yes it was specifically the elite in history, the ones with access to a lot of food and no physical labour, that grew big in their old age, not everyone.

    No food factory in sight then, and no processed food. But it does mean that it is not just processed foods that are to blame. Processed foods do not help as a fair few are calorie dense, but the abundance of, cheap calorie dense food and lack of physical activiy are IMO the core of the issue. Ultimtaely no matter what it is about CICO, history does too prove this.

    As for trusting my cues. No I still don't. I am still unlearning decades of bad habits. It is getting better, but I still do not trust them. fully.
  • gillexplores
    gillexplores Posts: 151 Member
    Technically, we should be able to trust our hunger and fullness cues.

    However, if we think about humans purely as animals (which we are); evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense to eat as much as we can when food is available (which, in North America, we are fortunate enough that it is, for most of us). This is an adaptation that we have to build fat stores for times of food scarcity. Humans require large amounts of energy to sustain such large brains and, as such, require diets of higher quality (high fat) foods. "Contemporary foraging societies derive between 28% and 58% of their daily energy intake from dietary fat." ( ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK53561/ ) This is compared to our closest living non-human relatives (chimps), who get only about 6% from fat. Therefore, in light of this, the human preference for foods that are rich in fat/energy makes total sense. As babies, we have very high body fat percentages (compared to other mammals) and our bodies will hold on to that fat (even if it means stunting our linear growth) in order to develop our brains properly.

    ^This was all just a really long explanation to say that humans have a natural tendency developed over millions of years to hold on to fat. The only reason that obesity is a problem today is that food is readily available and we don't have to scavenge and hunt for our food. So, while some people are able to eat normal amounts, it makes sense that for some humans, the sense of satiety is not strong. We're just well evolved, haha

    TL;DR, Homo sapiens (modern humans) like high fat foods because they are nutrient dense and naturally want to gain weight for times of food scarcity.
  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    emily7kg wrote: »
    Everyone maintained their weight before the advent of modern processed food.

    Not everyone. Many people maintained weight because most of the world's population was at a bare subsistence level - people couldn't overeat because they couldn't afford that much food. Obesity has always existed, but it used to be mainly among the wealthy, since they could actually afford enough food to have a regular calorie surplus.
  • RebelDiamond
    RebelDiamond Posts: 188 Member
    I've been on MFP on and off for 5 years and I still don't trust my hunger cues...
    I'm generally super accurate with my logging (I weigh everything I can weigh). So if I'm hungry at the end of the day, I know I can either go a little over or suck it up and go to bed (it's my choice in the end).
    However, I definitely have learnt the difference between being hungry and wanting to eat something.
  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    I definitely don't and won't trust my hunger cues anymore. Thankfully planning ahead and pre-logging is easy and habitual now, so I will have no challenge keeping it up my whole life.
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,159 Member
    Francl27 wrote: »
    Nope. You could eat 1500 calories of bread or candy and still be hungry. Hunger cues are not related to what your diet consists of, so you just can't trust them.

    @Francl27 did you mean to use the pronoun "I" instead of "you". :)

  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    GaleHawkins wrote: »
    Francl27 wrote: »
    Nope. You could eat 1500 calories of bread or candy and still be hungry. Hunger cues are not related to what your diet consists of, so you just can't trust them.

    @Francl27 did you mean to use the pronoun "I" instead of "you". :)

    Just making the assumption that most people won't be able to feel full after eating 1500 calories of bread or candy. Or at least not full enough not to be hungry later and end up overeating because of it.

    So no, I meant a generic 'you', although yeah for sure I would be starving if all I ate in a day was bread and candy.
  • livelovebbg
    livelovebbg Posts: 45 Member
    I know when I'm hungry vs. when I want to eat because I'm bored/stressed out. That's not to say I've perfected resisting the urge to grab something just because I feel like eating, but there are definitely times when I think twice and opt to wait until my next planned meal.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    edited December 2015
    gillexplores, thank you for that explanation! (No, it wasn't too long :D ) I knew most of it already, but the stuff about the brain's priority and the comparison of fat content of chimpanzees' and contemporary foraging societies' diets was new to me.

    Now I can say it's my highly developed brain that is forcing me to overeat, and it also explains why I'm short :p
  • gillexplores
    gillexplores Posts: 151 Member
    kommodevaran wrote: »
    gillexplores, thank you for that explanation! (No, it wasn't too long :D ) I knew most of it already, but the stuff about the brain's priority and the comparison of fat content of chimpanzees' and contemporary foraging societies' diets was new to me.

    Now I can say it's my highly developed brain that is forcing me to overeat, and it also explains why I'm short :p

    Exactly! Blame it on evolution, I always say!
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,213 Member
    If I am eating well (plenty of vegetables, enough protein (more than 15%), not too many starchy carbs or sugary treats) I can trust my appetite. Otherwise, no.
  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
    between medication and boredom, I can't really trust my body. I try and eat at regular times and increased my fat and protien and fiber intake. i've found that helps a bit but I still find my body sends false signals of hunger
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    yes i can, i've been maintaining for over 2.5 years without logging anything. i eat when i'm hungry...basically three squares per day and a few snacks throughout the day....some days i eat less and some days i eat more, but it all nets out in the end.

    i've never had a problem with underfeeding but feeling full...that's generally a sign that your hormones (namely leptin and ghrelin) are whacked out which is why anorexics can claim to feel full on very few calories...conversely, overweight and obese individuals also often have whacked out hormones but it goes the opposite way...they always feel hungry despite eating all the foodz.
  • rhianna818
    rhianna818 Posts: 85 Member
    After being here for 120 days I am finally learning to listen to my body when it comes to hunger better. Previously I couldn't tell anything except SUPER STUFFED. But it was probably bc I didn't know the difference between hungry and not full. If I was no longer full I would eat. That's how I got to 367lbs.

    Now, I eat on a schedule and track my calories, so I know when I should be hungry. I know I am hungry in the morning a few hours after waking up. A few hours later I am hungry again and have a small snack, etc. Eating until full doesn't happen much any more. I feel satisfied but eating isn't what it used to be.
  • electrickazoo
    electrickazoo Posts: 55 Member
    If I actually listen to if I'm hungry or not (not just eating out of habit, boredom, or for some other reason), then it does work for me. The problem is that I apparently don't really listen.
  • Confuzzled4ever
    Confuzzled4ever Posts: 2,860 Member
    Nope. I rarely ever feel hungry. So if I waited on that I'd eat to little.
  • fireyes
    fireyes Posts: 31 Member
    I am still working on recognizing the difference between being hungry and being thirsty. Sometimes I think I'm hungry but I'm really just dehydrated. Also, if I eat a lot of sugar I will feel hungry way more often. So yeah, definitely still working in it.
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