Deficit = Hunger ?

Not necessarily. Hunger signaling isn't directly related to calories. Macro distribution, calorie density, water, etc all affect hunger signaling.

If one eats less calorie dense food (fresh produce, etc..) it will reduce hunger signaling.

Not necessarily. A chicken and vegetable stew has about the same calories per bowl as a slice of commercial pizza, but the first fills you up and the second doesn't. This is actually the reason why we see several threads of people proclaiming they are finding it hard to hit their calorie goal because they feel too full, and it's almost always caused by changing from a low volume high calorie diet to a high volume low calorie diet.

Yesterday was my birthday and a normal sized slice of my mom's mousse cake (1/16 of the cake) had 788 calories. Imagine how much produce and lean meat you can eat for that amount!

In my experience...it is about quantity of food and frequency of eating. I won't say that calories has nothing to do with it however. If I eat a calorie dense item such as pizza, pasta...etc. I don't seem to get hungry(or feel the need to eat) as quickly.

Only speaking for myself...there are many times that boredom/habit disguises itself as hunger pains...regardless of how many calories that I have ingested.

I don't think that I am the only one so I think that many of us have used the "full/stuffed" feeling to indicate if we are hungry or not.

OP...maybe I went in a different direction than what you intended but I think that feeling hungry for some of us has long been covered up with other reasons for thinking we are hungry.

I think that many of us have had to relearn what being hungry is vs thinking we are hungry.

JaneiR36 wrote: »

Hmm. Isn't that hungry vs. "do I need to eat"? To me, if you're hungry no matter the reason, you're hungry

Are you addressing me?

Want and need to eat are two different things. I often want to eat and can convince myself that I am hungry and that I need to eat. If I am honest with myself I often don't need to eat and if I really examine my feelings I am not in the least hungry.

Maybe my brain took me in a different direction than what the OP intended. IDK

zcb94 wrote: »

Hm. That's definitely food for thought (pardon the pun). I was told that moderate residual hunger after a meal was normal, because you technically only need a few bites of food before your body should take over, thus burning some calories for you via your natural metabolism. Therefore, I am pretty sure that if I'm doing it right, I shouldn't be HANGRY, but not stuffed either. Just my humble opinion.

You could be hungry, and you could be stuffed on the same calorie amount. It really depends on your calorie budget and your food choices. The hardest thing about dieting is being able to balance and judge what calories are worth it and what aren't. Sometimes hunger is an acceptable tradeoff to be able to have a high calorie food you particularly want, other times it isn't.

sndrd49 wrote: »

Happy Birthday Monkey!

^^^ This.

And I'll bet your mom's cake is nirvana on a plate.

For 788 cals per 1/16th it had better be!

This is an interesting idea, unfortunately, our hunger is fueled by the hormones leptin and ghrelin not necessarily the calories we intake.

Appetite suppression:
So while these two hormones are mainly responsible for our feelings of hunger, the mechanisms by which they work are complex and entirely different. Leptin which is produced by fat cells SHOULD theoretically keep your appetite lower the more body fat you have to produce it. As stated above, some people may experience a resistance to this (especially if they are overweight for an extended period of time).

Hunger:
Ghrelin on the other hand is produced in the gut when it's empty and is lowered significantly when food has been eaten (specifically when the stomach is stretched). After eating it takes about 3 hours for ghrelin levels to shoot back up enough to increase appetite.

So, unfortunately, no. It doesn't have anything to do with the specific number of calories you are eating, but more to do with the volume of food in your stomach, when/how often you eat, the rate of digestion of the foods you eat, etc. This is why you commonly see people recommending a higher volume of low calorie veggies, increased fats, increased water intake, increased meal frequency, and increased fiber to help satiate their hunger.

You can also see a bunch of dumb products being made like "full bar" which use this mechanism to their advantage. Hell, there's even surgery like the lap band, stomach stapling, etc. to trigger the stomach being stretched and decreasing ghrelin levels.

It's important to note, that you absolutely CAN push past and just "deal" with being hungry while being on a deficit. But for most people this makes them more likely to binge or go off on a tangent eating all the things.

They've developed a hunger chart and have certain recommendations to help people who are gaining or losing stay on track. It's ideal for the average person to stay within the 4-6 range at all times.




Anecdotally, I find that after eating a certain amount of food (in a deficit OR surplus) I generally level out after a few weeks. When losing the hunger goes away and becomes normal, and when gaining, I go from being sickly full to a bottomless pit.

EvgeniZyntx wrote: »

Not necessarily. Hunger signaling isn't directly related to calories. Macro distribution, calorie density, water, etc all affect hunger signaling.

+1.