Anyone eat through listening to their bodies hunger cues?

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  • fiddletime
    fiddletime Posts: 1,862 Member
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    I've fallen into the pit of thinking I'm hungry and over eating, as well as not feeling hungry and losing more weight than intended, or losing it too quickly. I do better with counting and logging. I managed to maintain my weight for most of my life, but gained ten pounds in my '50's that put me overweight on BMI. I've yoyo'd 20 pounds my whole life but it's getting pretty hard to lose now. I need a 5 pound maintenance range, not 20.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
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    Every night after dinner my stomach tells me I'm full, but my brain says dessert is sitting in the fridge waiting for me..
    I can tell the difference between hunger and feeling like eating something yummy, which route i choose is up to me and how much willpower i have that day.
  • WanderingRivers
    WanderingRivers Posts: 612 Member
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    PeakLiving17 wrote: »
    KurumiSophia wrote: »
    Nope. Im often hungry after meals but suck it up since I still have weight to lose.

    How many calories are you eating in a day?

    1100-1200. I'm working on 1lb a week weight loss.
  • rainbowbow
    rainbowbow Posts: 7,490 Member
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    No, listening to my "hunger cues" is what made me fat in the first place.


    I don't log anymore (rarely unless i'm changing up my goals like a mini cut or reverse) but i have an incredible grasp on my servings and an idea of how much energy i'm eating each and every day. I still use my scale when cooking all of my recipes, making my meals, etc.

    Unlike in the past it really took getting an idea of my favorite foods, my portion sizes, and tracking and logging for over several YEARS to build these habits and this knowledge. Before i committed to this i would always end up gaining to around 130-135 pounds just eating in "accordance with my hunger". i don't know if this is a set point for me or the point in which i just could never allow myself to get bigger and would start dieting again.

    The best piece of advice i can give is to understand that the body's hunger cues are controlled by hormones (leptin and ghrelin) and not the calorie density of foods. In other words, one eating in accordance with their hunger on low-calorie foods vs. someone eating high-calorie foods are going to have drastically different results.

    Lastly, many individuals who were significantly overweight for any period of time are more likely to have leptin resistance or improper hunger cues.
  • BananaJoanna
    BananaJoanna Posts: 25 Member
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    Yes, so long as you're not conflating *how much* your body *needs* with *what* your tastebuds *want.* I think starting out by tracking calories for a few months can help set anyone who is having that issue straight and then it's possible to go more with that instinct, so long as you keep making sure you are accurately viewing portion sizes, reading labels, etc. My goal is not to me tracking all my food for the rest of my life. That would drive me insane. But my goal is to take what I have learned here about nutrients and portion sizes and put that into practice for the rest of my life. I also go with hunger cues when it comes to timing for snacks and lunch, because I have no set lunch break at work. If I am hungry before noon, I will eat a snack, but if my breakfast was big enough that I can keep going without food, I will wait until lunch.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    My hunger cues have never been a reliable guide to my actual needs.
    Could say I like my food or could just say I'm greedy perhaps?
    That instinctive surplus also seemed to get worse after a course of migraine meds.

    But for the majority of my adult life I've maintained my weight - but for a couple of decades not at the correct weight. That maintenance was without calorie counting (food labelling beyond a simple ingredient list was rare when I was young).

    I just monitor my weight and adjust my food volume and choices as appropriate. A mindful rather than an instinctive approach.
    Calorie counting helped with precision and accountability during my weight loss phase but it's not a requirement for me.
  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
    edited August 2017
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    Diabetes completely screws up my ability to listen to my body to know when I should stop eating.

    During the month before my diabetes was diagnosed, I ate an entire basket of Halloween candy, felt like I was starving and had no energy no matter what I ate, and lost 25 lbs because my body was not able to metabolize glucose. Eating sugar just made me more hungry because my insulin levels would go up because of the food, but due to cortisol blocking the insulin from working, I was literally starving. This is a pretty extreme situation - although sudden weight loss is common in undiagnosed type 1 diabetes, I have type 2, and normally type 2 diabetics don't actually lose weight from insulin resistance - but I also had an undiagnosed ovarian tumor which was putting my body under stress and raising my hormone levels. When the tumor was removed, things got much better. But I am still diabetic, which means my body can only handle a limited number of carbs without dangerous blood sugar spikes. And that number has almost nothing to do with how hungry I am or what I feel like eating! In fact, it's common for me to feel hungry when my blood glucose is high and not hungry at all when it's normal. I have a diabetic friend on the forums who has mentioned that when his sugar is dangerously high, it triggers binge eating for him.

    Apart from my blood sugar issues, I'm not sure that I have ever been able to feel satiated after an appropriate amount of food. I was skinny when I was younger due to being extremely active, but both my parents are obese and I was raised to think of giant portions as normal. I grew up thinking that "done eating" meant "too stuffed to eat anymore." Having been raised that way, I think my ability to listen to my body's cues was probably damaged.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    One issue I have with this (at least in my case because it's very important to me) is that it does not take into account eating purely for pleasure. I know I could enjoy foods that are filling and I love, but there are foods that I love that aren't very filling and there are occasions where I like to enjoy food when I'm not hungry or purely for sharing a moment with people I like. That kind of enjoyment makes dieting easier and life brighter, and going purely by hunger would rob me of that joy.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    There's hunger and there's cravings. I don't have to be hungry to eat a bag of chips.

    That being said, if I have a 800 calories pastry for breakfast, I'll be hungry within 2 hours. Then if I have McDonald's, that's 1500 calories, and I'll be hungry 3 hours later again...

    Food choices have a LOT to do with hunger cues, that's why it can't be trusted. And hormones make a huge difference for me as well, and if I don't reign it in during PMS I can EASILY eat 4000 calories and still be hungry.

    Bottom line, it depends on people's food choices, and there's probably some genetics differences there too.
  • Stationagentjules
    Stationagentjules Posts: 57 Member
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    Some people can use their cues.
    I set my Fitbit silent alarms for times throughout the day when I can eat again. 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 5pm. Ill eat one meal or snack anytime after each alarm. This is what works for me.
  • Running_and_Coffee
    Running_and_Coffee Posts: 811 Member
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    I'd love to learn how to listen to hunger cues. I'm much more attuned to "mouth cues" than "stomach cues," and my mouth wants cupcakes and cookies at all times. The only way I've ever been successful is to have a "the kitchen is closed" mentality except during meal times with two small snacks.

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