Installment 9
Managing Hunger Pangs and Hunger Side Effects
I describe feelings of hunger and fullness as a continuum, on a list that I identify with. It goes from ravenous to sated…
Ravenous…I could eat anything in sight
Hungry…….I want to eat right now
Satisfied..…I just stopped being hungry
Full……...…I first felt the full sensation
Overfull……I kept eating once I was full, but I could still eat a little more. Maybe room for dessert.
Sated…...…I couldn't eat another thing. A good Thanksgiving meal.
It is best to avoid, by ingestion, feelings of ravenous hunger. Once a level of ravenous hunger is achieved not only will the physiological effects be felt, but psychological responses will compound the condition. If one should experience ravenous hunger while on a weight loss program, they should eat only until they are just hungry. The problem is for most people, they will power through the hungry stage, and eat more before the stomach can relay lower levels of hunger, or higher levels of fullness,most usually to the sated state.
The hungry feeling is the feeling that the good dieter will become comfortable with, and learn to desire. If you want to lose weight you will have to learn to not only live with the hungry state, but learn to like it and enjoy it, and the knowledge that in this state the diet is at it's most effective. But let's face it by intent or default you will have some type of arrangement with hunger. You can make it your ally, your servant, and make yourself, through discipline make your hunger work for you as you make yourself the master of your hunger. Or, you can have a truce with hunger, in which case your weight loss will likely stall out, or plateau. The only other option, and one of the 3 is mandatory, is that your hunger will rule you, and drive you to heavier and heavier weights, and more unhealthy fat gain.
A good dieter in the hungry state will know by feeling and timing how to avoid the hunger state from becoming the ravenous state by shrewd placement of meals and healthy snacks throughout the day. The good dieter will also know how to eat portions at mealtime that will only alter his hunger state to satisfied, or possibly even full, but never more. Needless to say, eating till overfull or sated are counterproductive to weight loss, unless the food being consumed is of a very low calorie level, and even then should probably be avoided.
The award winning dieter will wake up hungry, and eat only enough to be hungry, but not ravenous at lunch. The same strategy should apply for dinner.
When eating dinner one should only eat enough to ensure an onset of hunger at the same time the tiredness and sleep mechanism occurs. That is, you should go to bed a little hungry. The nice thing about going to bed hungry is that as long as your hunger level is less than or equal to your sleepiness level, the tie will go to the sleepiness , and as you doze off you hunger feeling will seem to abate.
The wise dieter will never go to bed on an full stomach. The food you consumed right before going to bed will sit in your stomach as your metabolism plummets to near it's basal level. Your body will sense the caloric excess and channel nearly all of it into fat conversion. The only exception to this would be an exhaustive anaerobic workout prior to eating where the body would sense the demand for musculature requirements, and the body would target excess calories towards muscle production. Aside from that I can only think of one other legitimate reason to ever eat right before going to bed, and that would be if starting a hunger strike the next day. If you do have to eat shortly before going to bed try to minimize your meal, and try to at least walk it off with a good length walk.