Did you know that we have several types of hunger? This text is based on Mindful Eating expert Jan Chozen Bays.
These are examples:
• Emotional Hunger: it is the hunger created by our emotional states. Loneliness, sadness, frustration, anger, boredom, restriction of pleasure, and even joy. Food is connected to our emotional states since we were born. It is in this hunger for: “I'm going to eat the chocolate cake because I deserve it”, that is, it comes from our need to fill the holes in life or frustrations with food. This hunger is always preceded by guilt.
• Hunger of the Mind: it is governed by the information we are accumulating about what, how and why to eat. It is usually the result of eating a lot of restrictive diets. For example: "I have to eat more protein and less carbohydrates", "I have to cut sugar", etc ...
• Stomach Hunger: this is the natural hunger, the body needs energy, sends signals to the stomach, which gives us the impression “empty stomach”, and makes us look for food. When we have this type of hunger, any food is capable of satiating it, and in a few minutes we are beginning to have a feeling of satiety.
• Cellular Hunger: comes from the lack or nutritional need for carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins or minerals. It may be due to a momentary or chronic deficiency. Cell hunger can be aroused by thirst, drinking little water sends signals to the body that can be mistaken for hunger!
• Sensorial Hunger - sight, hearing, smell and taste, sensory hunger is created from our sensory experience. It is that hunger that comes with the sound of people chewing popcorn in the cinema, the smell of food in the air, for example. It is that desire for something crispy and salty, or sweet, usually associated with specific foods.
Hunger is a physiological process that never involves just one factor, it can indicate nutritional, hormonal, physiological, emotional, primitive imbalance in the struggle for survival, external stimuli that influence our thoughts and behaviors around food and our self-image.
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