Written by
John Carter
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The ability to differentiate between real hunger and what is often called "fake hunger" is a critical part of mindful eating. We do not want to ignore the true hunger pangs triggered by an empty stomach, so it's important that we can identify the root cause of a sudden urge to eat.
Here are some of the most common types of "false hunger" and how to fight them:
Your coworker comes over and offers you an extra slice of pizza left over from a lunch meeting. You've just had a filling lunch, but then the smell of the pizza wafts over you, and you feel a strong urge to grab a slice.
Simply smelling or seeing a delicious food can trigger us to feel hungry. We might only be planning to pour ourselves a glass of cold brew from the fridge, but then we see the delicious leftover Thai food from the night before. Or, perhaps we're walking to the gym, and we pass one of those restaurants that seemingly intentionally pipes the delicious fragrance of their food onto the street. There's a reason they do it; it works!
What to Do: realize that the constant presence of food around you, especially unhealthy food, will trigger false hunger. The key is to change your environment. Try to swap out unhealthy snacks in your home with more nutritious options. Politely ask your spouse to not offer you snacks or desserts during the middle of the day. Box up half of your restaurant entree when it arrives so that you can eat all the food that's in front of you. Or, try the Broccoli Test.
Drinking too little water is a frequent cause of false hunger. It's surprisingly easy to confuse dehydration and hunger. This is way more common than you might think!
What to Do: drink a glass of water and wait 15 minutes. This alone often eliminates the hunger pang.
We often feel an urge to eat just to get some pleasure or distraction when we're going through a tough time. Most of us can think of specific situations where it was clear that overeating or binging was driven by emotion more than real hunger.
Eating delicious food is pleasurable - it makes sense that we often turn to food as a pick-me-up.
What to Do: practice other proven coping mechanisms and strategies. This isn't an easy or automatic solution, but it is the best one. Taking a long walk, calling a friend, taking a bath, or exercising are all good ways to feel better. Simply acknowledging that your hunger is driven by emotion and not hunger is a huge first step. It can make it easier to recognize that eating won't fill the gap, and choose a coping mechanism with more potential.
Boredom could be classified within the Emotion category, but it's so common that we think it deserves its own category. Even if we're not feeling especially bad, eating can just give us something to do. Our "hunger" might be triggered by the desire to end the boredom more than actual hunger.
For example, imagine that we've just finished lunch and sat down at our desk for a particularly tedious work assignment. As soon as we look at the volume of work, we immediately feel an urge to stand up and grab some chips. Because we've just eaten, and because we know we're looking for a way to distract ourselves and put off this unpleasant task, it's likely easy to recognize the true cause.
What to Do: find productive "distractions" that you can turn to. If you're really just looking for a distraction, it can often be easy to convince yourself not to eat if you have other options. Common examples include taking a walk, having a no-calorie beverage, calling a friend, or listening to a podcast.
Lack of sleep can have a profound impact on hunger hormones and our urge to eat. Overall, lack of sleep can trigger more frequent false hunger and it can also make it more difficult to differentiate it from real hunger.
What to Do: get more sleep! Yes, we're ending on a super obvious one here. Consider taking a nap if you have the time! Studies show that a short 20-30 minute nap can have numerous advantages.
Learning to differentiate false hunger from real hunger and identifying the specific cause is not something that happens overnight. It will take both effort and time! The first step is simply to start pausing when you feel that initial hunger cue and take the one minute necessary to try to identify the true cause. You don't need to be 100% perfect here, you just want to start making some progress!
