One of the critical skills required to succeed with mindful eating is the ability to differentiate between real hunger and what is often called "fake hunger" or "false hunger" or "emotional hunger." We do not want to ignore the true hunger pangs triggered by an empty stomach; honoring these signals is actually a key part of intuitive eating.

The difficulty is that an empty stomach - a sign of true hunger - is often not what causes us to feel an urge to eat. In a different blog article, we provide a more detailed description of the five most common types of false hunger. Here is a quick description of each:

‍

Environment: simply smelling a delicious food can trigger us to feel hungry. Similarly, driving past a favorite fast food chain might make us want to stop even if we've just finished a meal.

‍

Dehydration: drinking too little water is a frequent cause of false hunger. It's surprisingly easy to confuse dehydration and hunger.

‍

Emotion: we often feel an urge to eat just to get some pleasure when we're going through an emotionally tough time.

‍

Boredom: even if we're not feeling especially bad, eating can give us something to do. Our "hunger" might be triggered by the desire to end boredom.

‍

Sleepiness: lack of sleep can have a profound impact on hunger hormones and our urges to eat.

‍

Sometimes it's very easy to recognize that a hunger pang is driven by one of these false cues and push the urge aside. 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: boredom.

‍

This tip is for all the other times. You have a sense that you probably shouldn't be hungry (based on your standard eating schedule and what you've eaten that day) but you feel a hunger pang.

‍

The tip: Imagine that there is a plate of grilled skinless chicken breast and steamed broccoli in your fridge. It will take you two minutes to microwave it.

Imagine that there is a plate of grilled skinless chicken breast and steamed broccoli in your fridge. It will take you two minutes to microwave it.

Do you want to go grab that plate, microwave it, and eat the chicken and broccoli? Does the thought of that seem like it will alleviate the hunger pang you're feeling?

‍

It's important that you pick a food for this thought experiment that you don't hate - if you would never eat broccoli in any circumstance, pick a different food. Likewise, if broccoli is your favorite food, then use a different choice. It should be a healthy, nutritious food that you'd eat when hungry but would be unlikely to mindlessly snack on or keep eating once full.

‍

What you will often find is that no, the thought of a plate of plain chicken and broccoli doesn't sound that great. This is a very strong sign and strong evidence that this hunger cue was not driven by real hunger.

‍

I would suggest that you then say to yourself, "I'm not actually hungry; let's wait to eat until I am." You may also want to try to identify what the false cue was and use this as a learning experience.

‍

If your answer is a strong yes, then great, go find a nutritious snack! It seems that you're hungry enough for something healthy, so make sure you eat something healthy!

‍

Differentiating between true and false hunger can be transformative.

‍

Give this tip a try the next time you feel hungry and let us know if it helps!