The Myth of Eating when you are Hungry

I always liked the dieting strategy of not letting yourself get hungry. The theory being that if you fill up on "good" foods, you won't eat the "bad" ones.  Some programs suggest you eat every three or four hours. I loved to eat, so eating more often sounded great to me.

After years of this, I didn't really know what it felt like to be hungry. I went to an Intuitive Eating nutritionist for some help and she wanted me to rate my hunger before I ate and only ate until I was mostly full. The problem for me was I was so out of touch with my body's hunger cues I had a hard time rating myself. I could eat a good amount of food and a few hours later feel like I was starving again.  The other issue was that I could eat right before I left work but when I walked into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, my body would signal that I was hungry again. I noticed that my hunger often increased when I was around a food I liked.

I have now learned my body would release the hormone Ghrelin (a hormone that gives you an intense desire to eat) when I had trained it to eat. Like when I would walk in the door from work. 

Cutting processed foods and sugar out of my diet were very helpful controlling Ghrelin because those foods are so addictive.

I decided that I was done eating every few hours. I wanted to know what it was like to get hungry. I cut back to eating three meals a day. No snacking. No bites here and there. It was simple and helped me control the cravings as they came up. I ate until I was satisfied and sometimes full at each meal but I let myself get hungry before my next meal.