Is endless hunger a life-long struggle?

[CathyA]

I have pretty much been hungry my entire life. I know nature versus nurture can be very confusing. Seems like I can be uncomfortably full, and still be excruciatingly hungry.

I think I've mentioned this before, but my mother used to tell me that when I was an infant, she would only feed me every 3-4 hours. If I cried all the time up to that, then tough, I just had to wait.
I can only shake my head at that notion. So I do wonder if my brain was wired to think that every meal I have might be my last.

A couple months ago, I began to have constant benign PVCs........which was a great impetus for me to try to eat less.....thinking that maybe it was my weight, my salt consumption, some food intolerance, etc. I have been very good about not eating in-between meals and trying not to eat until my stomach is totally full.

It was going very well. curious how I was eating so much less, but didn't lose much weight.

The PVCs are less, but my appetite is coming back. Partially because it's Fall and I have a strong "eat enough to make it through hibernation" setting in my brain. haha

Anyhow........every time I go to the store, I stand in front of the ice cream and think and think. I stand in front of the chips and think and think. I stand in front of the coke and think and think. So far, I've made it out alive. haha
What I mean is......I go home without those things. And if I do get something like ice cream for a weekend desert, it's in very small quantities that only last the weekend for DH and me. I guess I thought I would stop craving this stuff after awhile, but it continues to be a struggle.

I guess I should accept that it will always be a struggle? Sometimes I think a food addiction is more difficult than other types, because you HAVE to eat at least 2-3 times a day. I don't think an alcoholic or drug addict would do very well if they were required (to survive), to have those substances every day......but stay controlled.

I just get tired of the struggle.

I do eat healthily. I eat tons of veggies, nuts, some fish, etc. I really try to limit carbs and dairy.

I guess I just need to accept it. But it wears me out.

[Simplemind]

After a vacation last May, coming home and feeling terrible, my husband and I started to eat keto (mostly). The first couple of weeks were a bit rough and then things leveled out. What was really interesting was the loss of food obsession. We kept things very simple and don't try to duplicate what we were eating before in a keto way. We stuck mostly with a grilled protein and non-starchy veggies. We felt full with breakfast and dinner. Since we kept our eating simple it made our shopping simple and we weren't thinking about food boredom and what was new and interesting. We began to eat to live (most of the time) instead of living to eat. We lost weight and started feeling better in other ways.
We just went on another vacation of 19 days and we started pretty well but by the end had totally fallen off the wagon. We also felt terrible when we came home and are going back to low carb/no sugar. It was a great way to pound home how bad sugar is, at least to me. When I started adding it back in with a nibble here and a nibble there, I was feeling hungry all the time.

[frugal-one]

What is PVC?

[JaneV2.0]

Yeah--eating keto, LCHF, or intermittently (interspersed with fasting) pretty much knocks down any inappropriate hunger--which generally results from roller coaster blood sugar/insulin.

[CathyA]

What is PVC?

Premature ventricular contractions.......a type of irregular heartbeats.

[SteveinMN]

For me, eating low-carb-high-fat/keto has done a great job of taking away the "I have to eat NOW" sensations I used to get when my blood glucose dropped from its usual high level. I still can be hungry, but if the occasion to eat does not present itself, it's not this constant reminder I have to bat down from my mind. I do "cheat" from time to time with a bite or two of something I want to try or a food I really like. But it does not take much of that to remind me why I'm eating this way, so it's become a self-limiting behavior.

That said, I am getting a little bored with my LCHF diet. Pretty much the same thing every breakfast and lunch because most times I'm just not interested in cooking while following the macronutritional guidelines. Maybe winter will change that (I hope so). This diet has made the grocery list simpler because there are so many things I choose not to eat and because DW has signed on to largely eat what I eat and supplement what she eats with her own choice of carbs, so it's essentially the same items each week, maybe tweaked a little (e.g., kielbasa one week; jalapeño-cheese sausage the next; butter lettuce one week; mesclun the next). Considering how much of a foodie I was, I've come quite a distance.

All that said, CathyA, I do hear what you say about food addictions being tough to handle. As hard as it may be to quit drinking alcohol or smoking, at least those items are not essential to life. It's not like you can swear off ever eating food again...

[JaneV2.0]

I've long felt I'd be a much better adherent to keto/lchf if I had staff. :D I'm not an eager cook at all, and I've seen all kinds of LC-compliant recipes/cookbooks that promise an unending parade of delightful meals. People tend to eat the same thing over and over anyway though, which does make things boring.

Intermittent fasting seems to have similar results to LCHF with the added allure of very forgiving nutritional guidelines. At any rate, any of these approaches mitigates the non-stop hunger the SAD produced in many of us.

[ApatheticNoMore]

well I've never experienced endless hunger, I may graze a bit though. Or in my experience chronic dieting causes chronic hunger for the most part. And this applies even in cases where someone has always been overweight, maybe staying thin might be fighting their body. It has it's setpoint it likes and that's not easily changed.

[ApatheticNoMore]

although isn't chronic or disregulated hunger a side effect of many medicines? Some psyche meds for instance but also others.

I don't think it's normal, but besides chronic low calorie dieting and really trying to be a weight the body will not abide under current conditions (there may be tricks to get it to that work for some), aren't medicines a cause of run away hunger sometimes.

[CathyA]

Thanks everyone. I can remember the moment when I was young, when I acknowledged the feeling of endless hunger. I think I was about 8. It's really hard to separate nature from nurture causes. My mother once told me that whenever I cried when I was very young, she would stick a cracker in my mouth. So who knows. I think female hormones play into it too. I have to say, when I'm really busy or running errands, I forget about the hunger.......which is nice. I also wonder about hyperactive eating.
I would say I probably eat healthier than many other people. I just don't seem to have a "shut off" button as far as hunger. It could have to do with not having enough "leptin"? I do have to give myself credit for not passing this on to my children. They are extremely healthy eaters. I tried to hide my over-eating from the kids when they were little, and steered them in a healthy direction. It always amazes me when people don't want seconds and even forego dessert, because they're "full". What's up with that??!! :~) And yes, I'm sure medications can drive up the appetite. I'm on a small dose of an SSRI and a beta blocker.......so that's a possibility. But I guess I'd rather be hungry than depressed. I do have sleep apnea and sleep with a CPAP. I've heard that poor sleep can cause hunger. But I think I sleep pretty well with the CPAP.

[Teacher Terry]

That sounds awful Cathy and I am glad I don’t have that. I am cranky when I am hungry.

[catherine]

DH and I have weird hunger clocks--when we get involved in "life" we don't eat. When we used to take our kids' friends on vacation, we would be out meandering and it would get to be 3pm and our visitors would riot if we hadn't suggested lunch yet. One of them (a teenager/young adult at the time) actually started crying once. I hope she didn't call her parents complaining! I'm assuming not, because we're still friends. DH and I are 1 meal a day eaters.. with a some grazing throughout.

I anticipate that I'll be that type of elderly parent that the kids have to stop by and ask, "Mom, have you eaten yet?" And I'll likely say, "oh, I had a cracker and a piece of cheese." So, I do have a potential eating issue in the works. When my "soul-sister" aunt died in September, the family feels that her emotions a few year back when her husband got Alzheimer's caused her to abandon self-care and regular eating. She didn't eat and was extremely thin when she died. I could see that happening to me.

When I do get really hungry, I default to the worst food possible. McDonald's is the best, most instant cure for my food cravings, unfortunately.

Cathy, I agree that certain diets might mitigate hunger signals, but you raise interesting points about early links between how we are raised and the emotions involved. Have you tried low carb?

[Teacher Terry]

I tried low carb for a few weeks and felt awful the whole time.

[SteveinMN]

I tried low carb for a few weeks and felt awful the whole time.
Really-low-carb should be accompanied by plenty of water and plenty of salt to balance out the change in body water levels caused by losing glucose stores. The illness is sometimes referred to as "keto flu" and it does last a litle while (but not weeks if you're keeping up on water and salt). Of course, it's possible something else was going on, too.

[JaneV2.0]

Stock/bone broth with a little extra potassium from avocados or Lite Salt. Electrolytes make all the difference. It does take a little time to switch to fat-burning. It's easier for some than for others.

[Yppej]

Keto has worked for me. Green tea also helps.

[JaneV2.0]

After years of grazing ("Eat six small meals a day.") it was a revelation to me how that pattern so profoundly affects blood sugar/insulin levels and hunger. Add refined carbs into the mix, and it's no wonder so many are walking around "hangry." When we ate two or three meals a day, we didn't have such problems. Food manufacturers and their marketeers know what they're doing.

[catherine]

After years of grazing ("Eat six small meals a day.") it was a revelation to me how that pattern so profoundly affects blood sugar/insulin levels and hunger. Add refined carbs into the mix, and it's no wonder so many are walking around "hangry." When we ate two or three meals a day, we didn't have such problems. Food manufacturers and their marketeers know what they're doing.

I figure our bodies are kind of like cars. If you constantly have your foot on the gas (meaning eating constantly and requiring our "engine" to be constantly working) it's going to create wear and tear on the parts. That's one reason intermittent fasting makes sense to me.

However, I don't recall the common wisdom telling us to eat 6 small meals a day. Last time I heard that was when talking to dieticians advising chemo patients on how to get themselves to be able to eat anything at all. If you eat 6 small meals a day, how do you have time to do anything else??

[oldhat]

I have continued to experiment with the weight problem, but after I've tried a few more things I'm prepared to accept what is the likeliest--and scientifically confirmed--truth of the matter. If you are overweight, it's probable that your body chemistry has changed in such a way as to make any significant, permanent weight loss highly problematic. You have a set range, and any success in getting well below the set range is likely to be temporary. You diet, your metabolism slows, and you stop losing weight even though you are eating less. Meanwhile your primitive brain is screaming for you to get back to your set point--what it regards as your normal weight. The choice then becomes living each day with a constant sense of deprivation, or allowing yourself to eat in a way that makes you feel comfortable, even though it means living with extra pounds.

This is an oversimplification, but not much of one, and this dynamic is why 95% of dieters gain back lost weight within two years, often adding a few more pounds in the process. Of course, in some extreme cases drastic action, like surgery, may be needed to head off even worse consequences. But for those of us who are 10, 15, 20 percent over our "ideal" weight, I've come to believe that the most pragmatic approach is to simply try to be optimally healthy at the low end of your set range. Eat as well as you can, exercise regularly, but don't starve yourself in the hope of achieving the ideal, because your chances of permanent success are very small.

[Ultralight]

During my man cold I stopped fasting. I will go back to fasting this week. My experience is that hunger comes in waves. The strongest wave is from 10am until about noon.

[JaneV2.0]

As I recall, the "six small meals a day" advice was aimed at people with reactive hypoglycemia, in a misguided attempt to keep their blood sugar levels constant.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I tried low carb for a few weeks and felt awful the whole time.

I think extra salt just added to the problem (the problem being my insides felt like they were being torn up from the inside, but I read "you need to drink salt water" so stupidly I forced it down - water with salt dissolved in it. I think the stomach pain was mostly caused by chronic constipation though, but the salt was not helping any as it was another irritant on my poor non-functioning by that point gut).

[catherine]

As I recall, the "six small meals a day" advice was aimed at people with reactive hypoglycemia, in a misguided attempt to keep their blood sugar levels constant.

I see. That makes sense (not the advice, just the explanation).

[Tammy]

I agree with your summary Oldhat.

[Ultralight]

Is endless hunger for Cheerios a life-long struggle?

[JaneV2.0]

Is endless hunger for Cheerios a life-long struggle?

Not unless you're a two-year old, in my experience.

[Ultralight]

Not unless you're a two-year old, in my experience.
Salty because I took your anti-logic to task in another thread. I get it. Message received!