6 Different Hunger And How They Affect Weight Gain & Health

so why do we eat I mean why do you eat do you eat because you're hungry I want to suggest that we have a whole lot of reasons for eating and they actually often don't have much to do with Hunger at all in fact there are six different reasons or six different hungers that drive our eating decisions and some of them have very little to do with food at all take for example thirst now you might think I'm a little crazy at this point suggesting that thirst is a form of hunger but it is because you see for our ancestors well they didn't have water bottles and they didn't have Plumbing they didn't have access to water all the time so they got a lot of their water from the food they ate they would walk around they would eat lots of food and they would get a lot of their hydration so guess what when they started to feel a little dehydrated their body would send a signal go eat some food they would eat the food they would get the water and everything would be fine the challenge is today most of our food has almost no water in in fact some of our food is basically negative quantities of water when somebody eats a bag of potato chips they need water to process so guess what they're a little dehydrated they get a signal go eat something then they eat something that doesn't give them any water and worse robs water from them guess what now they're even more dehydrated guess what another signal to eat what to do about that well drink water and eat water-rich foods to prevent yourself getting thirsty in the first place you'd be surprised how much that can reduce your Cravings the second form of hunger does have to do with food it's nutritional hunger right it's where you're empty of some nutrients you're missing some vitamins minerals some fats proteins you're missing those things and so your body sends out a message but here's the thing because our ancestors lived with Mother Nature and not grocery stores and Uber Eats they couldn't simply go out and pick up something that they wanted what they had to do instead was eat what was available so when you feel nutritional hunger at best your body sends you out for something sweet or something salty or something fatty but if you're having a hunger that's like for a specific brand that's not nutritional hunger that's another hunger that we'll talk about soon what do you do about nutritional hunger this is one of the greatest life hacks in the world and that is you eat nutritionally dense food before you eat the other kinds of food so that means that you eat really good quality food and you neutralize hunger before you get hungry and therefore you don't feel as much hunger the Third Kind of hunger variety now this is a fascinating thing in our in our experience of the world these days have you ever had this experience where you talk to a friend and go hey let's go get some sushi and your friend goes oh no I had sushi on Tuesday oh yeah and then you go well we could go for Italian oh but I had Italian on Sunday like we want variety on a daily basis No in fact we want variety on our plate we want to go to a buffet and have a little bit of everything we want so much variety but where does that come from it comes from a very smart Instinct that humans have and this is the way it worked bear in mind that our ancestors lived in mother nature for the vast majority of our history and that meant that the food foods that were available were the ones that were out there seasonally available and so if you eating one plant for example because it was available and you're eating too much of it you might be getting too much of what that plant delivers but not enough of other things and so your body would generate a desire for variety to make sure that you ate a variety of different things to get all of your vitamins minerals proteins and fats solved so what we get now is way too much variety and here's one thing you can do about it when you start feeling a need for new variety in terms of your food you can recognize that variety is an emotional need and so you can seek out other forms of variety in your life other forms of entertainment and adventure and satisfy that variety emotionally and then you won't need to satisfy it on your plate the next Hunger is low blood sugar hungry here's how you can tell when somebody has it they're hangry or fungry maybe you've heard this is where somebody's so hungry that they become a different human being a jaal and high experience this is where temper tantrums can happen grumpiness or just low energy What's Happening Here is not actually a form of hunger it's a form of mismanaged energy let me explain your body can burn fat it can burn protein and it can burn sugar when it burns sugar or carbohydrate foods you can feel really really good but then when it's all gone you can feel really really bad and so in that moment what can happen is is that you feel a crash maybe you've called it a sugar crash and in that moment you're experiencing very low blood sugar and so your body sends out an emergency signal and often that emergency signal is for guess what more sugar CU that's what you're burning next thing you know you're having a craving for a chocolate bar or a candy or a doughnut or maybe if you're really lucky a carrot but the point is you're craving a carbohydrate because you have crashed your blood sugar what you can do about this is first of all make sure that you have a healthy relationship with carbohydrate foods that they're not something that you necessarily are eating every single day and the other one is is undertake gentle cardiovascular movement it's a truly amazing thing that if you're feeling a little bit of low blood sugar hunger all you need to do sometimes is go outside go for a 20 minute brisk walk your body will start burning fat and release internal energy and then you won't have low blood sugar anymore and then you won't have to eat garbage the next kind of hunger is also not an actual form of hunger at all it's called empty stomach hunger I know I know you're probably thinking well yeah but Eric if my stomach is empty I must be hungry no not the case at all you could have all the vitamins you could have all the minerals you could have all the fats all the proteins you could be very well-nourished you could be super hydrated and your stomach could be empty and that would be a good thing the challenge is that in our world today because we've bought into the three meals a day lie and we've brought into way more food than we really need to eat is that we've stretched out our stomachs do you know that your stomach is normally about the size of your fist but when you eat a large meal your stomach can stretch the trouble is we eat so many large meals that our stomachs keep stretching and they stay big and then what happens is when the stomach is empty and stretched like that it feels bad it doesn't feel very nice now add one more problem and that is the vast majority of people living in the developed world today are overfed energy sugar and underfed nutrients which means they're starving just a little bit they're a little low on vitamin C they're a little low on vitamin D they're a little low on these minerals and these fats and so forth so they are actually hungry now you combine that slightly starving feeling with an empty stomach and it starts to feel like a very powerful hunger the truth is is that your stomach being empty is actually really healthy it's a good thing that's when your body can do repair work it can do cleansing work and so I want to suggest to you that one of the best things you can do is actually plan for a day to let yourself get hungry go on a small fast and feel how your stomach feels when it's empty drink some water notice how it feels when it fills up and then again when it's empty and you'll begin to realize an empty stomach is actually a nice cleansing experience as long as you're eating well the rest of the time what's the best cure for loneliness chocolate what's the best cure for the end of a rough day a glass of wine what's the best cure for feeling a little bit sad and little depressed a bowl of ice cream now I know that you know that I know that we all know that those are not cures for those emotional states at all and yet guess what we do it all the time we eat food for emotional reasons have you ever done it I certainly have emotional hunger is not a form of nutritional hunger at all it has nothing to do with food it has to do with an emotional pain that somebody's having or an emotional acceleration that somebody's having and then they've learned to link that up to some food let me give you an example imagine that you were playing on a sports team and your sports team lost the big championship and everybody's quiet in the back of the van heading home after the tournament and they're all sad maybe a few people even have tears and the coach the coach feels so bad for the kids that the coach wants them to feel better and so the coach takes them for let's go for pizza and soft drinks and ice cream and so they go and have that now what's crazy those kids have learned something that pizza soft drinks ice cream is like anesthetic it helps them feel better when they're feeling sad and so for the rest of their lives if they've had a bad day they'll lean toward say in this example Pizza soft drinks and ice cream wait what about the other version what about the team that won that team won they're in the car they're celebrating they're singing songs it's amazing and the coach wants to celebrate with them they go to a different pizza place they have pizza soft drinks and ice cream too but what they've learned is that they have to celebrate with those things this happen happened to all of us in some form you were running along you skinned your knee you looked up you saw your mom was looking maybe you cried you were in pain your mom would do anything to end the pain and she brings you a cookie and what do you learn in that moment cookies take away pain so what takes away your pain from a food perspective does chocolate do it ice cream glass of wine what takes away the pain well what I want you to know is that it doesn't take away the pain at all and in fact what it does is it makes it worse not right away you see what happens is you're in that emotional pain and then you eat that that food and for a moment the pain doesn't go away You're Just distracted from it you're distracted from it for a moment but then it comes back and then it'll even come back worse cuz guess what you just put some junk in your body and so your body's going to start to feel gross too now you're going to feel emotionally gross and physically gross and the cycle repeats and by the way there's one more thing I want you to think about if you're sad and depressed and you treat your sadness and depression with chocolate then your body has just learned that all that fat and all that sugar and all that dopamine is available if only your body could somehow trigger sadness and depression do you understand what's happening it's incredibly important that you recognize that emotional hunger is not a form of hunger at all but it is a path to addiction and so here's the deal if you are feeling lonely take out a piece of paper take out your phone and write down 10 other ways to cure your loneliness that come before food if you're feeling sad if you're feeling depressed write 10 different ways I went through this exact experience I was home one day I was feeling really lonely a little depressed and I wanted to walk straight to the fridge I knew there was ice cream in there I knew there was now it was the best quality ice cream I could get I happened to choose it was responsibly sweetened and it didn't have milk in it so I was justifying it have you ever Justified I was justifying and then suddenly I realized wait a second now how on Earth is that ice cream going to make me feel less lonely I'm alone I'm feeling lonely I'm going to eat the ice cream alone and I'm still going to feel lonely except I'm also going to probably feel a little gross and lonely and so I wrote down a list and you know what was on the top of that list call your son call your mother call your father you know what's really interesting a really loving heart-to-heart conversation cures loneliness a lot better than ice cream and so anytime you're having an emotional low that you feel like you should treat with food why don't you first try to treat it with something else and if that fails you can go to the food later now these six hungers the truth of it is is that no one of them is really all that dangerous it really isn't the trouble is is when they gang up on you so let's take a look let's say you're a little dehydrated right you're a little dehydrated and you've got that thirst hunger it's going hey you got to eat something you got to eat something but then on top of that maybe you had a bit of a rough day now you've got emotional hunger oh oh and then on top of that on top of that well you got a little of low blood sugar hunger now all three of those hungers are ganging up on you and you know what's really crazy the hungrier you are or the hungrier you feel the more flexible you will become about your food rules let me explain let's say you're trying to be good okay you're trying to be good I I'm not going to eat that I'm being good well have you ever been trying to be good but then suddenly your mind just Rebels and says you're eating it anyway well what's happened in that case is that too many of the hungers got activated and and they ganged up on you so one of the very best things that you can do is seek out to neutralize each of the hungers so in the case of thirst drink to prevent thirst instead of quenching it eat nourishing food to prevent nutritional hunger instead of nourishing it when you feel these hungers it's almost too late so if you address them in advance then they won't have power over you neutralize the six hungers and then you'll find yourself eating less but more more importantly eating more good quality food as well