This builds on the foundation of hunger presented in part 1 and Homeostatic Hunger in part 2.
Part 3 deals with the other two types of hunger as described by Jason Fung in his book The Hunger Code:
- Homeostatic hunger — triggered by the body’s need for fuel
- Hedonistic hunger — triggered by emotions and pleasure
- Conditioned hunger – triggered by environmental cues
Hedonistic Hunger: The Desire for Pleasure
Hedonistic hunger is based in pleasure-seeking behavior. You are not physically hungry, but want to eat because:
- The food looks good.
- You want pleasure.
- You are responding to emotions.
Don’t get me wrong. The pleasure we get from food that looks good is part of the experience of eating. We eat at Thanksgiving and birthdays for pleasure as well as for the social engagement.
However, when our ability to regulate ourselves is disrupted, eating might become a coping mechanism. When we eat when we are not physically hungry, the Hedonistic Hunger might lead us to:
- Distracted eating
- Mindless eating
- Emotional eating
The following are some signs of Emotional Eating
- You can’t control your eating but you don’t know why.
- You have a strong urge to eat whenever you feel strong emotions.
- You have an irresistible urge to eat even though you’re not hungry.
- You find food calming.
Enter Mindful Eating
We can train ourselves to respond to Hedonistic Hunger by mindful eating. This means becoming aware of:
- All kinds of hunger
- Eating triggers
- Emotions
- Thoughts
Mindfulness demands attention, not extra time. Some ways to help pay attention are to
- Eat only at a designated place away from all devices.
- Say a prayer or another statement of intention to give thanks and therefore help focus your attention before you eat.
- Eat more slowly so you are aware when you are 80% full, and stop then.
Perhaps easier said than done as attention to hunger, triggers, emotions and thoughts is a nuanced practice. There are many resources available to help guide you more than this short introduction.
Conditioned Hunger: The Environment
This is the third type of hunger. Conditioned hunger occurs when the food environment and social situation become cues for eating, including habits.
For example:
- You are in the habit of eating meals at a certain times.
- You have a snack following coming home from class or a beer after work.
- A particular place, activity, time, or social situation becomes associated with food.
Breaking Conditioning
When you stop the response of eating to the cue of the environment, the expectation to eat eventually will disappear. This is a principle of psychological classical conditioning.
But to stop the behavior, you must take action. The key to success is that action is a product of mindset, not willpower.
Changing mindset requires reframing thoughts. Through this chain of influence, behavior changes. Thoughts → Feelings → Judgment → Action
For example, to avoid a feeling of deprivation from not eating begins with.:
- Thoughts about what certain kinds of eating does to insulin
- Feelings about making not eating the default
- Changes in judgment — recognizing that eating is not your choice right now
- Influencing action — choosing not to eat YET
Making New Habits Stick
New habits can be established in 2–3 weeks, both for the habits you want and the habits that are counterproductive to extinguish.
For sticky, unproductive habits
- Identify the trigger.
- Identify why the habit feels good.
- Make a lateral shift.
Examples, instead of eating:
- Schedule a pamper day to celebrate success.
- Have activities ready for when you are bored.
- Plate your meal before starting to eat.
Make the New Habits Visible
To make your new habits stick, you may want to:
- Use a habit tracker.
- Think ahead, such as having natural foods available.
- Keep your new cues visible — for example, sparkling water in place of Coca-Cola.
Use Your Environment and Social Cues
Your environment can either reinforce your old habits or make your new habits easier. Since we learned how to eat from our family, use social cues to change how you eat.
To change the rules about where and when food is available, for example.
- Make a rule for no open candy dish at the office.
- Create an environment instead that supports the changes you are making.
- Use others for support and accountability.
The WWWWHH of Eating
Who: People who share your ideals and goals.
What: Foods that keep insulin low. For fluids: Water, Herbal tea, Coffee
When: Preferably early in the day, and only when you are hungry.
Where In the dining room or hall, at a table.
Why: Be aware of whether your hunger is Homeostatic, Hedonistic, or Conditioned
How Much: Eat until 80% full, while avoiding foods that make you hungrier.
How : Order and what you combine matters — see How to Eat to Avoid Glucose Spikes.
These are not rules, simply guidelines to help direct you. There are tradeoffs. For example, physiologically, it is better to end eating earlier in the day than to delay eating in the morning. For social reasons, however, it is often easier to delay eating in the morning and have dinner with the family at night to be social. Choose appropriately for your particular day.
Mastering Hunger
Lasting change is really hard if you have to constantly make difficult choices. And choice becomes next to impossible if you are hungry all the time.
Instead, by changing the default settings, that changes what happens around food and hunger.
Change the natural state to not eating.
Change the timing of eating.
Change the environment.
Change the habits.
Change the mindset.
Most important: change the mindset through education.
The goal is to make not eating the default, so that fasting becomes easier and you become more metabolically flexible as insulin stays lower for longer, stored energy can be used, and eating becomes intentional rather than automatic. Pleasant, in fact. Mindful. Enjoyable.
That is nuanced and a work in progress, but that is what I think it means to Master Hunger.
