Understanding and Mastering Hunger

“I feel hungry all the time” or “I just can’t control my cravings!” It’s a complaint that nearly always crops up as people get further into their journeys working on their health: hunger and cravings. 

There’s no denying that this is a frustrating part of the journey. But it’s also not your fault. Eating a healthier diet isn’t just about willpower or self-discipline; there are powerful biological forces at play governing how hungry you feel.

So today, join me as I uncover the reasons why our brains tend to fight us when we start releasing weight, the practical ways you can start tuning in to your body’s hunger signals, and two key strategies to keep hunger at bay.

References

Optimizing Fat Loss and Maintaining Muscle on a GLP 1 Mini-Course

Book: Words to eat by

Audio Stamps

01:34 - Dr. Rentea discusses how hunger tends to go up as you get a few months into your weight loss journey and what to do if you notice this.

04:22 - We find out why it’s normal for your body to crank up hunger levels at this point and why it’s not an emergency.

06:38 - Dr. Rentea shares the importance of distinguishing between early and late hunger.

08:18 - We discover how to tell if your hunger is physical or emotional.

10:24 - Dr. Rentea goes through some practical ways to tune in to your hunger signals.

13:21 - We hear two key strategies for dealing with urges of hunger

Quotes

“Hunger, although it is not an emergency, your brain thinks it is.” - Matthea Rentea MD

“Emotional hunger can still feel very urgent, and like it needs to be answered, but that might not be a signal that your body actually needs food.” - Matthea Rentea MD

“Food is social, emotional, it's learned, it genetically influences your response. There are so many things that go into it. A majority of it is not in our conscious control.” - Matthea Rentea MD

“Sometimes it's about saying, ‘Hey, I'm going to delay it. I'm not going to deny it. I'm going to add in some foods, not subtract, and then I'm going to see, do I even still want that, or if I want it, is it the same after I've had some really, nourishing food?’” - Matthea Rentea MD

“A lot of the time with urges, if you can break the cycle a little bit, you'll notice that they dissipate on their own.” - Matthea Rentea MD

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

Transcript

0:28

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. How's everybody doing? I know I always start out with what feels like a weather report, but this time we've been going through a, an extreme cold spell. I'm talking like negative 13 degrees Fahrenheit and it's not been a fun time around here. So usually I record these episodes a few weeks before they go out. I'm at that place in winter now when I've gotten to enjoy the snow. I've seen what's going on. I'm ready for it to be over. The thing that's driving me the most is that my office is also a place where I exercise. So I have like on one half, I have my desk and my whole kind of video set up everything. And then on the other half, I have a walking treadmill and I've got a little like bike thing and some bands and different stuff like that. And I'm ready to get out, to not spend. So much of my time in this little space. I feel like I do my exercise in the morning then I work all day And it's like I'm ready to have that morning walk again. Those are just so amazing to me as the sun's rising I'm walking and I just I just love This past year. It's been something I really love so I'm excited to get back to that in a few months Okay. So today we're gonna talk about something that I see people struggle with When they are well into their journey with working on health, maybe part of that again, is releasing some weight. And what happens here, I want to talk you through a few different aspects when you notice that you start to get more hungry. So initially when you start to lose weight, This is usually not a challenge because you do not have so much increased ghrelin and all the hunger hormone changes that start to occur, the more weight you lose. And so usually when we first start out, if you're really giving yourself a great amount of protein and fiber and balancing the meals, like doing all the things that we're talking about when you're doing all of that, in the beginning you're like, I don't know what she's talking about. This episode is likely for you if you've been on this journey half a minute. So, meaning, maybe you're someone that you've already lost a significant amount of weight, whether you are or not on the anti obesity medications. I speak a lot about them because I feel like it's a very underserved area where people do not give examples specific to that. But again, this is physiology that applies to any weight loss. So what ends up happening is, as you get, usually right in the beginning of weight loss, people are fine. But then a few months in, what starts to happen, and I see this with the anti obesity medications, when people have been on the max dose for anywhere from four to six months, the hunger level starts to go up. And so, remember when we're using medication, we're able to blunt some of that hunger, right? So, appetite is controlled, you don't have as many urges and cravings. But then when you've been on it a while, you know, we can't just kind of increase the dose to infinity. There's sort of levels that they've studied that we want to stick to that. And so what ends up happening is the hunger does go up. Now this is normal and expected. And the key here, number one is to not get panicked when you notice hunger go up. So this is physiologic. Your body has noticed that whenever it loses weight, it doesn't matter where you started with your weight set point. It always thinks it's a panicking situation. So I want you to imagine your body. If in a really loving way and whenever it sees that the storehouse is starting to get lower To think this is an emergency because a famine is gonna come and I'm not gonna be able to take care of this precious body I'm in so instead of viewing this as a bad thing like I and and because here's what ends up happening You get hungry and you start to have thought spirals like this I'm not gonna keep the weight off then I make bad decisions and it's this whole negative cascade instead of really Getting into problem solving mode of what you're gonna do about it so if this happens Know that it is working. By the way, also, if you're losing weight and you notice you're having periods where you're increasingly getting hungry, Know that you're probably on the verge of the scale going down. So this is really hard for people to hear, right? Because you want every moment to not be hungry. And I'm not saying you have to sit there being hungry all the time. But I just want to suggest that in our modern world, I'm not talking about everywhere in the world, but in the U. S. and Canada, things like that, hunger is usually not an emergency. Most of us are very blessed and we live in, in houses where we have some food in the pantry, hopefully, some food in the fridge and the freezer. Maybe we have a bar in our bag if we're sort of survivalist with this stuff like I am. It's like in all scenarios there's food. You can drive to a gas station, there's a food store, there's a restaurant to go to. So hunger, although it is not an emergency, your brain thinks it is. because we are, we still have an ancient brain, right? I've said this before, sort of ancient brain, but in a modern world. And so just at a cognitive level, first, just give yourself some compassion and realizing whenever I get hungry, if you have a true stress response to that, that, Oh my gosh, what's going to happen? I'm not going to be able to keep this weight off. This always happens, all of that. Just start with, this is normal. that when my body has lost weight, my ghrelin level is going up. Ghrelin is the hunger hormone that says start eating. What we see from studies is, and again, I say this, but don't, don't lock into the number, but usually people need to maintain a new weight set point for about a year for ghrelin to kind of calm down and go down some. So you've kind of got to be in this a while for this to go down, right? So let's say you're losing weight. Your body starts to say, hey, this is not normal. Stores are getting low. A famine could come and she won't be in a good position. It doesn't know that you had a bunch of excess because the hormonal regulation isn't working properly anymore. So your body is completely normal to crank up hunger. So that is physiologic. Number two, it's not an emergency. Meaning, a lot of us have stores on our body. Our body knows what to do if we go into, a few hours of not eating. The challenge is, if we're sort of living in this, what I'm gonna call like the sugar burner mode, like, if you're having lots of carbs and processed food and you're eating lots of fast food, things like that, Sometimes it's a very sort of shaky, literally physiologically not feeling good period because we've not created a scenario where our body can handle those periods with getting hungry and it just sort of feeling like a little bit like a wave at your feet, but not so intense where you're so hangry and you really need to eat that moment. And so a lot of what I like to work with my patients on, it's, it's noticing the difference between these two things. Number one, what is early hunger for you? Okay. Early hunger is the first suggestion in your body. Late hunger is when you have surpassed all reason. You are now kind of panicked, you, a lot of people will use the term hangry, like you've got to eat something right now, like your mood might even be changed, your body might be feeling low energy, you are just out of it. Know that if you've gotten to late hunger, You're likely not going to make the best decision because you're, you're not going to be able to access that part of your brain that sort of lets you make those very measured decisions. So what I first want to suggest is that you get very familiar, just kind of day to day with yourself on what is early hunger for me and what is late hunger. Now, sometimes you're not going to be able to avoid late hunger, so don't worry if that's the case. But early hunger is maybe your stomach starts to get, You start to hear rumbles. Maybe it's you start to feel like it's hollow. Maybe you start to feel weak. Some people on the medication, you might start to feel nauseous. There are different signs for different people. Something great that I heard the other day. It's that a lot of people, when they think about signs of hunger, you know, you might've been very disconnected for a long period of time with hunger signaling in your body. And a lot of people will think, Oh, it's like one signal that I get. And I want to challenge you, can you find 7, 8, 9, 10 signals that you are starting to get hungry? This has been very helpful for me because I've been on this journey for years. And at first I could notice one or two things, and now I can truly rattle off multiple things that happen to me when I know that it's time for some food. So I want to challenge you that that find what your early hunger cues are. Okay, the second thing I want you to really question is this physical hunger or emotional hunger? And I'm gonna make this very straightforward today. The way that you're gonna tell physical hunger is that number one, you're getting a signal from your body that's coming up to your brain. It's not you thinking of the best things you want to have. So you're getting that signal from your body. But part two here to be able to distinguish it is would something Very tasteless, very dry, something like a hard boiled egg, a dry piece of chicken, a cheese stick, something where you don't have huge desire for it, an apple. Would that satisfy your hunger right now? If it is, it's likely a physical hunger, and we're always going to eat when we're physically hungry. But the difference is, emotional hunger can still feel very urgent, and like it needs to be answered, but that might not be a signal that your body actually needs food. So again, first, we're looking for physical signs from our body and then to distinguish is this physical or emotional hunger, we're going to think something really dry or undesirable. Would that satisfy it right now? If not, it's a whole nother conversation for what you're actually needing right there. And I want you to have compassion that even if you identify, I am not physically hungry. It is very hard. It takes many stages. We've talked about healing emotional eating before, sort of stage one through four. But usually it takes you really progressing far in that cycle to be able to notice that it's emotional eating and to not eat. So I want you to have compassion for yourself if you notice that, but you still can't stop yourself from eating. That is okay. That first stage of awareness, you know, you've already, maybe also stage one is you've already had the food. food you're already blown past and you think, Oh my gosh, what did I do? Stage two is like, you notice it before, but you still eat. And then stage three you're eating, but you're like, but I know that I'm not hungry and it doesn't serve me. Stage four is like you recognize it and don't do anything. But notice it's very painful that stage one, when you've already done the thing and you look back and you're like, why did I do that? It wasn't hungry. And you sort of have all this, I call it like mega awareness. You understand what's going on. That's very painful and just hold some space for yourself that it's going to take time for you to progress through these different phases and then ultimately to have different habits. Okay, so you are going to decide if it's, you're going to start to really clue in on what your hunger cues are, a way that you could practically start with this. And this might sound intense, but this might be what's needed. It's for you every hour during the day to think, do I have any hunger signals and kind of turn into your body and see if any signaling is happening. The reason that I'm saying this is let's say you eat breakfast at six or seven in the morning. You might actually start to get hunger signaling at 10 in the morning, but maybe you've always had food at noon and so you're not realizing like that's. Actually, my body is starting to talk to me at that time and I might not be able to eat at that time, but at least let me notice that that's hunger, right? So you might always be catching the late hunger that's happening after that. If you every hour, you're just like, am I hungry or not? Nope, this is what it feels like not to be hungry. And then every hour you're kind of checking back. And you could even make little notes. What does hunger feel like for you? There's a book, Words to Eat By. I forget the name of the author. I can never say it. We'll make sure to link underneath this. And she has really good questions in there to ask yourself before, during, and after eating. And they're very, just like, it's a very loving, compassionate approach. And so, if you're someone that struggles with this, And by the way, yes, you can still learn what your signals are if you're on an anti obesity medication. Okay, so let's say that you know what early hunger is. You're really tuning into the signals. Then you're really able to ask yourself, is it physical hunger or emotional hunger? By the way, emotional hunger is usually something very specific. So it's like, I need chips. I need ice cream. It's like a very specific thing. Remember, physical hunger. We can eat just about anything and be okay. I want to give an example. I'm recording this on a Sunday and right before this, I had some food that I normally don't really enjoy eating, but I knew that I was getting hungry. And so I was like, yeah, this will do. And if I was, if I was in an emotional hunger state, I would not have wanted to have that food. But because I was truly in that, Sort of early getting to later physical hunger stage. I was happy to eat that food. So just to give you an example, so let's say now that you might notice, okay, so if it's physical hunger, I know I'm gonna eat and that's no problem. But what you're starting to notice, a lot of this is actually emotional hunger. I'm actually not. physically hungry, but I want something specific. That is so challenging. So first of all, I want to normalize that for you. Do not beat yourself up for that. Food is not just, oh, food is fuel. Food is social, emotional, it's learned, it's genetic. There are so many things that go into it. A majority of it is not in our conscious control. So I want you to imagine there's that iceberg example, you see the little top of an ice thing coming out of the water and there's the huge bottom of it that you don't see. And so realize everyone's always judging themselves on the little thing they see on the surface, but there's so much below it. Again, When I say not in your conscious control, you don't even realize that those things are there. That's why kind of digging away at this takes time. So there's two strategies that I want to provide you with today, and you can see if these could work. Now, I just want to say, I think I'm going to do a much deeper dive in this, probably like an hour version of this class, if you would, I'm going to add this. I have a bonus section within the mini course that I have. Optimizing fat loss and maintaining muscle on a GLP 1. Again, you do not need to be on a medication for this course to be really helpful. And I have a bonus section that's in there. And we talk about things like how to, how to read a body composition. Thing that you get done at home, how to kind of interpret that data and what to eat when traveling and what to do with hunger, I'm going to add this as a longer bonus in there. So if you're in that course, it keeps updating. And if you are someone that joins, realize you have access for a year and you can always ask me questions under a video and I can make responses. But these are the kind of things I keep adding what I see that people struggle with. Okay, so the two strategies and there's many more, but these are the two I'm going to provide on here. It's I really like I heard a dietitian say this, and of course, I can't remember who to give credit, but I'm sure this is pretty universally accepted, but she uses the strategy delay, don't deny. One of the things I want to provide to you, it's not only that if you're emotionally hungry, sometimes kind of getting yourself out of that physical environment so you can break the habit a little bit. But when I say delay, it might even be that you add this second strategy in that you're going to add, don't subtract. So sometimes when I'm initially starting with someone, if they're having a lot of emotional hunger and it's hard for them to not eat, I really start with, can we first get in some protein and fiber? Why is that so important? Because when you first get protein and fiber in, you are going to stabilize your blood sugar. You're going to notice that you, even if you have that thing that you're not hungry, but you're very specifically wanting chocolate, ice cream, whatever it is. I know that with time, number one, your blood sugar spike won't be as bad because you'll already have had a good protein and fiber. But number two, what you're going to notice is that it will get easier maybe to have less. And you will start to break the cycle from day to day. And this sounds counterintuitive because you're like, what? You're going to tell me to still eat the thing, but I just had all this other food in addition, but realize you're starting to balance things. You're going to break that binge restrict cycle. And sometimes it's about saying, Hey, I'm going to delay it. I'm not going to deny it. I'm going to add in some foods, not subtract, and then I'm going to see, do I even still want that, or if I want it, is it the same after I've had some really, nourishing food? Okay, so way number one is that you could add in protein and fiber first. and then still have that other thing. The second option with Delay Don't Deny, sometimes it's as simple as when you're having, by the way, emotional hunger, that's urge driven eating. You're not physically hungry, but you're wanting something. So a lot of the time, I always say, urges feel urgent. You're like, okay, Captain Obvious. But a lot of the time with urges, if you can break the cycle a little bit, you'll notice that they dissipate on their own. So, for example, if you are able to leave the room, you do a different activity, it will help distract you. Okay, I hope this was helpful today. Again, if you want to learn more, that mini course will have a link to it in the show notes, the Optimizing Fat Loss and Maintaining Muscle on a GLP 1, and we'll have more strategies in there as well, and I'll maybe have like a worksheet or other things, because this is something that is just really a challenge, Especially when you get further along on the anti obesity medications because the hunger comes back a little bit and all of it is not physical and so we need to learn how to deal with that. Okay. I hope this is helpful. We'll talk soon.