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Dec 18, 2023 · Ever wonder why you eat so much and can't stop overeating, even after you're full? Nutrition psychology experts explain what hedonic hunger is, and why your brain craves more food, even when your body doesn't need it.
- Naomi Barr
- Diabetes. Your body turns the sugar in food into fuel called glucose. But when you have diabetes, glucose can't reach your cells. Your body pees it out instead and tells you to eat more.
- Low Blood Sugar. Hypoglycemia is what you have when the glucose in your body drops to very low levels. It’s a common concern for people with diabetes, but other health problems can cause it, too.
- Lack of Sleep. Not getting enough rest can affect the hormones in your body that control hunger. People who are sleep-deprived have a bigger appetite and find it harder to feel full.
- Stress. When you're anxious or tense, your body releases a hormone called cortisol. This amps up your feeling of hunger. Many people under stress also crave foods high in sugar, fat, or both.
But if you think there are times of day or situations where eating has become more habit than hunger, or you’re overindulging because you’re getting too hungry between meals, this might make it harder to maintain a healthy weight. You could try these simple strategies to help.
- Binge Eating Disorder. According to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM 5), Binge-Eating Disorder (BED) is an eating condition where you have recurrent binges or eating episodes with symptoms such as
- Stress. Some people stress-eat, and others stress-starve. The science behind it is that the nervous system triggers epinephrine (adrenaline) from the adrenal glands located atop the kidneys.
- Lack Of Sleep. Insomnia is prevalent in many people, but it can create much more serious problems than eye bags when it occurs too often. Lack of sleep can mess with many things, from the absence of focus due to mental fog, mood swings, and metabolic changes.
- Mindless Eating. Mindless eating means you eat distracted when multitasking between work and lunch, watching TV and snacking, or driving and eating. Mindless eating or multitasking may lead to a higher body mass index because it results in self-control lags and an imbalance between the brain’s cues and appetite to eat (9).
- You Eat What Your Brain Tells You to Eat.
- Why Do We Decide to Eat?
- Why Do We Stop Eating?
- Your Brain Also Drives Your Food Consumption Over time.
- The Food You Eat Can Change Your brain.
- This Is Your Brain on Processed food.
- Hyperpalatable, Highly Rewarding Foods Are Often The Most Readily Available.
- Change What You Eat, Change Your brain.
- What to Do Next: Some Tips from Precision Nutrition
- If You’Re A Coach, Or You Want to Be…
Ever open up a bag of chips planning to have a small snack, only to find yourself peering into an empty bag, just a few moments later? Your brain is to blame. Our rational, conscious brain thinks it’s in charge. “I eat what I want, when I want it. And I stop when I want to”. But we have a lot less control than that. Behind our decision-making proce...
Simply put, we eat for two reasons. 1. Homeostatic eating: We eat to get the energy our body needs, and to keep our biological system balanced (aka homeostasis). 1. Hedonic eating: We eat for pleasure (aka hedonism), or to manage our emotions. Most meals are a mix of homeostatic and hedonic eating. We do know that ghrelin, the “hunger hormone”, sti...
Once we’ve started eating, what makes us stop? This is in part influenced by satiation — the perception of fullness you get during a meal that causes you to stop eating. (Satiety is sometimes used interchangeably with satiation, but the terms aren’t the same. Satiety is your perception of satisfaction, or reduced interest in food, between meals; sa...
What really matters to your weight and overall health, of course, is what you do consistently — i.e. what and how much you typically eat, day after day. Your body has a system for managing your long-term energy and nutrient needs. It’s called the leptin feedback loop. Leptin is a hormone that’s released by fat tissue. Leptin tells the brain how muc...
Assuming we’re properly nourished, that well-balanced leptin loop will tell us when we’ve have enough. It helps us feel sated and allows us to eat reasonable portions, comfortably. But that nicely balanced loop can become disrupted — quickly — when we eat certain types of food. A diet filled with hyperpalatable, hyper-rewarding, heavily processed f...
Our brains loooooove processed foods. But our bodies don’t. These enchanting and semi-addictive foods aren’t usually very nutritious. They have more energy than we need, with fewer nutrients (i.e. vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, essential fatty acids, etc.) and fiber. We don’t feel full or satisfied when we eat them. After a while, our brain fo...
Tasty-fun food-crack deliciousness bombs (aka manufactured deliciousness) are everywhere. Today, these are the top 6 sources of caloriesin the U.S.: 1. Grain-based desserts (cakes, cookies, donuts, pies, crisps, cobblers, and granola bars) 2. Yeast breads 3. Chicken and chicken-mixed dishes (and we don’t mean chicken breasts — think chicken fingers...
You can’t control your unique genetic makeup, your history of dieting, nor your physiological response. But you can control your behaviors. Here are three simple (but not necessarily easy) steps you can take to help your natural appetite regulation system get back online and do its job better:
Here are a few of our favorite strategies to help you find the right balance, and make smart choices.
You can help people build sustainablenutrition and lifestyle habits that will significantly improve their physical and mental health—while you make a great living doing what you love. We'll show you how. If you’d like to learn more, consider the PN Level 1 Nutrition Coaching Certification.
Jul 2, 2018 · Do you eat to live or live to eat? We have a complicated relationship with food, influenced by cost, availability and even peer pressure. But something we all share is appetite – our...
Do you know why you eat? We eat because we are hungry. We eat for energy. You might know some of the reasons we crave certain foods, but most of our food decisions come from hidden forces. In fact, Food Psychologist Dr. Brian Wansink has found that we make more than 200 food decisions each day but we are unaware of 90% of them.
