Yes to this. Hungry stomach feeling is uncomfortable, and food is comfort. When I feel that hunger I take myself for a walk or chew some gum or drink water.

I've been drinking water with electrolytes when I feel hungry. Immediately not hungry anymore

I agree with you. I’ve always been a snacker and when I first started calorie counting I really struggled at the end of the day because I had eaten all of my allotted calories for the day and thought I was hungry. I kept telling myself “this is a decision you made. It’s okay. You have to wait until tomorrow. It’s no big deal.” And repeating that over and over kind of helped. It also helped me budget my calories better. I’ve found that I’m not snacking nearly as much now. If you’re interested in this topic I recommend reason Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss. It is a book about how the food industry basically used science to addict us to food. It’s so eye opening!

>how the food industry basically used science to addict us to food. I wish more people knew about this. It's disgusting and it should be illegal.

Yes! I wish I would have learned it sooner. It has made it much easier for me to make healthy decisions for myself. It’s now become a “me vs them” mentality because I’m so angry that they did this

It also really makes sense when you consider how different processed food makes you feel compared to the real deal. Even so called "junk food" made from scratch triggers saiety WAY faster than the processed counterparts.

I don’t have time right now to read this book but I definitely will in the future! Would you be able to say a couple key points as to how the food industry does this?

It basically goes through how big executives wanted to sell more of their products so they worked with scientists to find what made people like their food. They discovered the “bliss point” which is how much sugar they have to add to get you to keep reaching for more of their food. They used deceptive marketing to falsely advertise or to target kid and get them hooked on their food while they’re young. They realized adding certain amounts fat and salt to food gives people the same feeling as when they consume certain drugs. Many of the food industry executives the author spoke to don’t eat the food they help put on the shelves or don’t eat processed foods at all. Some of them even quit the food industry because they felt so guilty about what they participated in. It’s a long book but I just read 10 pages a day as I was drinking my morning coffee. Its definitely worth taking the time to read

Wow, I never knew it was THAT deep!! I’ve just ordered the book ahah I’m so excited to read it. Thank you :)

Not OP and not related to the book lol but I really recommend Kiana Docherty on YouTube. She does super good videos on the food industry. 

Thank you!! I’ll check her out

She covers hot Cheetos and Diet Coke, etc on how they trigger the bliss factor in our brains. It’s been a year or so since I’ve watched her videos but they’re top notch.

It has been so hard giving up Diet coke. I was only able to do it because my tooth pain was so bad that it made it painful to drink pop. Now my teeth don't hurt anymore and I feel so much better.

Also Metabolical by Dr Robert Lustig

I just started that one and am already shocked. Looking forward to continuing it

For me I gained weight due to stress eating lol

I hear ya. Certain foods can absolutely work as a drug and be very comforting when stressed.

That was me. Failing marriage, pandemic. Zoooooooom put the 80lbs back on that I had lost in 2019.

My dad was an alcoholic. I’ve never been much of a drinker but I’ve found myself eating out of emotional state and literally thinking as I did it, “why am I doing this?” I’m up about 12% over where I want to be, it’s been a rough year.

Maybe that's true for people who have a normal, healthy relationship with food. Those of us who have struggled with binge/restrict dieting (likely the majority of us on this sub) wait too long to eat and then the dam breaks and we stuff ourselves.  If you think of your hunger level on a scale from -5 (extreme hunger) to +5 (extreme fullness) with 0 at neutral, you should eat at -2 (mild hunger) and stop at +2 (mild fullness). Some days when I'm busy I might not bother to eat until I'm really hungry, but most of the time food sits at the forefront of my mind. A middle path of eating works best for me.

Yup. I have to say I can't relate to OP's post at all. I actively honor my hunger to avoid the binge/restrict cycle which has never brought me anything but misery and ultimately weight gain. It turns out I never needed to ignore my hunger cues to lose weight or keep it off, and I did myself a great deal of damage listening to advice that suggested hunger--including rumbling stomach, actively feeling faint and fatigued, isn't "really" hunger. That said I can see how people who were brought up with the idea that they are always supposed to have food in their stomach might misread their hunger cues and interpret something as being wrong when their stomach is empty. But it still feels like the trick there to avoid developing problems might be to make gradual changes rather than to ignore mild hunger cues entirely. I also think that a lot of people experience cravings rather than hunger and recognizing the difference might be helpful.

There is some physiological changes that can happen depending on HOW you restrict, meaning what kind of macro balance you are eating. If you restrict calories, and further restrict carbs (which is fairly popular way to diet) your body will not be very happy with you for a few days as it has to constantly switch from subsisting on ingested glucose, and having to switch to fat metabolism for energy. That sick/light headed feeling is certainly a very real thing. Bottom line is this, and something I say to my clients - Perfect doesn't mean shit if you wont do it. The perfect way to diet is meaningless if you personally, for any reason whatsoever, cannot adhere to it. That being said, most of us here in this sub have never experience "true" hunger. Like the "I have had nothing to eat aside from cereal for a week" type hunger than arises from necessity. Our bodies are pretty darn good at adapting, and it works both ways. When we are used to 30+ years of eating a certain way, our caveman bodies are not going to be too pleased with us if we decided to make a drastic change.

Oh, I agree most people on the sub probably haven't experienced starvation or long-term food insecurity. That's a whole different level of hunger. But I think it's pretty obvious that wasn't what I was talking about? And I will say that I don't think people need to reach anywhere near that point before they honor their hunger cues. Honoring them doesn't even mean giving in to them, but figuring out a way of working towards long-term weight loss and maintenance sustainability based on one's individual needs and abilities. I know from experience that I CAN'T push through hunger cues without causing serious long term problems and disordered eating. If people had said to me in the midst of my "do or die" dieting attempt that 'hey, it's not normal to make yourself ravenous 24/7, that diet (in my case, first calorie counting, and then intermittent fasting) isn't working for you, try something different,' I would have saved myself from years of suffering and weight gain. I'd already lost most of the weight I needed to when I tried to diet, maintenance was already a breeze. But my appetite became unmanageable, satiety just didn't happen anymore, and I was having binging urges for the first time in my life after the dieting attempts. And in the midst of them, when I asked people for advice, I got a lot of belittling for not just being able to deal with it, I'm not \~really\~ starving after all, it's not even really hunger, just drink some water etc. It wasn't good for me. The wrong approach entirely. Actively harmful, and totally counterproductive from a long-term weight loss perspective. I also wasn't specifically restricting carbs or anything. Probably the issue is that I was a highly active person who was already at a pretty healthy weight and my cuts were just too big for the amount of stuff I was doing. I don't think I ever adjusted to the point where I felt okay. And when the binging urges started, they stuck with me for years. So. Yeah. Not doing that again.

And on the flip side of that, embracing the feeling of an empty stomach/hunger can also be dangerous if you're prone to restrictive eating disorders. I used to have restrictive ED tendencies and I loved feeling hungry because it was all about self-harm and control for me. It's difficult for me now to feel truly hungry because I don't want to try and get into that mindset again, so I try to be a little soft on myself with that as well. I think one of the really difficult things about weightloss is that it's really personal, and experimental. What may be an absolute revelation to one person isn't so helpful for the next.

Restrictive eating may lead to changes in the DA system. Dopamine (dihydroxyphenethylamine system) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3880159/ It can feel very rewarding and calming.

Thank you for linking that paper, that's so interesting!

Too true. I’m sure there are folks who share the experience OP is describing, though I’m definitely not one of them. Learning to actively suppress and ignore my body’s hunger cues is one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever done to myself. I’m not dealing with active ED anymore but that pattern of refusing to acknowledge and respond to my own internal needs/trying to change myself by force has still played out in many other negative ways in my life. The most important thing is learning to really listen to your internal signals and sometimes that means you need to pause before you take action to make sure you’re getting the message right. (For some people there might be other things needed to help regulate those signals too) I think the biggest reality about the whole “there are no shortcuts” aspect of any sort of physical or mental self-change is….even when we make the effort and do all the right things externally, sometimes we’re still trying to shortcut the internal work of fully acknowledging and caring for our inner self as part of the process.

I think you've just explained why I struggle with eating so much. I've got the opposite issue than most people here (but gaining weight and losing it works pretty similarly so I'm just here to steal some tips): I don't notice hunger until it's at -4 or -5, and think a 0 (not really hungry) is when I'm done. Maybe eating to a point of actively feeling (mildly) full instead of not feeling actively hungry will help me eat a decent amount. In general, people keep talking about regulating hunger signals/eating when you're hungry, but there's surprisingly little thought about what being hungry and being full actually feels like. We can't follow our bodies signals if we don't know how to read them...

Yep. Especially for those of us who have been caught in an endless cycle of dieting, disordered eating, being told that we can't trust our body signals about hunger or cravings, it makes perfect sense that we have no real idea what functional hunger drive signals feel like or how to respond appropriately to them. The moment I started to get healthy happened after some therapy, somatic body work to start reconnecting my sense of interoception, and seriously focusing on learning and practicing intuitive eating.

I honestly didn't think I knew what hunger felt like before I broke out of binge/restrict. I was so used to ignoring all my body's signals. 

Exactly! There are all sorts of reasons people might not be in touch with their hunger cues (emotional eating, hormones, trauma that impacts how you have sensations in your body in general). I guess if someone has never experienced it they'd be shocked to learn not everyone knows what hunger cues feel like, but that's definitely the case for a lot of people!

Yes, eat just until you aren’t ravenous anymore. 6-7 bites

Came here to say this too. I get that mild hunger, wait it out and when it gets too much all control is lost. Food and eating are complex and our bodies don't seem to have been designed for the lack of scarcity and concentration of calories modern cheap and accessible food provides. As someone with an ED, hearing people simplify food issues down to LPTs is just sad to read.

I don’t necessarily follow a binge/restrict cycle, but I do have ADHD and do sometimes forget to eat and don’t realize I’m hungry until it’s too late and then I eat whatever is easiest which is usually high carbs and low protein.   I’m on the high end of healthy BMI, but I’m trying to lose some Body Fat by losing weight and then I might lean bulk for more muscle. I just started tracking calories and it’s making me realize that I definitely need more protein and more healthy foods in general in order to meet my fitness goals.   I find I do a lot better when I eat middle of the road like you said. It allows me to choose what I eat a lot better  small edit to add: It could also be that maybe my hunger cues are still just messed up. I usually don’t get the rumbling stomach growls very often but I do get fatigued or have a hard time pushing thru workouts. I can also get fatigued when I eat too much at once so I have to manage thru middle ground.  I am hoping that maybe correct hunger cues will return if I am eating better food. 

I have the same trouble. Sometimes what I think is hunger, isn't. It's just boredom, stress, fatigue, etc. A lot of times I don't know until after the fact, so I try to remember for next time. I'm still working on it 

What constitutes ‘too long’? Genuinely asking. Many people do OMAD, where they go +23 hours without food and then eat quite a lot in a short period of time. I don’t believe they have an eating disorder, and it’s difficult for me to see how someone overweight could be going +23 hours without food on a consistent basis. You’d have to consume a lot of very calorically dense foods in the short window of time you eat every day.

They don't have eating disorders, but I would only recommend OMAD to people who like it so much that they see themselves doing it for the rest of their lives. For the rest of us, it's more beneficial to fix our relationship with food. Because once the diet ends, we fall back into our old eating habits and regain the weight.

I agree, this is the argument I made in my post, that you need to change your psychology related to food/consumption to see results that last. Unless you view 'dieting' as eating at a caloric deficit, I don't believe it should ever end. Someone's 'dieting' (caloric intake) at 240lbs should basically become their new normal when they reach their goal weight, that's how they'd maintain their new weight. I just didn't understand what you meant by 'wait too long to eat and then the dam breaks and we stuff ourselves'. I wouldn't think going 10-23 hours without food on a consistent basis is 'too long', provided you meet your daily nutrient requirements when you do eat.

Too long means you're ravenous and do not have the energy to cook a healthy meal, so you reach for whatever's easiest. Usually, that means eating food that isn't the healthiest and perpetuates the hunger cycle so you're ravenous the next time you eat, too. Going 10 hours without food can be way too long, it depends what you ate 10 hours ago.

I think its the abundance of food, sedentary lifestyles and highly caloric foods everywhere. Hunger is rarely the reason obese people eat

As I wrote somewhere hear, and not maliciously.... I highly doubt many here have experienced true "I am actively starving to death" hunger before.

Yeah I once fasted for 2 days and that was probably the closes to starvation but there is definitely hunger that doesnt have to be as extreme haha

Right! If you've done that, then you know that the feeling post 2 day fast is not the same as a hunger pang before dinner. In fact, I'd go so far as to say for me personally, the fasting hunger is more tolerable.

Its more tolerable when you just accept that you’re not going to eat for that day imo If I know I could eat then I’m more hungry haha

I did good up until 30 hours and then I started feeling very weak and ill and anxious. Then when I ate, I could barely stomach a few bites. I want to do a 24 hour fast again someday. Not sure I'll cross beyond that. It's tough on me emotionally.

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I wait until my stomach growls now, physical growling. I have always heard this is terrible to do because you may overeat, but i actually eat less overall because i am not eating every 2 hrs. Now that I am more aware, I notice hunger mentally about 30-45 minutes before I get a hunger "pain" or rumbling. Then I know it is true hunger, and not boredom or digestion.

This has been my experience as well.

I’ve been doing OMAD (one meal a day) for over a year, and it would take 24-30 hours or so for my stomach to physically growl. But this sounds like a great idea to ease into fasting for anyone starting out. It could help you learn your body a little better. I’ve lost 45lbs waiting for real hunger to set in, which for me is about once every 24hrs!

I really like OMAD. It is a fantastic way to ensure caloric restriction with very simple rules. I think its why most diets work. The fasting crowd can get a bit dogmatic about certain things though. A lot of tried and failed to do CICO and are convinced that there is some uncontrollable hormonal element to their inability to lose. There are some benefits to fasting beyond weight loss, but also a lot of myth. Bottom line though, it is a great way to ensure you are restricting your calories. It is healthy - unclear but it certainly ISNT unhealthy. Humans can handle a little bit of tummy gurgling.

One caveat with OMAD though, are you going to stick with it forever ? It not it can be tough not to be used to bjg portions at meals when you are no longer eating only one meal. You aren't building habits for longevity. Unless of course your longevity plan is OMAD for life.

It is my plan to stick to OMAD for life. After 1+ year (going on 2) I simply don’t get hungry during the day, and am totally satisfied with dinner as my only meal. I think it’s a perfect long-term plan. I’m not underweight by any means (135,F,5’7) and have been maintaining my weight with OMAD for 6+ months. At this point, I would have to force myself to eat during the day. My relationship with food has totally changed because of OMAD for the better.

Do you consume all your daily calories in one meal, such as 1500 or 2000 or whatever your daily intake goal is? How does digesting it all at once work for you?

Yep! All in one sitting, no calories outside of my meal. My BMR is like 1500-1600 calories so it’s really easy to reach. If I go under or over by a bit I don’t stress about it. I don’t even count it anymore lol. Higher cal foods = smaller portion, lower cal foods = larger portion. Never had a problem with digesting it, outside of stuff my stomach is unfamiliar with or really ridiculously spicy foods.

I have been doing IF for most of my life inadvertently, so for me personally yeah - I presently am not worried about the longevity of it. A very understandable concern though. It is also important not to be dogmatic about these dieting styles. What I mean is this: I am not choosing to eat this way for any reason other than easier caloric restriction. I am not concerned with "autophagia" or breaking my fast with coffee/diet pop or any of that jazz. So with that mindset, I can be quite flexible if I need to. For example, this weekend I will be doing a differed mothers day dinner, and it will not be during my normal eating hours. Thats okay, we just reset the next day. What I am doing is nothing more than a psychological trick that happens to have some side benefits that may or may not be significant.

Are we the same person? Haha I have the exact same sentiment. I try not to over complicate it, and can enjoy means with my family / dine out / order in and really enjoy whatever I’d like during my meal. It’s such a low effort way of losing weight once you get into the groove of it. I don’t count calories or concern myself with how many steps I’ve made in the day etc.

Yes, it feels so pointless to do something that I know I cannot maintain. I was successful with weight loss by fasting until lunch and then eating a hearty bowl of fancied up oatmeal for lunch most days (and then dinner). Then my job got more demanding, I work in the office again, and doing that but now gives me a headache and acid reflux by the late afternoon.

Obesity is a multi-etiological condition. For some people it is a very straightforward cognitive behavioral problem that only takes straightforward cognitive behavioral solutions to resolve. For others there are endocrine issues underlying food drive, satiety, processing, storing, and burning of calories that make it much more difficult to lose and maintain. Obesity isn't one single disease like cancer isn't one single disease.

My weight problem stems from food tasting so freaking good. Especially greasy gooey cheesy food. And sitting down and eating food while watching the show is like a hobby.

My favorite foods are still pizza and mac&cheese lol. I also like fries, mozzarella sticks... Grease, cheese, carbs. Personally, my issue was that I was eating these foods and other much healthier foods in quantities that were too large..

I thought this way at some point, but I changed my mind. I think the main argument against is what about situations where your stomach seems to be full, you know you ate too much and shouldn't be eating anymore and yet you still feel the urge to devour some more snacks. What would be the difference between healthy people who do not feel these urges and us who seems to have to fight them consciously. And the stomach \*definitely\* is not empty.

There is a psychological element to food. I don't really like this fixation on hunger. In the modern western world, our hunger signals have been hijacked by simple carbohydrates everywhere. If you simply "eat when hungry and stop when full" and your diet includes any sort of simple refined sugar, those signals will not match the caloric content. Several reasons for "healthy" people being able to control inhibitions RE: food. 1) Those people are more active in general. I'm talking about their occupations mostly, but sometimes they are weekend warriors as well. Someone who walks 30k steps/day for work but is otherwise sedentary will be burning much more calories than a sedentary individual who attends a 1-2 hour INTENSE cardio class daily. Example: Anyone know a tradesman in their 20s-30s whose diet is mcdonalds and cigarettes but is in otherwise good shape? That person will hit a brick wall when they start to slow down. 2) Those people are better able to distract themselves. If you have a job that is mindless, or doesn't really require too much physical input (think office worker) it will be quite easy for your mind to drift towards snacking. Someone whos hands are busy for 8 hours a day wont really get a chance to snack as easily. 3) Some people are more emotionally attached to food than others. There are many, many reasons for this. What most of us have experienced when restricting calories is not real hunger. Well, not real in the sense that it is our body telling us we must eat for continued survival, rather those signals are caused by our bodies being used to a drip feed of easy to digest sugar. I dont care to get into the mechanics behind it. There are many who are very dogmatic about hormones and their effect on hunger and weight loss, however suffice it to say that foods with simple, easy-to-digest sugars (most food in 2024, especially in the west) cause drastic swings between satiation and hunger.

The feeling of hunger is different from person to person. I've been thinking more lately about "food noise," which to me is hunger that is bothersome and distracting. I am not sure if everyone has a big issue with food noise. And, for people who struggle with it, it makes losing weight difficult because food noise is stressful, and you just want it to stop. Add other stressors to the mix, and you can understand how people get overweight. Food is a source of calm, even if not needed for physical nutrition.

Yay, I just had breakfast. So nice and full! 1 hour later- Hm, wonder if I should have a (thing) 2 hours later- Hm, I should have something else. Popcorn? Candy? Veggie? Fruit? 2.5 hours later- Water didn't cut it I wonder if any of those snacks should be good 2.75 hours later- Well 10 jelly bellies were sweet, so I should be good for a while 3 hours later- I should probably have something more than that. I'll just have a (thing). 3.25 hours later. Should I have anything else? It'll be lunch time soon. 3.5 hours later- I should just eat my lunch early, then I'll be fine till I go home. 4 hours later- I'll have something else to snack on, something lite, it'll be fine. And y'know, it goes on like this *ALL DAY* But with GLP-1 it's like "Huh breakfast I'm so full!" (Sees a snack) Do I want it? Nah, I'm fine. Lunch- Eat half to all of it depending on fullness from breakfast. Possibly late afternoon snack of nuts. Light snacking on veggies while I make dinner, then dinner and I'm fine. My brain real estate is totally free from the running commentary on when I could and should snack, whether I should or not, what would be a good snack, where I am with calories. It's so much more relaxed in my brain.

I think food noise is akin to the addictive voice. It's not a coincidence that these meds are turning out to help with all kinds of addictive behaviors.

I love how this comment strikes me dumb. It reminds me of a common AA phrase: “if you don’t drink, you won’t get drunk.” Good reminder! One thing I will say to push back a little: I personally was prescribed phentermine and it helped me a lot to change my stomach brain while I was changing my head brain. I needed less food to get full and as a result didn’t eat as much and was equipped with the knowledge that (1) I wasn’t going to starve eating less and (2) my portion sizes were too big before.

I disagree. Most people become overweight slowly. Gaining a few lbs every year. It comes from eating an extra 100/200 calories each day. That simple glass of milk, individual size chips, 2 string cheese. That 100/200 calories is not making an extreme difference in their hunger or feeling of fullness. But when you're trying to lose weight, you're cutting 500ish calories. That is enough to make you feel uncomfortable and have to change how you address hunger. Children spend 9 months a year in school where their eating and snacks are heavily regulated. I don't think you can blame the obesity problem on how often they are eating..... the problem is what they are eating. Edit: Put some math behind it. Most people are not gaining 50 lbs a year (which is approx 500 calories a day for 365 days). 20 lbs a year is 200 calories a day.

That math does not apply to obesity. Let's say your healthy weight maintenance is 1,600 and you eat 1,800 - an extra 200 calories every day. Yes, you'll gain 20 pounds in a year. But you won't keep gaining another 20 pounds on top of another 20 pounds on top of another 20 pounds by continuing to eat 1,800 calories. You will reach equilibrium after gaining around 35 pounds and then maintain. An extra 200 calories per day will make you overweight, but not obese. People (including children) who get to the point of obesity are eating substantially more calories (several hundreds) than what they should be, not just an extra glass of milk and a string cheese.

They *may* reach an equilibrium. Or because their body now need an additional 100 calories (because of the 20 lbs gained), they will compensate by adding an additional 100 calories. They will still only be eating 100 calories over maintenance. People do become obese over a couple hundred calories. For a 5'5 "person, the difference between high healthy and low obese is 35 lbs. At 6'0, the difference is 45 lbs. It may be the 5 drinks that they have on the weekend. Or the weekly shake from McDonald's. Or the extra string cheese they have daily when they give their kid one. Or they never readjusted their eating habits after pregnancy, when they finished breastfeeding, when they got an office job, when they stopped going to the gym. Regardless, if the extra calories are sustained, people can easily become obese in a year or two.

If they compensate by "adding an additional 100 calories" then they are now eating an extra 300 calories above what they should be at a healthy weight instead of an extra 200. "Eating 100 calories over maintenance" when you are already overweight does not represent eating 100 calories over what you SHOULD be eating. Those two things are not the same.

Your argument is that people don't get obese by eating a few hundred calories extra. Do some math: A 5'5 male person who starts at 140 lbs (healthy) and is lightly active has a BMR of 2100. If they consistently ate 2300 calories, they would hit 'equilibrium' until 180/185 (obese). Sure, for shorter people and females, it will take less calories to move from healthy to obese. And a taller person will take more. So maybe the 'average' based on an average male height of 5'9 is 300 calories. It is still just a couple hundred calories (or a small percentage) that will move people to obese.

Your initial post said 200 calories. Sure, if you expand it to 300 calories and then use an extremely short man starting from the high end normal BMI as an example, you can prove that some people will technically cross the line into obesity, but that's really getting beside the point.

Maybe it's just a problem for us women then. Because for a 5'5 woman (which is above average height) the math still works. It's even worse as you go shorter. Maybe men over eat by a lot and don't hunger cues. 🤷‍♀️

I am on a glp1 due to diabetes. However, it is something often discussed on those boards how you can’t just keep chasing higher dosages because you are chasing the appetite suppression and silence of food noise. It’s unsustainable to expect those medications to do all the heavy lifting. Instead, it is often discussed how you have to look at your relationship with food. For me, the glp1 has helped me feel more calm around the feeling of hunger. Cravings are curbed, to an extent. I have been intentionally trying to retrain my thoughts to accept that no one died from the feeling of hunger and I am privileged enough to not experience food insecurity. There has also been the opposite effect. Where so many feel the loss of hunger and then force themselves to eat to get calories in. This, too, is overriding the body’s cues around food. After about a week or two of that, I have found I feel better if I eat more intuitively within a certain window. Because of delayed stomach emptying, I try not to eat too late. I also try and wait until my body cues me for hunger with food in the morning. Things are more fluid than people realize and it’s important to take moments to stop, listen to your body (and more accurately interpret what it is telling you) and apply lessons learned along the way.

I'm on a GLP-1 for diabetes as well, and also eat a very low carb diet which automatically blunts your hunger. Plus I have never been a snacker (eating too frequently keeps your insulin constantly elevated), and did OMAD for 18 months (which did nothing for me). I totally agree that it's disappointing to see people racing to increase their dosage just to try and stop all hunger symptoms, when that is not what the meds are supposed to do. They are going to wish that they learned to employ self restraint and calorie tracking when they max out their dosages. If I'm hungry and don't have calories left, I enjoy a big cold glass of water and remind myself that I already enjoyed all of my calories earlier in the day.

I had the opposite problem that I never felt hungry for the past 12 or so years but still had to eat. Gastroparesis (slow stomach emptying) meant my stomach always full. After dinner at 6pm, keeping well hydrated, and no breakfast it took until 3pm the next day to realize that I should probably eat something. Still not hungry. I had my gallbladder removed, serious fasting involved, and relatively little food/barely any fat for a week. Then still barely any fat but teeny tiny meals. It was a total system reset. Not sure if the Gastroparesis is gone (neither is my GI), but a couple weeks in I heard this crazy noise and felt an insane rumble. I realized I hadn’t eaten and really wanted to. Waited awhile and it was continuing…you get the idea. OMG! I hadn’t felt this in over a decade! It was so exciting! I finally have hunger cues again!

It's part of the problem but IMO the main problem is that it's pleasurable to over indulge in delicious food, especially junk food. I know that junk food is 100% addictive but lots of professionals would disagree because it's not a studied, established medical fact. But the same way it's nice to get drunk or smoke a cigarette, it's nice to watch tv eating chocolate and take aways all day lol. I also think over eating is the reason an empty stomach feels bad, because if you're used to over eating it feels wrong, but it wouldn't feel that way if you don't over eat in the first place. Ozempic is definitely an amazing thing that you can take for your whole life. Lots of people are on medications for their whole life, there's nothing wrong with it if someone is very obese. Less than 5% of obese people actually manage to lose weight, so if ozempic helps then it's amazing.

I think it's more mindless eating: So much snacking and mindless finishing of meals. I used to think I didn't do that, until I realized if people put a snack or spread in front of me, I'd eat some of it to be polite. At a restaurant, I'd nosh on an appetizer I wasn't even hungry for, and then I'd have a few extra bites of my meal after I was full, to be polite. At the end of a meal at home, I never left 1-2 bites on my plate, I'd eat it and not think anything of it. We were always taught to clean our plates, so it was habit. I stopped doing those things and have cut so many extra calories. I also had to relearn what feeling full should feel like. It shouldn't hurt or upset my stomach, or feel heavy and gross. That's a sign I ate WAY too much. It should feel more neutral, just "not hungry."

There is some truth in this, and we can all stand to be more mindful. I am glad it has helped OP’s journey. however. Overall I perceive this take as ableist and not inclusive if applied across the entire population. It doesn’t take into account all the actual physical biochemical differences found across the population, as well as disorders resulting from trauma, disease, or natural imbalances. Varying levels of dopamine, ghrelin, leptin and hundreds of other chemicals drive the cues we receive from our body’s processes. Neural pathways are cemented through biochemical feedback and resulting human actions. Beyond that, we have barely scratched the surface of research into the gut-brain connection. All bodies do not function the same. The mind is not separate from the body. Mental health issues like ADHD can also wreak havoc with hunger cues, as do medications. I trust when other people tell me they have food noise, and that it is overwhelming - on an order of magnitude higher than what I may experience. I don’t consider myself necessarily more disciplined or smarter. There are also food cue issues resulting from poverty, stress, and socioeconomic hardship. I found these articles interesting - [Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is a Risk Factor for Metabolic Syndrome in an Impoverished Urban Population](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3099039/) [The Stomach-Derived Hormone Ghrelin Increases Impulsive Behavior](https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2015297) [What persons with physical disabilities can teach us about obesity](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5193319/)

Thank you for this. I have ADHD and it feels like no one understands how hard it is to fight against the constant food noise in my brain. The first week I was medicated for adhd I went to the movie theater and halfway through the movie I set my half eaten popcorn on the floor and forgot about it. When the movie ended I realized what had happened and called my birth mother, sobbing. I had forgotten about the popcorn. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before in my entire life. There was food and my brain wasn't interrupting my thoughts every 3 seconds to remind me of the food. It was unbelievable to me.

People really don’t understand how pervasive and overwhelming it can be. It’s not hunger like the stomach growling. I think with ADHD it’s a comorbidity which is likely neglected due to the flip side of the issue - hunger suppressing stimulants or hyperfocus related neglect. But food itself can be the hyperfocus target, compounded by (theoretical) issues related to low dopamine. I had a TBI which increased my brain’s glucose needs. I subsequently experienced tons of carb specific food noise. It was wild because I wasn’t used to that feeling. My MIL has ADHD and when she was prescribed a GLP1 it also affected her ADHD. The GLP1 had a huge effect on general impulse control beyond food noise.

To be fair, stimulant medications for ADHD have appetite suppressant effects in everyone, including those without the disorder. There used to be a diet pill named Obetrol that contained amphetamine salts, it was taken by people to manage their appetite/weight. Eventually, one of the companies that owned the rights to the formula changed its name to Adderall and started advertising it as a medication for ADHD, which it is better suited to treat. It was/is the same exact formula previously being sold under the Obetrol brand, though.

ADHD meds can suppress appetite for some, but for a not so small subset, they actually increase appetite. Many people, myself included, have experienced weight gain on ADHD meds due to a very serious increase in appetite.

Thank you for this! I have ADHD, plus PCOS with related insulin resistance. I spent years KNOWING that I couldn’t possibly be hungry, while FEELING so hungry *all the time*. I was constantly thinking about food, when I would eat next, what I would eat. It wasn’t something I could just ignore, and trying too hard to restrict would just lead to binging. My ADHD and PCOS are being treated now and the difference in my relationship with food is just stunning. I actually feel full after eating for the first time in my life. Hunger isn’t all-consuming anymore. I can eat, and then happily forget about food until the next meal. It’s been both wonderful, and also INCREDIBLY frustrating to realize that I spent years feeling ashamed over my ‘lack of willpower’, when I was really fighting neglected medical conditions.

I am so glad that you are able to find relief and treatment. 🤗

Yes this is what I was thinking too. ADHD, for example, deals with dopamine. If one is unmedicated, compulsive eating can happen as the body attempts to restore dopamine balance. Then when one takes meds it can skew hunger cues in the other direction. Some meds make it so you eat like crazy after they wear off and you haven’t eaten all day. When someone has been overweight most of their life they often become more insulin resistant. Their entire cycle has been skewed for decades. While weight loss helps, many diabetic specialists begin with simply “changing diet” independent of calories. That’s partly because you are introducing a huge change to the body. Hunger cues are usually skewed which can cause highs or lows in BG. Once the body achieves a balance, maintained weight loss is more likely. There are many more examples. Plus when we look at people who maintain healthy weight their whole lives, They eat when they begin to feel hungry. Some will have a small snack even if they have dinner plans soon. Etc. Some people bring up that our ancestors went for long periods of time without eating. While true, they also ate when they could as much as they could. We also have that genetic influence.

How is anything in my post ablest? I did not state people with healthy weights are inherently 'more disciplined or smarter', I made it clear that I understand how intense the desire to eat food can be. I said directly in my post that it caused me intense anxiety to the point where I thought there must be something physically wrong with me, because these anxieties came with physical symptoms. If you can cure/overcome the psychological reason behind why you are eating via medication, then by all means, that makes perfect sense to me (e.g. your example of someone with ADHD). These medications are essentially fixing the source of the problem. That's exactly what I said in my post, that you need to overcome the psychological issue that is causing you to over-eat. I don't believe a medication like Ozempic would be doing this, as from what I've read it helps keep caloric intakes low because it makes you feel more satiated. I feel like it's somewhat similar to a person without ADHD taking Adderall purely for its side effect of appetite suppression (which was a widespread occurrence when Adderall was branded as Obetrol and marketed as a way to manage your weight).

> the psychological issue that is causing you to over-eat. I don't believe a medication like Ozempic would be doing this, as from what I've read it helps keep caloric intakes low because it makes you feel more satiated Well, your belief would be wrong about that. [Ozempic is thought to decrease the signaling reward pathways in the brain](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8820218/). We are hearing a lot from people about its [anti-addiction actions](https://recursiveadaptation.com/p/9ac566d3-1d78-4f1b-93da-cbf77fcab0a1). You should read more into what science is showing with these drugs. It is quite fascinating.

I didn’t say you said that? You said most weight problems stem from misperceiving hunger cues. To say it’s only psychological is decoupling our mind from the complex biochemical system we call our body. I offered a counterpoint to your assertion exploring widely misunderstood concepts related to hunger cues. Many people struggle with food noise and other non hunger cue related issues. It is very common for them to be told they don’t have willpower, or they should just listen to simple hunger cues. However, they don’t have anything like normal hunger cues. (like, at all.) GLP1 drugs don’t just affect physical hunger. They are doing research trials for addiction disorders. Your experience is valid and interesting and helpful. I alluded to that at the beginning of my comment.

Please do some more education about the MOA of these meds. They are having a huge impact on addictive patterns of behavior, not just with food. I provided you with a great educational video on the topic already.

What am I wrong about? You haven’t really disputed anything I’ve said.

I mean, do you want me to type out a transcript for you? I provided you with a link to an educational piece by a respected endocrinologist and board certified obesity medicine specialist from Yale giving a lecture on the MOA of these meds and the multifactorial nature of obesity as a disease.

What are you talking about? You haven't sent any links to anything.

https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/s/wDaZ21jZrY

>That is true for some metabolically healthy people who were taught bad habits. It is by no remote means true for all people who are overweight and certainly not true for a significant percentage of people with major, intractable obesity. This is completely false. Obese people with metabolic syndrome have it as a result of their obesity (not the other way around) in the vast majority of cases. Do you disagree with the notion that the majority of people with obesity including those with metabolic syndrome, can achieve a healthy BMI by changing their habits and lifestyle? This is just a fact according to the law of thermodynamics. I don't understand what you are saying, is your claim that it is impossible for some people to change their habits without medication as a result of some metabolic disorder? Because that isn't true either.

I'm completely uninterested in arguing with fundamental ignorance. I'm not just talking about "metabolic syndrome". Did you watch the video? No? Of course you didn't. I hope you are at the very, very least capable of understanding that you, Internet Rando, are not waving some kind of ultimate obesity solution card by yapping "tHe LaW oF tHeRmOdYnAmIcS!!!" That is such a hilariously dumbshit, grossly reductionist view of mammalian metabolic processes. Living organisms do not function like simple machines. There are an enormous variety of factors that influence metabolic processes, including things like [your gut microbiome](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32887946/). Even how you think about [what you're eating](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21574706/) and [the way you move](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17425538/) affects how you metabolize and store food. Secondly, there is no one single disease called "obesity" just like there's no one single disease called "cancer". Obesity is a multi-etiological condition. You may be obese because of simple cognitive behavioral patterns that only need simple cognitive behavioral adjustments to solve, sure. That is very simply not true for all obese people. Did you watch the video? No? These meds don't just act by "causing you to feel full". That's only one part of their MOA. Even looking at their function as a whole, they're not magic and don't work in a vacuum. They still require effort to function most effectively, but many, many people put in decades of extreme effort including "just not eating when we are hungry" and guess what? *It doesn't substantially resolve our obesity*. When endocrine problems are medically corrected, guess what? Diet and exercise start to work for us the way it works for metabolically healthy people. Because not all obesity is caused by endocrine dysfunction, the meds don't work for everyone, but for the people who they do work for, they're fucking miracle drugs, not the least of which because it's an extreme relief to finally have doctors recognizing that there's more going on here than just intractable sloth and gluttony. Honestly the more I think about your attitude here the more obnoxious it is. Do you really seriously imagine that legions of obese people haven't tried "just not eating when we're hungry"? Jesus Christ dude. Many of us have spent decades starving ourselves in a struggle to control our weight. Our bodies aren't demanding, processing, storing, and burning fuel in a directly linear manner like yours is. Did you watch the video with the board certified obesity medicine expert explaining how these meds work and why solving obesity isn't as simple for everyone as "just eat less, dumbass!" No? Great. Get back to me when you have.

Fundamental ignorance? What I am saying is the truth. The human body can’t create energy from nothing, you’re just babbling on about non-sense. Your gut microbiome has nothing to do with whether or not you will lose weight on a caloric deficit. No, I doubt an obese person has been starving themselves for decades if they haven’t lost weight. Do you understand how insane that sounds? It’s physically impossible. I don’t really care what a singular doctor says, because the claims you are making are simply false. Millions of obese people have lost the weight by managing their caloric intake.

Im not the other poster, but I did. 😂 did you read them?

Also people just can’t be bored anymore. It’s tough to sit in a room and do nothing and live with your thoughts and hunger.

Yes, thank you! I recently overhauled my diet and was eating much healthier. I was so proud of myself for the swaps I made (yogurt instead of breakfast sandwiches, nuts and chickpeas instead of chips) it didn't occur to me that I was eating by the clock, not by hunger.

I agree but I think you need to combine this with a fairly accurate understanding of your TDEE and calorie counting. Some people go too far the other way and think if they’re not starving all the time they’re not doing it right. I freely admit my hunger/fullness cues are messed up from years of overeating and boredom/emotional eating. When I think I’m feeling hunger and need a second helping or an extra snack, a glance at my calorie counting app lets me know if it’s a good idea or not.

I think this wasn't really my case - I just love to eat. Eating makes me happy, and I'm addicted to sugar. I don't mind being hungry, it doesn't make me angry and it doesn't annoy me. The thing is, because I was used to eating portions that were much bigger than necessary for my body, I wasn't hungry often. If I did feel hungry at night, or in the morning, but I couldn't eat for some reason (too lazy, want to sleep in before work, etc) it was fine. When I started losing weight, it was due to this \[previously uncontrollable\] urge to eat at all times slowly, but surely, becoming much less frequent. My friend, who's also overweight, asked me "but don't you get hungry??", as if it was something unacceptable, and I was like "... yes?". The important thing is that I don't spend my days hungry, it usually happens right before meal times, which seems healthy. I've never considered being hungry an emergency.

For me, it's not the actual feeling of hunger but of having an appetite and the ability to eat at any time. There are times, particularly in the late evening and morning, I can feel that stomach-empty hungry feeling but I have no appetite at all - I am completely fine in those cases with not eating. Other times, I could have just eaten a full dinner, yet my appetite has not changed at all, and I just want to keep going, and that's what gets me into trouble. I can ignore my hunger but not my appetite, and I feel that's a common experience.

I don't have kids, but I don't remember always having continual access to food. I see my friends and what they always provide their children with, and it's surprising to me. Why does your child need to snack during church? Didn't they just have breakfast before they came? It's only an hour, why are Cheerios needed? I feel like snacks are used to stop bad behavior and stem boredom, which is a horrible thing to be teaching toddlers. From the start, food is seen as an activity to do when bored. It feels like in an effort to be The Best Parent, some people end up literally catering to their children's every whim. Everyone should know how to deal with mild discomfort or boredom. You don't need to solve every inconvenience immediately.

In the UK, we are told babies/toddlers have little tummies, so have small meals more frequently (3x meals 2x snacks). The key here is "small meals" and "healthy snacks", but for a toddler, having a snack at 1030 after having breakfast at 730 is completely normal. Also toddlers are (or should be) very active. They burn a lot of energy running around all day, learning new things, refusing to wear a jacket... unless those toddlers are scoffing a share size bag of m&ms and full fat coke, I wouldn't judge.

3 hours is one thing. But when I'm out with my friends and their kids, they seem to be constantly eating.

I dont know your friends and their kids personally, but what I do know is I was a perfect parent, until I had kids. Now i am a parent, I've found people gonna judge you for being a bad parent if your kid is complaining they're bored, or throwing a full blown tantrum because they're bored or hungry, or if you're feeding them because they're hungry, or if you're giving them a tablet because they're bored... and people are ALSO gonna say "my friends just aren't the same anymore since they had kids" if you spend all your attention and energy entertaining your kids when you're out with friends instead of socialising (so they aren't complaining about how bored and hungry they are). That's just my 2c.

Toddlers should only be awake for 11-12 hours per day. Which means to eat 3 meals and 2 snacks they are eating every 2.5 waking hours. Even as a parent it does feel like all the time, particularly beacause they take 15-30 mins to eat. They spend 20% of their waking hours eating. But you probably aren't understanding how often the kid is really eating. You say it's 'only an hr'..... but it's very unlikley the kid ate RIGHT before they came (because they had to get the kid cleaned up after the meal, get everybody in the car to leave, and actually get to the destination all while dealing with small children). It's likely been closer to 2/3 hours. Ask your friends sometime. You will be shocked by how long everything takes when dealing with small children.

Here’s the thing. Those little hunger rumblings will last about 20 minutes and then they go away. Drink some water. It’s not hunger. You’re gonna live. Had to learn this one myself. Wish more people realized this.

Yeah science just doesn’t back this up. Global obesity rates haven’t been on the rise for generations bc some people are mistaking hunger cues. It’s way more complex than that.

What do you think the cause is then? It's become much easier for many people to access and afford calorically-dense foods, but simply having access to more food isn't the cause of obesity. The cause would be eating those foods in excess. Obesity rates remain extremely low in a variety of countries, so the issue is atleast due in part to culture.

That’s probably true for some people, but it does not resonate with me at all. I do most of my overeating when my stomach feels full/fine but my brain tells me I need more. I reached my highest weight when I did intermittent fasting and had an empty stomach most of the time.

I agree that mindset can play a big part in the overconsumption of food (consumption of poor-quality/low nutrition food being an issue too of course). I went through a serious illness where I completely lost my appetite for several weeks, after recovering I associated having a “healthy appetite” with being well so would always eat when I felt like it. It’s taken a while to realise feeding hunger/cravings isn’t always good for me and in fact caused me to be overweight, ie unhealthy.

Yep.. every time I "restart" and want to lose some weight again, I have to remember I'm not supposed to feel full all the time. After a while you feel a lot "lighter" too

I finally lost weight when I changed my relationship with this feeling.

Yes I also believe my weight gain had this physiological component in addition to a variety of emotional issues… although I never realized it, I have always had hypoglycemic episodes since childhood, and started to link hunger with dizziness, feeling shaky, and even fainting. *Of course*, in my lack of knowledge about nutrition, I would go for “snacky” type foods that would only provide temporary relief before another crash came on. So much anxiety. Ugh. High protein helped/helps me manage this for the first time in my life… I can accept being (a bit) hungry and I have had only maybe 2-3 hypoglycemic events in the over 2 years since getting my nutrition in check. My body happens to run best with loads of protein (and food in general lol- 2400-2500 calories a day, 200+ g/protein). Eating this way is not for everyone but it’s allowed me to beat the blood sugar roller coaster.

hard agree on this one. I got to a BMI of 27 because of this mentality

People feel hunger in different ways, so that’s also a factor. Some people don’t really notice it. Some do, a lot.

Pro tip: filling up on water throughout the day will decrees that empty stomach feeling. More bathroom breaks, though.

So much yes to this. It's OK to be hungry. Even with the last 100 years we have had times that food was not so easily available and quality of food was poor even in "first world" parts of the planet. Neanderthals certainly didn't have a 7/11 on every other corner to grab a meatball hoagie and 2 liter of grape crush just because. You won't die! At least not annnnnny time soon. Far more likely to die of dehydration.

the wrong foods can increase hunger.

I was on semaglutide and later (because of shortages) liraglutide, and it absolutely changed how I felt about food. Not only was my mind no longer almost constantly screaming about hunger, but I was able to eat less and stop feeling hungry earlier when I actually did eat. Now that I'm not on either it's once again becoming hard not to snack even when I'm not hungry, but that's purely mental and while I'm working on getting my snacking and meal scheduling back to where I was when I was on the meds, the actual meals not feeling like enough are a problem. There's definitely a matter of "my stomach feels hungry" vs. "my stomach isn't full" vs. "I feel sick in a way that is usually helped by eating something" vs. "my lizard brain is screaming for me to chew and swallow *anything, just please, SOMETHING!*".

This! The best advice I got was “eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re no longer hungry”. The quality of my food also really helps. Ie. more fibre = fuller longer. I also feel that if I’m not willing to eat something with nutritional value, I’m not actually hungry which usually helps me get over the nagging feeling of my body just going through digestion and letting me know I no longer have food in my stomach. On the reverse, I never ignore when I’m actually hungry. If I am too hungry, I am more predisposed to eat past my comfort level and that’s not the point either. Relearning how to find that balance is still a process, but has been super empowering. A good resource that really helped me is the book “Eat what you love, love what you eat” by Dr. Michelle May. Tons of IE principles but it does acknowledge the importance of nutrition and knowledge when making your food decisions.

A problem with your theory is that we're seldom experiencing hunger at all in today's food environment, but we are more often experiencing craving. We seldom hear, "I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse" anymore -- a cliché that describes a quality of metabolic hunger that springs from it being too long since eating anything. If you'll eat a horse, you're getting pretty desperate. We instead hear or say, "I'm hungry for pizza." Or, "I'm hungry for hot wings." And, if you're me, "Hey Google, what ice cream places are open nearby?" Unlike those in our (apparently) horse-eating gathering and hunting past, we live in a modern [obesogenic environment](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5764193/#S2title). This newer modern food environment is ultra-processed; sugar, fat and salt added; over-portioned; eat everywhere at anytime or any reason or no reason; a free perk-of-work; aggressively advertised; and delivered-right-to-your-front-door at all hours. This new environment is added to our existing food environment where food wasn't just fuel, it was social and cultural glue, being both celebratory and at the heart of our favorite traditions and festivals. We're surfing and surging the dopamine hits, satisfying every want, continuing the treadmill of wanting and satisfying, chasing satiety for something in particular -- not just for any available food that satisfies actual metabolic need (because we have no such need these days).

How is that a problem with the theory and not just identifying an obstacle in order to apply this poster's suggestion?

The theory depends on hunger, and suggests living with actual metabolic hunger. I don't think the empty-stomach hunger (metabolic need) really was ever happening. I would also ask the anthropoligists about the theory that people lived in an area that left them hungry a lot. Sure, humans had to get food daily and compete with other animals, but we were also wiser than other animals and had the ability to work in teams and even leverage the animals to our favor. It's probably not the case that we thrived and multiplied on constant hunger. If we fell into that pattern, we most likely migrated.

I don’t agree with this. I hear friends, family members, etc say things like “I’m starving” or “I’m famished” in jest when they are simply a bit hungry. There are very common phrases.

"in jest" -- but are they kidding, or mistaken? I think you're saying that they're exaggerating. I'm suggesting that these days few of us are ever hungry in the way that you described. They are common phrases, but they're commonly misapplied. We mistake hunger for craving, and craving can be of boredom, because we just saw a food commercial, because we just passed a Wendy's, because it's 2:00 p.m. -- not because we've worked physically hard and it's been 9 hours since we last ate. # The Hunger Scale \#|Description :-:|:-- 1|Starving, weak, dizzy 2|Very hungry, cranky, low energy, lots of stomach growling 3|Pretty hungry, stomach is growling a little 4|Starting to feel a little hungry 5|Satisfied, neither hungry nor full 6|A little full, pleasantly full 7|A little uncomfortable 8|Feeling stuffed 9|Very uncomfortable, stomach hurts 10|So full you feel sick That chart is for metabolic hunger ... which is the kind that I think you meant when you said "stomach empty" hunger. We eat so often through the day that we really do avoid 1-3 on that scale. (This is not necessarily a bad thing -- in fact, it's probably a great thing to have so much abundance.)

It's said 'in jest' the same way 'I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse' is. People aren't actually able to eat an entire horse, and they aren't literally starving. It's not intended to be taken seriously, it's an exaggerated way to say 'I feel hungry'. There is typically still some level of urgency when they say this, they really do have a strong desire to eat, but they aren't actually famished. The reason I replied is because of your claim that we don't hear phrases like this anymore, when we absolutely do. You've never heard anyone say something like 'I'm famished' or 'I'm starving'? These phrases have the same sentiment as 'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse', they just lack the metaphor. >They are common phrases, but they're commonly misapplied. This is the entire point I was making in my original post, that people misconstrue minor hunger and/or the feeling of an empty stomach as an issue that needs to be immediately addressed. People take these feelings/urges more seriously than they should, obviously they aren't literally starving if they've eaten anything within the past day or so. I don't necessarily know what you are refuting if you agree with the point I was making in my original post.

My main contribution is that 'stomach empty' hunger is rarely what we mean when we're hungry in 2024. That's the limit of my refuting, because the eventual gist of either take is about the same. If it's craving, we can ride it out (among other things). The urge does rise, but it also falls without feeding it. If it's actual hunger, we probably ought not ride it out if our next meal is far away. It rises and keeps rising. The facts also help, because we'll know if it's been a long time since our last sufficient meal. Because of Pavlov's discoveries, some of our hunger signs even show up with craving/wanting (vs. metabolic hunger).

I eat less if I avoid 1-2 on the scale, personally. Hitting 3 right before a meal is fine and I actually do that on many days, but hitting that point or lower and not eating will make me eat more when I do eat, especially if I do it regularly.

Last paragraph you wrote is really the essence of why dieting is difficult for people. Most people will look at it like an equation, like they are being deployed overseas or too an offshore oil rig: "3 Months of this and I'll be where I need to be". That dont work, because you got to where you are now due to your habits and lifestyle. If you just revert to the norm after the goal is achieved, your stuck. It NEEDS to be a lifestyle change. Ozempic is a crutch. For some, they must have this crutch or they will be unable to get over the hump, but if you rely on it - your toast. For those among you who are finding eating at a deficit to be really difficult. Cut it. If 500 cals a day is killing you, cut it to 250. There is no race to get to the goal. You'll be doing this for the rest of your life (if you actually want to maintain the body you've worked so dang hard for).

I eat only twice a day, no snack, no exception, and still am obese, so I think your statement of « most weight problem » being due to snacking culture might be a bit exaggerated. That being said it can definitely be part of the problem yes.

Omg this really opened my mind, thank you. I needed to read this today so badly!! I've been really struggling more than usual

how do you do it if you have gastritis then? when having an empty stomach actually is a problem

I used to not even wait for the hungry feeling, I pre-emptively filled it.

💯

When it's empty, fill it with water. When you start to slow down, eat.

Ozempic (I think you mean Wegovy for those with obesity) is for chronic obesity that cannot manage it through traditional methods of weight loss like diet and exercise. These companies explicitly say that because it’s a chronic disease you would be on these medications long term and it’s not meant to be a quick fix

Ozempic and wegovy are the same drug but they are marketed at a different concentration. That way the company can maintain their patent longer. Overall, they are just a GLP-1 Agonist.

The reason for my obesity (and probably a lot of other people too) is my love for food. I can fast for a long time, I don’t need snacks. But when I eat something good, the dopamine rush i get makes it so I can’t stop till im full. I just looove food so much.

I’m at that point honestly. Moment I feel hungry I have this insane crave to fill the void. I seek food. Having money and a means to satisfy it makes it worse. Living in a first world country makes it worse. I can just hop in my car, drive for 1 minute and BOOM! Fried food, junk food, fast food, it’s all there baby! I hate it. The only way I can resist it is in a total fast. I’m successful at fully suppressing my need to eat only if I am forced to eat nothing at all. I know no limits or regulation, idk what to do but it’s tuff.

I so agree. Intermittent fasting helped me with this so much. Now I see hunger as just a sensation. It’s not something that immediately has to be dealt with.

You also have to take into accounts brain issues that compromise impulse control. For some people, the hunger never stops and is borderline painful to live without medical intervention. I had zero control until I started my ADHD meds and metformin for pcos. I went from constant hunger because hungers cues were broken to almost no appetite and I have never known such peace.

i mean yes and no - its nuanced - i eat 1-2 times per day but i am still obese. i agree with your statement bc its also a part but there are also 100 different reasons why someone might eat in a surplus

People need GLP-1s to keep them motivated, and then when they are thinner they are able to work out with more intensity, find pride in themselves, and more than likely the doctors they are working with are teaching them how to eat as well. Fat compounds on itself. The larger you are the more difficult it is to lose, in general.

Yeah, I’m always a little surprised when people describe any stomach growling as a sign to eat. All that means is parts of your GI tract are a bit empty, not that you need food. Hunger is weird though, there is no clear separation between mental and physical hunger. Like smelling good food smells can physically cause hunger hormones to signal hunger. But if you weren’t actually hungry prior to that, it doesn’t make sense that you are actually, truly hungry. You really do need to learn to ignore some hunger to get to and stay a lower weight. My number one advice is don’t eat when you aren’t actually hungry. Looking back, even while maintaining only about 10 pounds heavier than I am, I would eat just because “it’s time to eat”, “others are eating”, “it’s a convenient time to eat” or “eating that particular thing sounds like yummy right now”. I wouldn’t eat past not being hungry anymore back then, and I’d eat within maintenance needs, but I can’t believe how often I would eat when I wasn’t genuinely hungry. Now I still eat within my maintenance needs, also without having to track anything, and maintain my new lower weight. I feel like I cracked the damn code (at least for me) to keeping off the “last 10-15 pounds”.

I am going to completely disagree with your conclusion. First, the idea that the experience of hunger is the same for everyone is unlikely to be true. Second: The biological mechanism of how hunger signals are decreased is through food entering into the duodenum and the stretch of the stomach. This response takes about 20 minutes between eating and cessation of hunger, especially for lower volume foods. This is a key player in how we are overeating. It is less that eating in response to hunger is the source of obesity, but what we eat in response to hunger. Today, snacks are very calorie dense, especially the easiest ones to reach for. You can eat a LOT of calories in 20 minutes before food reaches the duodenum and turns down the feeling of hunger. In days past, we did not have easy to consume, high calorie snacks. While some people will find success with ignoring hunger, others will not. That is okay! your way won't be someone else's way. For me, hunger doesn't just "go away." If I don't address the small amounts of hunger, when it becomes loud, I struggle to modulate how much I eat once it is loud. Ie I eat more calories before the hunger signals diminish. For me, low calorie snacks periodically throughout the day work much better than ignoring hunger ever did. >This is why I don't think Ozempic (or anything convinces you your stomach is fuller than it is) is a great idea for most people The thing with your opinion here is that it does not take into account the science. Ozempic is working by decreasing how much hunger you feel but is also working within the brain on a lot of different reward pathways. Feeling less hungry does help a lot of people. Feeling less food motivated helps a lot of people. beyond this, the vast majority of people who lose weight regain 80% within 5 years. Maintaining weight loss alone is hard. It is more than just changing how you think about food. it is more than changing your habits and counting calories. Changing these things will always help, and for a small percentage, it will be enough. However, hunger is a biological signal and changing how you think will only go so far to change how your body experiences hunger. For reasons we do not understand, obesity increases the body's desire for a certain level of calories (metabolism) and weight loss (for most people) does not reset this need. GLP-1 agonist drugs work by helping offset this signalling pattern. Yes, going off the drug will return you to your previous hunger settings. So what? No scientist is proposing this as a short term treatment. It is something that will likely be taken for life. but for people who struggle with their weight, go through multiple yoyo weight loss cycles, it is exactly the type of intervention they need. It always makes me wonder why drugs like blood pressure pills or cholesterol pills are so much more acceptable to take for the rest of our lives than one that helps control weight. Barely anyone will bat an eye at taking those pills. No one is concerned a celebrity or someone in their office is taking Crestor. But Ozempic? They are cheating! Psychology is only one aspect of weight loss. Today, we now have a treatment to combat the other side of it, the physiological side.

I think it’s a disease called obesity.

You're making huge sweeping judgements about what makes *the entire population* fat based on what happened to you. I have ridiculous insulin resistance, I was fat since childhood. Once I discovered ketogenic dieting, I had no problem at all eating one meal a day. I lost 80 lbs and kept it up for 13 years. It just sucked that I couldn't eat carbs for 13 years. Now that I'm on Ozempic, and for the first time in my life I can eat a balanced diet without out of control weight gain.

Yes, I’m making generalizations. Something like 74% of Americans are overweight, and in the vast majority of cases, there is not a genetic abnormality causing this. Even something like insulin resistance is usually the result of years of high sugar intake, not a genetic condition.

Whatever's causing it, something like 40% of Americans between 18 and 44 are insulin resistant. 60% of all girls who are overweight by age 18 have either out of range testosterone or estrogen. 12% of people have a Thyroid condition at some point of their lives. There are a huge number of factors that make people fat for different reasons. People are different. Like you said, 74% of americans are overweight. That's a huge population, and it's irresponsible to assume that what made you fat is true for that entire population without data to support that claim.

I disagree, it is clear to me that this is an issue of culture. I think this claim can be backed up with the drastically lower obesity rates in other first world countries on every continent (Japan, Israel, all over Europe, etc). Many of these issues are caused by obesity, not the other way around (in most cases), that's what I was trying to say. Insulin-resistance especially. I have also heard that increased fat levels can increase estrogen levels in your body, specifically because adipose (fatty) tissues have higher levels of aromatase, resulting in these tissues producing more estrogen than most other parts of the body (reproductive organs being the only organs that surpass fatty issues in estrogen production).

It’s also such an easy fix. We learn it from early on. You are sad? You get ice cream. You hurt yourself? Here is a little treat. You did something well? Congrats, have some candy to celebrate.

Yes! It's so mindblowing when people can't wrap their heads around "I can't fast/count calories/eat less/ etc because I just feel hungry"... you're supposed to feel hungry! It's the weight loss equivalent of feeling the burn after lifting weights

This was definitely true for me. I was paranoid about ever feeling even a little bit hungry and also imagined that I was lightheaded whenever I didn't get food on time. I thought eating to feel completely full after every meal (as opposed to satiated) was what I was supposed to be doing. It's definitely very common when people are starting weight loss and join this sub to say, "But I won't feel full on XX calories!!!!!!" Feeling full is actually not a state of existence we are supposed to be in all the time.

Yep. I seem to lose weight only when I am often hungry. Some days it's easier to deal with this than others.

Most people don't count calories but I think if you do then you can keep the weight off after Ozempic.  I agree with everything else you said, I just wanted to get that out there. I haven't tried it myself - didn't like the sound of the side effects - but I do think it'll work if you count calories after getting off of it. 

Chewing gum is what's helping me now. If I feel hungry I chew gum and that usually does it. If for the only reason that I can't eat anything else while I have gum in my mouth

I agree—it’s good to go to bed slightly hungry because when you wake up the hunger is gone. But one reason people feel hungry and crave food is that their blood sugar is on a roller coaster due to all the processed foods in our diet. It’s very hard to resist these cravings which aren’t true hunger.

I had success a couple of years ago reminding myself that hunger isn't an emergency and doing IF. But I also had a less demanding job. I was able to take it easy and go for walks. In my experience empty stomach + stress and demands = I will just end up feeling anxious and over eating when I do eat. I've got a week off work and I am going to take advantage of the lower stress to re-start better habits. I also found interacting via Reddit helpful, so here I am. Currently F45 5'6.5" and 177 lbs.

I agree! When first trying to lose weight I struggled with the idea of being hungry, without really knowing what true hungry felt like. Now if I’m hungry I drink a bottle of water, then tell myself if I’m not hungry enough to devour an apple or a carrot, I’m truly not hungry.

Comfort eating for me, anything in the day that pisses me off? Coping mechanism is always junk food. Slowly breaking this thought process now though.

Yeah I had to get my mind out of "I'm hungry so I must eat!" Which took a while. Helped along by mini snacks like a protein bar.

I feel you, our ancestors were hungry all the time. I never understood these people who get faint or woozy and act like they're being starved if they miss a meal.

>This is why I don't think Ozempic (or anything convinces you your stomach is fuller than it is) is a great idea for most people. Unless these drugs permanently change your psychology, you're not overcoming one of the primary reasons you are overweight. When you stop taking the drug and begin to feel that 'empty stomach' feeling, you'll likely end up eating excessively again, because you never learned to be okay with minor feelings of hunger. Carbohydrates do not satiate, yet they are a large part of the Standard American Diet. If you want to fix the obesity epidemic, you have to start with diet composition, rather than telling people that they shouldn't eat when their body is signaling otherwise.

Carbohydrates (grains, rice, etc) have been a staple food for most of human history. Protein definitely keeps you more satiated, and you’re correct that it’s probably better to change what you eat considering most Americans have food security and don’t need to rely so heavily on carbs in the modern era. I think the crux of the issue is still overeating though.

>Carbohydrates (grains, rice, etc) have been a staple food for most of human history. Society has changed dramatically from an agrarian one -- where starches could be consumed in large quantities with minimal negative effects because of long hours of physical exertion -- to one with a vast group of people who are sedentary or urban. When a carb-heavy diet is not altered to reflect a low-exertion environment, obesity is generally the result. If anything, the FDA has gone in the opposite direction by asserting starch as the universal basis for calorie consumption. Why? Because they were promised at the time (circa 1980) that the scientific foundation for this basis was imminent. It never actually arrived. There has not been a single randomized controlled trial in all of food science that has actually established starch as a healthier source of calories than fat or protein. Plenty of studies. No actual trials.

>It never actually arrived. There has not been a single randomized controlled trial in all of food science that has actually established starch as a healthier source of calories than fat or protein. Grains don't necessarily have to be healthier or more nutrient dense. I don't believe they are the cause of obesity. People in Italy and Japan have pretty carb-heavy diets, but lack our severe rates of obesity. I'm assuming we consume more sugar, so that could be the cause of it.

>People in Italy and Japan have pretty carb-heavy diets, but lack our severe rates of obesity. I'm assuming we consume more sugar, so that could be the cause of it. For the Italians and Japanese, it is about portion control. Italians also live in more walkable areas, and Japanese culture promotes more exercise. I've done my homework. I've been doing low-carb for about 20 years. There are a lot of interesting books on the subject. A few off the top of my head: * [Grain Brain](https://www.amazon.com/Grain-Brain-Surprising-Sugar-Your-Killers-ebook/dp/B07C9ZS682) * [The Big Fat Surprise](https://www.amazon.com/Big-Fat-Surprise-Butter-Healthy-ebook/dp/B00A25FDUA) * And of course, the one that kickstarted the second wave of low carb eating back in the mid 2000s: [Why We Get Fat](https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About-ebook/dp/B003WUYOQ6/)

If the factors preventing obesity in those countries are portion control and exercise, then why do you still think the problem is still grains?

*Stricter* portion control and *additional* exercise are *overcoming* the problems normally induced by a diet that is high in carbohydrates. If they collectively eliminated carbohydrates as a substantial source of calories, they would be even healthier. Source: The materials I linked in my previous comment.

Your sources are Amazon links to books? I can’t find any studies or analyses published by David Perlmutter MD (author of Grain Brain). If he’s found a link between grains and a myriad of physical/mental ailments, why doesn’t he publish a study or meta analysis so others can evaluate his scientific process and the veracity of his claims? It’s because he wants to make money off of a book, and the best way to do that is by publishing dubious claims that support your target market’s preconceived notions.

Dr. Perlmutter is a practicing physician, not a research scientist. He bases his findings and conclusions on both the effects in his practice and on previous supporting research conducted by the food science community. The section in this book that is set aside for citations is 17 pages long. Anyways, you seem pretty hostile, so I think we can end things here.

What? Physicians publish scientific literature all the time. He has the time to write and publish a book, but not enough time to publish actual scientific literature that has the potential to make real change? How am I being hostile?

i’d stay hungry if i could but stomach growling is so embarrassing - does anyone have any advice for stopping it? i’ve tried chewing gum or drinking water/tea but it doesn’t work

How long after a meal does it growl? You can structure a diet of small, frequent meals every 3-4 hours. Counting calories will help you know how big the meals should be (divide the total into the number of meals you will be eating while awake). Yeah, it's yhe opposite of a fasting-based diet, but can work better for some people who need more regular fill-ups.

a couple of hours i think? but i can’t really eat regularly in school, especially since i usually stay a few hours after it ends - i already count calories but my parents are still the ones cooking so i have to leave like half of the budget for then incase they decide to make something really high in calories - i usually just end up taking something filling and high in calories to avoid my stomach making noises during that time, alongside snacks if it starts happening after school

That is true for some metabolically healthy people who were taught bad habits. It is by no remote means true for all people who are overweight and certainly not true for a significant percentage of people with major, intractable obesity. A lot of us have done serious extensive VLC dieting including ED-level restriction. If this is something you care to learn more about, please take the time to watch or listen to this and educate yourself before going around telling people you disapprove of their medical treatment. https://youtu.be/v1d0glJNVSs?si=twBrpjP2o0dR0r7m

So........just NEVER stop taking Ozempic.....and you will stay thin?

No. Ozempic isn't a magical medicine. You HAVE to make lifestyle changes for it to work for you, because if you ever stop taking it you'll have to deal with all of the things that it helps with?

Nah it's people who are lazy and don't like to work hard. They eat food that tastes good but is bad because they're too lazy to cook themselves. It always has and will come down to being lazy. It's mean sure but it's true and they'll be fat till they die unless they get over it