I want to eat all the time: 7 reasons

Sometimes emotions, hormonal characteristics, or an unbalanced diet can hide behind the feeling of hunger. Let’s look at the most common causes of hunger.

1. You eat a lot of sweets and fast carbohydrates.

Chocolate bar, muffin, cookies are the easiest ways to satisfy your hunger. That’s just for a long time this “refueling” is not enough. Sugar and fast carbohydrates rapidly raise blood glucose levels, provide energy for a short period, but burn out just as quickly. Sugar levels drop, and you again experience hunger, which, most likely, will satisfy the next dessert.

Decision: switch to balanced meals rich in fats, proteins and complex carbohydrates. Try to start the day with a hearty breakfast, then you will not want to eat until lunch. As a snack, choose nuts, seeds, fiber-rich vegetables, yogurt, cheese, avocados. Do not be afraid of fatty foods, they give a long feeling of satiety.

2. You stay up late

During sleep, the hormones leptin and ghrelin are produced, which control feelings of satiety and hunger. So, leptin sends a satiety signal to the brain. Ghrelin, on the contrary, informs about the feeling of hunger. If you don’t get enough sleep, your leptin levels drop and you don’t feel like you’ve eaten enough. In response, ghrelin synthesis is enhanced. As a result, you eat more and still very soon begin to experience hunger. The more lack of sleep, the stronger the appetite.

Decision: go to bed no later than 23:00 and sleep at least 7-8 hours. Remove everything that interferes with normal rest. Hang blackout curtains or blinds on windows. Turn off all gadgets an hour before bed.

3. You abuse coffee and alcohol

Caffeine and alcohol stimulate appetite, causing you to eat more than you need. Alcohol also relaxes and dulls the sense of control. After a couple of glasses, you forget that you do not eat after 20:00, and even more so pizza and chips.

Decision: if you want to eat less, drink coffee only in the morning and be careful with alcohol. By the way, stimulate the feeling of hunger and sauerkraut, salted and pickled vegetables, currants, kiwi, strawberries, lemons.

4. You are thirsty

The feeling of hunger is often confused with thirst. Many are accustomed to replacing water with liquid food, because of this, confusion occurs in the hypothalamus between the centers of thirst and hunger. The desire to eat can be a signal of dehydration.

Decision: start the day with a couple of glasses of warm water, keep a bottle of liquid and stick with it throughout the day. Drinking a glass of water before every meal is also helpful.

5. You are stressed

Stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) signal to the brain that you are in danger, which means that you need energy to save yourself. The result is double your appetite.

Decision: Find a way to get your emotions under control. There are many recipes – from yoga and meditation to consulting a specialist. Eating will definitely not save you from stress.

6. You eat emotions.

Sometimes we confuse hunger with a variety of feelings: boredom, sadness, fatigue, anxiety. We think that a burger or ice cream will help drown them out, but this is not the case.

Decision: understand yourself and replace food with pleasant emotions. Sad? Call a loved one or watch a comedy. Tired? Take a bath and relax.

7. You get distracted

When you dine in front of a computer, TV, or immersed in the study of social networking feeds, you don’t even notice how you eat the entire portion. The brain receives the wrong information about the amount of food and satiety, and very soon you are thinking about food again. This has been proven by numerous studies. For example, in one experiment, half of the participants played computer games at lunch. As a result, after eating, they were less full than those who were not distracted by games. But most importantly, they ate 48% more food later in the day.

Decision: concentrate on eating, enjoy eating and eat slowly. Chew each bite 15 to 30 times. This way you will be satisfied with less food.