If you’re like most people, hunger might be the greatest obstacle for you to eating healthfully. Do you know what false hunger is and how to control it?

 Ideally, feeling hungry is a signal that you need to eat. You should know sometimes your sensation of hunger may not even be real physical hunger.

True hunger

Real hunger is brought on by a true need for food and develops gradually over time. With real hunger, you feel a need to eat, but not necessarily any one particular food. Any food that you like that is available will satisfy your hunger and you won't feel guilty after you finish eating.

It is important to understand true hunger and recognizing the causes of false hunger to re-educate yourself to naturally crave only what is needed and nothing else. 

1- Low blood sugar

The level of glucose in the blood is key to physical and mental well-being. Hunger resulting from low blood sugar is usually characterized by an urgent craving for sugar or starch rather than protein or fat. This hunger usually abates after abstaining from eating or thinking about food for about fifteen minutes or so.

2- Irritation of the stomach lining

Most of the people mistake an irritation of stomach lining for true hunger. In this type of false hunger, you may have craving for food whenever the stomach is empty. Eating habits make the stomach become uncomfortable or even painful when it is empty.

3- Addictions

False hunger rises when the poisonous substances or allergic substances are metabolized or eliminated.  Such a false hunger is characterized by cravings for highly specific substances. For example, those with an allergy to wheat tend to have a hunger for food primarily containing wheat, and that hunger does not seem to be satisfied by eating other similarly starchy foods such as potatoes or rice.

4- The discomfort of the body in utilizing reserves

When there is a deficit in caloric intake, the reserves of the body must be utilized to supply energy. Experts believe that exercise is extremely important in cleaning out toxins and teaching your body to burn primarily fat instead of sugar.

5- A desire for stimulation

When the level of sugar blood becomes low, depression tends to set in, and when its level is high, there is a feeling of well-being. When we eat to provide stimulation, we disrupt the delicately balanced mechanisms that would otherwise lead us to eat exactly the right foods in the right amounts.

6- The need for essential nutrients, expressed by a false craving for foods.

Habitually eating foods with a low-nutrient and high-calorie content creates a deficiency of essential fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals—especially trace minerals. The result is the need to eat proportionately larger amounts of such foods to obtain the needed nutrients and, consequently, never feeling satisfied.

7- Sometimes tiredness experienced as a need for food

For some people, the genuine need for physiological rest is often incorrectly experienced as hunger.

8- Thinking About, Seeing, or Smelling Food

Just think of what happens when you are accompanying friends who are eating; you may not be hungry, but soon the odor and sight of food will change that. Seeing a magazine or television ad for food can also tip the balance.

9- Habituation to Regularity

When meals are always at the same time each day, the digestive organs become habituated to begin the digestive process whether or not food is needed or available. Then, if food is not forthcoming, distress, experienced as hunger, ensues. What if your job necessitates eating at the same time every day—hungry or not?

Dealing with false hunger

The best way to deal with inappropriate cravings is the first to experience them. Then attempt to objectively identify them. If, for example, you realize that your sensation of hunger is from an irritated stomach, that knowledge will be very helpful both in dealing with that problem and in quelling your craving. First, cultivate the awareness that hunger is false. Next, develop the tools and resolve to deal with it over the long term.