Why You Eat When You're Not Hungry

The number one reason why most people gain weight is because they eat too much. Weight gain doesn't really come down to the minute details, like meal frequency, meal timing, protein, carbohydrate and fat ratios, or the type of training you do – it really is all about calories in vs calories out.

Being hungry is a basic human instinct, and it is a sign that our bodies need sustenance to fuel us until our next meal comes along. But so many people eat when they’re not hungry, racking up excess calories on a daily basis, that pretty soon, they’re 20 pounds heavier and wondering where it all went wrong. 

Eating for the sake of eating, rather than to satisfy your hunger, is a surefire way to completely wreck your diet. There’s always a reason why you eat when you’re not hungry though, so the key is to find out what these reasons are for you, and knock them on the head as soon as possible.

Boredom

If you ask those who often eat when they’re not hungry at what times they usually delve into the cookie tin or race to the nearest vending machine or candy cupboard, you’ll probably hear two answers come up pretty regularly:

- “At my desk during the afternoon slump.”
- “Watching TV in the evenings.”

Both of these moments in time have two things in common:

Eating is a way we can prevent the onset of boredom as it gives our brain and body something to do.

Habit

You can be so stuck in your ways with your meal patterns that eating can become more of a ritual, rather than something you do to serve a purpose and provide energy. How many times have you seen that the clock’s at 10 am and thought “It’s time for my morning snack” or got home from work and automatically reached into the fridge for something?

In both these scenarios, there’s no way you can actually be hungry if you eat three regular meals a day, but eating at certain times of day can be so ingrained into your routine that it’s hard to break from them.

Not Eating the Right Foods

You can eat exactly the same amount of calories in two different meals, yet one can leave you feeling full for hours, while the other can cause you to feel ravenous within thirty minutes. It’s not always just about calories – a lot of the time the quality of your food and the types of thing you eat play a big role in your hunger patterns.

Cravings

We’ve all had these when dieting and they can be horrid.

Deep down you know that you don’t need to eat anything, but it feels like certain “vice” foods are calling to you, almost begging to be eaten. Despite the fact you’re completely full, you dig in anyway and within a few swift moments you’ve had another 500 calories.

Politeness 

You're offered a snack, perhaps at your grandma's house or your in-laws, and you accept even though you're neither hungry nor particularly interested in the snack. All those calories add up. 

Nostalgia

Different to cravings, some people eat certain foods because smells and flavors take them back to a happy time in their lives. Maybe those latkes or that chicken masala helps you through times of stress because these comfort foods make you feel safe. Even when you're not hungry, comfort eating nourishes your soul.

These Solutions Will Help You Skip Unnecessary Meals

While you may suffer from all four of these potential dieting roadblocks and feel like there’s no way you can stop your random eating, there are plenty of solutions to the issue.

Go for a Walk

To beat the boredom conundrum, next time you feel yourself reaching for food at work or at home, get up and go for a walk. If you’re at home, a brisk stroll round the block is an ideal way to get some fresh air, stop you being bored, and prevent unnecessary eating. At work, get up from your desk and do a quick lap of the office to release tension and boredom – just make sure you don’t pass the canteen on your route!

Make New Rules

Don’t get dragged into eating because you feel you have to. The conventional advice of having to eat every two to three hours certainly doesn’t apply to everyone. If you’re eating on a schedule, purely because a certain diet plan said to do so, or someone told you this was the best way to go, then stop. Use your hunger as a guide.

If you’re feeling hungry, then have a small, healthy snack. If not, don’t have anything. If you’re not too sure, drink a big glass of water, let it go down for 15 minutes or so, and then assess again.

Eat More Protein

If you gave two people different diets, but with the exact same number of calories but a different amount of protein, carbohydrate and fat, taking genetics and exercise out of the equation, you’d expect them both to lose weight at the same rate, right?

Wrong.

While it’s absolutely true that calories are the most important factor in any diet, regardless of goals, the composition of the diet matters too.

Carbs digest quickly in comparison to protein and fat and can cause a very rapid, steep rise in blood sugar levels, followed by an abrupt drop, which makes you feel like you need food again soon after.

High protein, moderate fat diets, with a low to moderate amount of carbohydrate however, digest far more slowly and don’t have such a negative impact on blood sugar levels and hormones, making you feel more satisfied and less likely to eat when you don’t need to.

Switch your chips, candy and bread to green veggies and low sugar fruits, make sure you have some lean protein in every meal and add a small portion of slower digesting carbs like brown rice or sweet potatoes or a healthy fat source such as peanut butter or avocado to every meal.

Distinguish Between Hunger and Cravings

This is a tough one, but if you want to succeed on your diet, you need to nail it.

Most people aren’t actually hungry most of the time they eat. Sure, after five or six hours with no food, there will be a rumble in your stomach and you’re probably ready for food, but quite often, you’ll just see food, or think about it, and your brain decides at that point that it’s going to tell you you’re hungry.

This is just a craving though.

To distinguish between actual hunger and cravings, ask yourself this –

No matter who you are, no one likes lettuce enough to eat a huge bowl of it, unless they’re really hungry. If you’d eat the lettuce, have something to eat, if you wouldn’t, keep going on and recognize that your hunger is actually a craving.