Appetite or Real Hunger?

A lot of us feels the pangs of hunger and thirst. We, then, asked ourselves, " Am I just craving? Or, am I really hungry? " There is clearly a thin line between physical hunger and food cravings. Do you really trust your body's time clock when it comes to food? The truth is that your body has a way of telling you that you need food, but the problem rises when you are not really hungry at all and appetite takes control.

What Exactly is Hunger?

Hunger is your need for food and your body has a way of letting you know that you're running out of these nutrients that you need to stay up all day. You need energy to keep you moving, which you can get from eating foods. Hunger is a result of a chemical change in your body when you have a low level of glucose in your blood stream. This is why you experience hunger pangs, which lets you know it's chow-time.

What Exactly is Craving?

You may call it a desire for food, or simply - an appetite. Nobel prize winner and Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov have been popularly known on his respondent conditioning concept on dogs. People are much the same, specially when presented with a stimulus one loves ( or hates ). A dog was trained to think of food with the sound of a bell's ringing. Even with the absence of food, the dog continued to salivate. Much of the same thing happens to humans. That's why we just feel that tingling sensation or desire to eat when we see a photo of our favorite pasta on the glossy pages of a magazine, or when we smell those heavenly delights as we pass by a shop on our way back home.

How Do You Differentiate Hunger from Food Cravings?

If you are physically hungry:

1. The food craving doesn't simply go away, even if you wait for a couple of hours
2. The food craving intensifies while you wait
3. Nothing can make this craving go away unless you eat

If you are simply craving:

1. You are not really physiologically hungry
2. The thought of eating goes away when you are distracted of other things
3. The craving does not become intense while you wait it out
4. You feel "emotional" about eating a certain type of food
5. You are craving for comfort foods

Simply put, if you eat more even if you already feel stuffed or bloated, then, you are just following your food desires ( or your palate ). Still, don't ignore your hunger pangs, specially if you feel very hungry, irritable, or dizzy. The best way for you to stop your food cravings for good is to manage stress, live a healthy lifestyle, and going for healthy choices to make you live life to the healthiest. A rule of the thumb is to wait your hunger out for ten minutes to see if the feeling subsides, or satisfy your craving with a very small portion to stop that funny feeling.

Whatever you choose to eat, never go below 1,200 calories or you risk slowing down your metabolism and gaining unwanted weight. Eat, Live, and Be Healthy!