Understanding Hunger & Cravings...

What are food cravings and how do they differ from hunger..

Well, Weingarten and Elston (1990) defined food cravings as 'intense desire to eat a specific food'

Therefore, to qualify as a craving, the desire needs to be intense enough that we have sufficient levels of motivation to actually pursue it.

What is key here, is food cravings are for a specific food.

Which means food cravings and hunger are very different. When a wide variety of foods will be satisfying, this is hunger not cravings.

Stating the obvious, but food cravings and hunger will heavily influence dietary compliance, snacking and binge eating behaviour (Walters et al, 2001).

Overly restricted diets such as ketogenic which cuts out a whole macronutrient will lead to a higher frequency and greater intensity of food cravings compared to a more diverse diet, even when calories are matched.

It's one thing to understand caloric management...

But very few actually understand hunger...

Triggered by the gut hormones somatostatin and motilin, hunger is caused by contractions in the distal stomach and duodenum (small intestine) as the body clears the stomach of undigested food and microbes.

This sensation is frequently accompanied by a sense of fatigue and lightheadedness. Hunger and calorie balance are associated with blood glucose, with low levels indicative of a calorie deficit.

So what can be done to aid in preventing feeling hungry...

Well...

When a large meal is consumed, the stomach is rapidly stretched. when this happens, circulating levels of the “hunger hormone” ghrelin are significantly reduced. This is a cue to stop eating and you will have a satisfied 'full' sensation.

As the stomach returns to its pre-fed state, ghrelin levels rise and hunger returns.

A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Holt et al., 1995)?produced a “satiety index”.

Participants were fed 240?calories of test foods.

They were then asked to rate how full they were afterwards.

It might come as a surprise, but when calorie-matched, potatoes scored 1.8 times higher than quintessential protein foods such steak.

The worst food on the list were croissants, only managing to score a pitiful 22% of satiety rating of potatoes.

Let’s see exactly what those 240 calories would get you:

61g croissant vs 365g potatoes

So it’s easy to see how the greater volume of food would take longer to digest and thus keep you satiated for longer.

Conclusion

Hunger is a physiological sensation measured by blood glucose levels. In order to combat hunger when in a caloric deficit your stomach needs to be stretched in order to signal ghrelin levels to be reduced.

Choosing higher volume, lower calorie foods such as potatoes will aid in preventing hunger,

Chris

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