The 7 Types Of Hunger
Have you ever found yourself reaching for food when you are not hungry or even not thinking about it?
The truth is, we don’t always eat out of real hunger because our eating behaviors are often related to situations and habits that have nothing to do with genuine hunger. This happens when we are not in tune with our hunger and fullness cues because of mindless eating.
That is also partly why we have difficulties losing weight since we “eat our emotions” instead of feeling them and then dealing with them. We also can find ourselves attracted by the burger advertisement because of the marketing tricks or by the smell of cinnamon rolls or “pain au chocolat” passing by the bakery.
To prevent this, it is important to follow a mindful eating approach, which includes being in the present moment while you are eating and use the 5Ws:
WHAT did you eat?
WHEN did you eat?
WHERE did you eat?
With WHO did you eat?
WHY did you eat?
Journaling and writing them down is the beginning of the shift from more mindless to more mindful eating is super helpful!
You will be able to notice when you are actually physically hungry, when it is a response to another trigger and what are your patterns.
The 7 Types of Hunger:
YES, there are seven types of hunger and they are linked to body parts. Knowing them will help you tune it to your body signals and become a more mindful eater.
1. Eye Hunger
Food well-presented on a plate is usually more tempting because our eyes enjoy the sight!
The mindful eating tip:
You can use this to your advantage and satisfy your eye hunger by making sure your platter, salad or sandwich are well presented. Moreover, instead of eating directly from their packages, it is a good idea to put them in a bowl or plate in a beautiful way. You will see how it is a mind shift!
2. Nose hunger
Smell activates our senses just like taste does so it can get confusing! An example is when you are passing next to a bakery and smell freshly baked bread or muffins in the morning! It activates our senses even if we had just eaten breakfast.
The mindful eating tip: To take the time to smell your food before you devour it. It might seem odd but it is actually very underrated to appreciate the meal in front of you.
3. Mouth hunger
You feel like chips all of a sudden? Or you want to chew gum and you don’t understand why? What about when you overly appreciate the fluffiness of a cake?
All those are an expression of your “mouth hunger” that is used to certain textures. It is one of the challenging types of hunger because your mouth is expecting to be satisfied by different ranges of textures and tastes.
The mindful eating tip: You can satisfy part of your mouth hunger by chewing your food well. Dietitians are not exaggerating when they ask you over and over to take your time when you eat. Swallowing your food after a few seconds of chewing will not help you completely appreciate what you are eating so if you tend to gulp your food, now is the time to adjust your eating style. Using the non-dominant hand or chopsticks can definitely slow you down!
4. Stomach hunger
Another synonym to real hunger. Watch out since not all stomach rumblings mean that you are hungry, it actually depends! Sometimes, your body is just accustomed to having food at a specific time while you are not really hungry.
The mindful eating tip: Use the hunger scale and rate your hunger from 1 to 10 (1 being starved and 10 so stuff you are about to puke). Do that before you start your meal and then another time before you finish it when you start to feel satisfied. You may find that you are less hungry than you thought. Anything less than 5 is genuine stomach hunger.
5. Cellular hunger
Whenever your body is deficient of a certain nutrient, it flags to your brain that there is not enough of that nutrient by making you crave it!
This especially happens when you cut down on one food group (example: carbohydrates) and you are craving them. If you fill yourself up with something else such as salad, your body will still ask for that piece of bread!
The mindful eating tip: This is why it is important to listen to your body and give it all macronutrients as well as eating the rainbow for the variety of micronutrients.
6. Mind hunger
This is also called the “food police” in intuitive eating which are the thoughts in our minds dictating what we should and shouldn’t eat because of the diets and nutrition advice we heard or read. The diet culture is everywhere and usually forbidding us to have a food group or an ingredient; and in other times, it demands us to eat at a specific time of the day.
For example: Keto diets tell us to eat more fat because fat is good and carbohydrates are bad OR: you should NOT be eating sugar at all cost! Etc.
The mindful eating tip: This is another challenging type and it requires you to listen to our body’s signals without judgment, and by ignoring that constant “noise”.
7. Heart hunger
This is also called Emotional Eating. It is linked to certain feelings of emotions such as stress, anger, frustration, loneliness, depression, pity and guilt etc. This is when you “eat your emotions” to tame them down or fill out a void in your heart and/or mind.
My Mindful Eating Tip: The way to satisfy heart hunger is to take a step back and understand what are your triggers, to put a name on the emotion and how they affect your eating behaviors. Then, to find other coping mechanisms that are unrelated to food. A therapist and a dietitian can help you tackle emotional eating.
Stéphanie