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Types of hunger

One benefit of keto: it's quietened down some of the confusion, and I'm better able to see the different types of hunger that I experience. In this post, I talk through the different types, focusing on my own experience, and linking to more resources where possible.

Physical: Empty-stomach, energy-crash, and pesky hormones

These are what I think of as 'real' hunger: my body is asking for food. This is also where keto can feel a bit magical: I generally feel fuller for longer (so no growling stomach), and because my blood glucose is stable, there aren't any major energy crashes. At most, if I'm a couple of hours later than usual with a meal, I get a mild feeling, my body saying 'yup, you could definitely eat now'. This is a key part of why keto is working for me. It simply makes it far far easier to stay in a calorie deficit, because I'm almost never really hungry.

I'm including what I call 'hormonal hunger' in the physical hunger category. If you menstruate, you'll probably find that your cycle affects your hunger and energy levels. For me, I am finding the luteal phase horrible. I had two weeks of finding keto easy, followed by two weeks of carb craving, 'bleh' mood, suboptimal energy, and so on. This is apparently not uncommon:

As I'm so early in keto I'm trying to push through for now. I'm probably not fully fat adapted. I'm hoping it'll ease in future months.

Psychological: Habitual, boredom, and emotional hunger

This is the more complicated type of hunger, and the one that led me (and probably a lot of other people) into trouble in the first place. However, keto is helping here as well. With physical hunger largely silent, it's easier to see what's going on when I get an impulse to overeat. Previously, it was easy to mix up an energy crash and emotional hunger (and indeed, the two may often have been simultaeous).

Habitual hunger manifests itself in mindless eating for no apparent reason. Not gonna lie, it felt weird watching the football this summer without snacks. Or going for a walk, and not treating myself to a snack on the way home. However, I've found this relatively easy to break, especially as I've been able to clear all snacks out of my home.

I'm used to always having a cup of tea on the go, but I'm cutting back (and trying to regulate my fluid intake generally). This is another hard habit to break - much tougher than the snacking!

Emotional hunger is the difficult one for me. I comfort ate my way through years of severe depression. Food is my go-to drug for dealing with stress, anxiety, sadness . . .

It's also my go-to way of celebrating. I recently left my job (new one starting soon!) and it felt very strange to not celebrate the last day with a pizza.

In this way, food acts like a drug: where someone else might have a beer, or smoke a cigarette, I reach for chocolate. This isn't suprising: food spikes dopamine. In binge eaters, even the sight or smell of food triggers a spike.

Boredom hunger is probably a sub-set of emotional hunger: I may not be dealing with strong emotions, but I'm reaching for a numbing effect and a dopamine kick.

When trying to understand my emotional eating, I found Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke, MD helpful.

Keto can be helpful for emotional eating

Keto hasn't completely got rid of my impulses for emotional eating. But it has helped in two ways:

  • By making it wayyy easier to identify whether I'm actually hungry, or just bored, or stressed, or wanting to celebrate.
  • By removing the physical component. Especially when trying other diets, I would feel genuinely physically hungry. When this combines with a stressful day and a dull evening . . . that's a lot to resist. When my blood sugars were poorly controlled, energy crashes could feel horrible. Combine that crash with feeling down, and again, I don't know how you resist that. Maybe some people can, but I never could. With the physical hunger and energy crashes removed, the emotional hunger can't shout so loud.

Will keto help you?

If you struggle with an eating disorder, be careful, and talk to your doctor or nutritionist.

Most people experience reduced physical hunger on keto, and find their energy stabilises as they get into it. However, if you struggle with emotional eating, it's harder to say if keto will help. Emotional eating is a more individual issue, with a range of causes and responses. Some people do report their cravings completely vanishing, others still struggle, and I've found myself somewhere in between: not craving-free, but the cravings have far less power.

Wrap up

All my blog posts are personal and subjective, but this one is extremely so. This is very much a 'what goes on in my head around food?' article. I hope it's helpful to someone. Good luck!