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Based on my personal experience, I think there are two feelings which are associated with "hunger". The first one seems to be triggered by eating relatively-high carb and calorie-dense foods. Say Snickers bars. This feels like a sudden loss of energy and a want to eat something. What's interesting is that the feeling seems more like a craving for something "fast and sweet", like another chocolate bar. I specifically don't feel like eating a "regular" meal. It also seems very intrusive mentally. I can't think about anything else except going looking for that next treat. Then there's what I'd say is "actual hunger", which to me feels very, very different from the first. It's usual not accompanied by a lethargic feeling, and like the parent said, there seems to be some kind of motivation and (what at least looks like) increased mental acuity associated with it. This seems to go away after 30 minutes to an hour, and usually only comes after having fasted for a while and / or having exercised. When I get this kind of hunger, I usually don't even consider chocolate bars or similar as "food". I usually think about having a fairly substantial meal, usually some kind of vegetables, protein and fat. Like butter, chicken / steak, some broccoli or other salad, etc. I've found that by reducing sugar consumption -- not to 0, I've never gone on a zero-carb diet -- especially in calorie-dense foods such as industrial "treats", the first kind of hunger rarely, if ever, shows up. And I actually rarely, if ever, feel like eating those things. Whereas some 10 years ago, when I'd eat a lot of Snickers bars (I used to really love those), the feeling would show up multiple times a day and would be a real bother mentally. My energy levels also seem much more stable throughout the day now. |
When you eat foods which are simple-carb based (i.e. sugars, or other small, easily-digestible carbs) your body can very quickly and easily utilise them, resulting in a fairly rapid spike of blood sugar. Importantly, because they're easily-digestible, their sugar will be released over a short period of time. In response to the sugar spike, your body will release insulin and drive the sugar out of your blood stream, but because the flow of new sugars from your gut has slowed or ceased, this can result in quite a low blood sugar state. When you hit this state, you not only feel very hungry, but also crave foods which will give you quickly-available blood sugar, to resolve the situation quickly. One other point is that while your body has the ability to release sugar (or other substances which similarly give you energy) from stored reserves, these processes are fairly slow - so don't really respond quickly enough to account for this sort of sudden low sugar state.
In contrast, if you eat a more balanced diet (with complex rather than simple carbs, some protein, some fat, more fibre) you change both parts of the previous effect: the spike of sugar into your blood stream is less pronounced, because the food you've eaten is less suited to provide it, and also the release of sugars occurs over a longer period. So you don't get the sugar spike, or the big hit of insulin in response, or the low afterwards which makes you crave fast sugars. And also, because this is all slower, thanks to eating foods which provide a slower release of nutrition, your body's systems have an opportunity to work alongside your food, and as (for example) the release of nutrition from your gut slows, offer nutrition from your body's stores to sustain you for longer.