Why do I feel hungry? Feeling intermittently hungry is a natural part of being human. Hunger is a natural physiological response used to convey a message that our bodies need food. Having excessive and persistent hunger and cravings is not.
Finding yourself constantly reaching for snacks or craving food, even after eating, can be due to your eating habits, which, of course, hinder your weight-loss efforts. Your menu’s lack of protein, fiber, various vitamins and minerals and healthy fats, such as Omega-3 fatty acids, may be contributing factors, as well. Also, an abundance of refined carbs and processed foods generally leads to changes in the body that can create an insatiable appetite and ultimately trigger continuous hunger and weight gain. Inadequate sleep, poor food choices, skipping meals and lack of physical activity can significantly exaggerate hunger and cravings, as well.
Are you looking for practical weight-loss advice and a proven plan? Our specialists can help you achieve your weight loss goals, healthfully. CardioMender, MD Weight Loss Specialists, can help you achieve and maintain your weight goals by showing you exactly what your body needs and has been missing.
We’re here to provide you with the details as to why you might feel hungry all the time.
Lack of Sleep
Wondering how inadequate sleep affects your appetite? Inadequate sleep causes weight gain by increasing an appetite-stimulating hormone called ghrelin. Lack of enough sleep raises ghrelin levels, thus intensifying your feelings of hunger when you need to sleep. A consistent lack of sleep might leave you hungry and fatigued throughout the day, even when you’re eating proteins, fiber, and healthy fats.
When your body is in balance and you’re not overweight, leptin acts as an appetite suppressant and actually signals your brain that your body has enough body fat. Your body’s leptin levels decrease when you’re not getting enough sleep. That is why many people who are sleep deprived experience their appetite increasing. The lower leptin levels signal the brain that the body’s fat reserves are depleted, and the body needs more energy. As a result, you experience increased feelings of hunger, and so your body keeps prompting you to eat more. Over time, this increase in appetite leads to weight gain. Excessive weight gain further impairs the ability of leptin to signal the brain that the body has enough energy reserves, which causes progressive hunger, cravings, and weight gain – a vicious cycle.
Hence, getting enough sleep along with proper nutrition is essential to reducing hunger, cravings, weight and optimizing your health.
Skipping Meals
We have all skipped a meal or two at one point or another. However, regularly skipping meals can have a negative impact on our bodies, particularly when we do not otherwise include adequate amounts of whole foods containing a balance of protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats. Skipping meals causing significant nutritional deficiencies can leave you hungry, with your body essentially craving to satisfy its dietary needs.
Eating a diet rich in refined carbs and highly processed high-calorie foods devoid of essential nutrients and not eating adequate amounts of protein, healthy fats and high fiber veggies and fruits, can leave you feeling hungrier than before, but skipping meals can only make it worse, setting the stage for overeating at your next meal. A lack of proper nutrition, combined with skipping meals frequently, can cause your body to produce copious amounts of the hormone ghrelin, which stimulates hunger, thus setting the stage for potential overeating and weight gain. A habit of skipping meals and then grabbing what happens to be a convenient quick-fix processed food alternative ultimately affects your body’s metabolism and disrupts the normal release of hormones that regulate appetite.
Diet
Most diet programs don’t work. While diets have a goal of helping you lose weight through caloric restriction, the lack of essential nutrients, and the lack of balance of protein, low glycemic carbs, and healthy fats, lead many people to experience increased feelings of hunger. Combined with increased levels of ghrelin, the hunger hormone, people trying to lose weight by dieting and restricting calories tend to experience increased feelings of hunger. At the same time, the production of satiety hormones such as leptin, amylin and certain other peptide hormones are reduced.
The good news is our team at CardioMender is here to help, not just by helping you learn about what your body needs, but also finding healthy ways to incorporate them back into your daily foods.
Sedentary Lifestyle
Living a sedentary lifestyle is generally a contributing factor for both excess caloric consumption and the physiologic changes that contribute to impairing the body’s ability to burn fat. Fat burning, or using fat as fuel, often gets impaired as we gain weight. Excess body fat, especially belly fat, interferes with both normal insulin and leptin function. This is called insulin and leptin resistance, respectively, that together lead to an increase in hunger as well as an impairment in our ability to burn fat. Increasing our day-to-day activity with or without a formal exercise program can help reverse both insulin and leptin resistance, increase fat burning, decrease hunger and cravings, and deliver sustained weight loss.
Curb Your Hunger with Expert Advice
Why am I hungrier than usual? Skipping meals for protracted periods and restricting your calorie intake may be restricting your essential nutrients and dietary needs. These extreme efforts can make you feel hungry all the time. You don’t have to let hunger and cravings cause distress. Our specialists can help you understand why you are feeling hungry and help you curb your hunger and cravings. We can help you implement personalized, evidence based, nutritional and lifestyle changes, and provide the support that can help you safely achieve sustainable results and optimal health.
If you are looking for expert advice on how to curb your hunger and cravings, our team at CardioMender, MD Weight Loss Specialists can give you personalized advice on how to manage your hunger and maintain a healthy weight, effectively. Contact us today to discuss how we can help you achieve and maintain your weight loss goals for long-term success.
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