Rule Basics and Reasoning

Hunger is bad for two reasons. First if it is a contest between hunger and willpower, in the end, hunger will win. Second, hunger is a sign of rising ghrelin levels and thus dropping metabolic rate. The only time it is "ok" to feel hungry is right before each meal: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You might also feel a little hungry just before going to bed. All those times are fine. However, hunger can be a problem at two other times, after a meal and in between meals.

If you are hungry after a meal, in other words you have finished the food on your plate and want some more, then it is a sign that you have not suppressed the ghrelin levels in the brain from that meal. There can be several causes for this. The most common is timing. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes from the start of a meal until ghrelin levels fall. If you eat in 5 minutes, you are likely to still be hungry for another 10 to 15 minutes. So if you have to eat fast, don't be surprised if you are hungry at the end of the meal. Just give it a few minutes for the hunger signals to respond to the food and the hunger should go away. And if you have the time to eat slower, do so. Another common cause of being hungry after a meal is inadequate release of insulin. Insulin turns ghrelin production off. The fastest way to get insulin into the blood stream is by eating carbohydrates, specifically glucose based carbohydrates.

Glucose based carbohydrates include all the starches such as bread, pasta, potatoes, corn, peas, cereal, grains etc. Galactose based carbohydrates (mainly dairy sugars) are rapidly processed into glucose based carbohydrates and will function in exactly the same way. Fructose based carbohydrates are different however. Fructose doesn't stimulate insulin release at all. As a result table sugar, or products that have high fructose corn syrup, which get half their calories from glucose and half from fructose are only half as good as glucose based carbohydrates at turning off ghrelin and thus hunger. In addition fruit, which gets on average 75% of its calories from fructose and only 25% from glucose is even more inefficient in turning hunger off.

The other time you are likely to get hungry that is a problem is in between meals. This often leads to snacking and again is a sign of incomplete ghrelin suppression. There are two main reasons ghrelin levels rise back early. First is that the meal did not have enough overall calories. If so ghrelin will always start to rise before the next meal is supposed to be eaten. The second cause is an inadequate stimulation of the other ghrelin suppression/leptin stimulation pathways. The hormone responsible for these pathways include oxyntomodulin, PYY (peptide YY), PP (pancreatic peptide), GLP-1 (glucagon like peptide 1) and CCK (cholecystokinin). Oxyntomodulin responds to protein and carbohydrates in the stomach. PYY and CCK respond to fat and to a lesser degree protein in the intestines. PP responds to stretching of the stomach. GLP-1 is produced in the panaceas again in response to fat intake. So if you are getting the appropriate number of calories per meal and are still getting hungry in between meals, then you need to increase the portion of the calories that are coming from fat and protein in the meal and decrease the portion of calories that are coming from carbohydrates, especially non glucose based carbohydrates which also don't suppress immediate hunger. In addition you can increase the bulk of the food by both taking in more water or calorie free beverage and by having more very low calorie food such as non starchy vegetables.

So keep track of what times of day you are feeling hungry and adjust your diet accordingly. Remember however, that you still need to have a calorie deficit and thus stay within your calorie restriction totals.

If you find that no matter how much you adjust the meals you are still always hungry, you may have other centers in the brain which are confounding the diet changes you are trying to make. The two most common of these are stress and inadequate hydration. Try and practice more stress reduction techniques and really push the water or calorie free beverage intake.