Craving vs Hunger: How to tell the difference

It’s 10 am, and you just got out of a long and stressful meeting. You make your way back to your desk and instinctively reach into one of your drawers to pull out some snacks you keep hidden in there.

Are you hungry?

Or are you having a craving?

To tell the difference between true hunger and craving, ask yourself when you ate your last meal. If you skipped breakfast or had a hard workout this morning, you may be experiencing hunger.

If you had a healthy breakfast this morning, you're probably not truly hungry. It's easy to reach into that desk drawer without thinking about why you feel like eating.

But when you eat without considering whether you're hungry, you easily add additional calories to your diet, and that is not good for your weight.

Periodically giving in to a craving is not something to lose any sleep over but more often than not many of us give in to those cravings all too frequently, which does not bode well for our weight loss goals.

How to Recognize Hunger [if !supportLineBreakNewLine] [endif]

Hunger is the feeling you get when your body needs food. If you generally eat a small meal every few hours (highly recommended), then you are probably hungry every 3 – 4 hours. You need fuel to function at your best both mentally as well as physically.

When you're hungry, healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean meat will be satisfying. If you don't eat, your hunger will get stronger.

How to Recognize Cravings [if !supportLineBreakNewLine] [endif]

Cravings are different from hunger. Cravings are often triggered by seeing or smelling food. When you walk by the bakery and smell the fresh bread and cookies cooling down on the counter, you are most likely going to want to crave something to eat whether or not you're actually hungry. This desire will generally go away after 20 minutes or so if you do not allow yourself to succumb to the craving.

We often eat emotionally such as in times of stress, anger, loneliness or sadness. Refer back to our original example of eating after the long and stressful meeting. Other times, we may eat just because we have been ingrained to eat at a specific time such as dinnertime even when we may have just eaten a late lunch. Specific activities may also trigger food cravings such as going to a ballgame or attending a party

What is most important is to recognize these differences between hunger and a craving.

If you have true hunger, reach for something healthy to eat. If you may be experiencing a craving though, give it 20 min to pass and see if you are still actually hungry or better yet. One trick that we use often is to drink a large glass of water whenever we feel that we may be experiencing a craving. We find that this often overrides initial desire to binge on something unhealthy and keeps on our desired path to make conscious and healthy choices.

Leah Scott and Justin Andrade founded Upgrade Your Joy. A program that educates you on how to bring more joy and wellness into your relationships through small daily actions. They live in Carlsbad, CA with their 3 boys and are enjoying life and having fun one day at a time.