4 Kinds of Hunger

--> There are four kinds of hunger we need to feed. These are physical, mental, social and emotional. All are easily confused with the need for food. Knowing why you feel hungry and what you feel hungry for can help you lose weight.
1. Physical hunger: is your genuine bodily need. It is satisfied by eating nourishing food, not by junk food or the ‘wrong’ food. Although foods with no nutritional value may have bulk, they do not satisfy physical hunger. Your body wants and needs more.      

• Physical hunger signs include: growls, pangs, hollow feelings in your stomach 

• Mental signs of physical hunger include: fogginess, lack of concentration, headache, short temper, fatigue

2. Emotional hunger: Emotions can trigger abusive eating. Emotional eating can be a response, a defense or even habit, with no connection to your nutritional needs. It's often a reaction to loneliness, anger, emptiness, happiness, guilt, fear or stress. Emotional hunger can be satisfied by play, touch, nature, romance, music, art, love and excitement. When satisfied emotionally, people often forget about food and are instead 'high on life'. 

3. Mental hunger:  includes psychological, intellectual, social or habitual hunger.  It is satisfied by conversation, hobbies, entertainment, reading, playing games for fun. Sharing the passion of play can consume your attention to the point of forgetting to eat. Even casual encounters have an impact on satisfying this appetite. When not satisfied, mental hunger can trigger emotional eating.

4. Intuitive hunger:  is the desire for clarity, balance and protection because these are the source of success, excitement, comfort and inner peace.“Just as food is needed for the body, love is needed for the soul.” Osho

            It's natural to enjoy food. What makes food enjoyable, besides taste, is understanding what it does for your life. The food you eat is an investment in your future. Sometimes eating is like taking medicine because your body needs a nutriment to be healthy. Sometimes a food will give your skin a glow or give you a good night's sleep. Using curiosity keeps you aware of food that feels good, and food that doesn't. “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.” Hippocrates 
         Intuitive tools, working with the 5 senses, keep clear where hunger is coming from. You can recognize if hunger is caused by stress, frustration or physical need. When you know why you're hungry, you know what to eat to feel satisfied.

         Without intuitive connections to understand the source of hunger, internal traffic jams, that feel like confusion, occur. Confusion leads to unhealthy habits and vicious cycles of frustration. Tune-in to yourself. 
         This is a excerpt from - Am I Really Hungry, 6th Sense Diet Intuitive Eating  If you want to understand why you're eating, to stop being a victim of the diet mentality or to maintain your healthy weight intuitively, buy this book.  

“If you don’t know when you’re hungry, you don’t know when you’re full, so you won’t know when to stop eating.” Elisabetta Politi, RD, Duke University Diet &Fitness Center