Understanding Hunger to Become a Stronger Athlete

The GOAL: Shed light on the different types of hunger we experience, how to recognize them, and then allow yourself to experience hunger in a way that is conducive to your goals while still enjoying the experience of eating.

My WHY: I’m writing this because I have struggled with food and disordered eating throughout my life. I have tied guilt to food, I’ve leveraged my binging and purging habits as a way to have control, I’ve dealt with habitual eating that was not serving me.  Today, I find myself in a place where I LOVE my food, I eat what I want, when I want it, and I will never have guilt over the cookies I savor and the celebrations with friends and family that may get carried away. 

TO HUNGER AND EXPERIENCE HUNGER

Hunger (n): a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat

Hunger (v): a strong desire or craving for

As an endurance athlete, you are 1000% familiar with feelings of hunger in both senses of the word.  When you step up to the starting line, adrenaline rushes through your veins – you hunger for the pain, the victory, the lessons, the highs and the lows that will happen on the course. You cross the finish line, and you have a hunger for some solid food after hours of eating gels and consuming liquid calories.  

Hunger can become a tricky thing when it comes to emotions, habits, culture, racing, goals, stress, and the day-to-day of it all.  Some days this feels like an ongoing battle with yourself, with friends, or with family.  As with most things in life, the more you understand something, the easier it can become to control and let work for you, rather than against you. 

I am ALL FOR enjoying food.  I spent many years struggling with issues around food and am now at a place where I eat for health, pleasure, and performance.  I do not tie guilt or deprivation to food.   However, If you want to see a change in your strength, endurance, weight, bio markers, sleep efficiency, or energy levels – nutrition and eating habits will play a role.  While it can feel overwhelming at times, understanding the three types of hunger can help you create habits that lead to a healthier life and becoming a stronger athlete. 

Please know, the following information does not serve as any medical advice or recommendations for persons addressing psychological or medical issues around food.  As always, please consult with a medical professional if you are struggling with any issues around food.    

THE THREE TYPES OF HUNGER

Habitual Hunger

You walk into the kitchen, head to the fridge, then stand there for what feels like an eternity staring into the abyss of your food supply.  Nothing is appealing to you, but you grab a jar of peanut butter, walk over to the counter and take a scoop while you think about what food you’re really in the mood for.  

You have succumbed to habitual eating. This involves regularly consuming snacks or meals at a consistent time, in a routine manner, which is often an automatic or unconscious eating behavior. 

“The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do in life and business” by Charles Duhigg opened my eyes to my habits with food.  At the time, I was coming off a season of competing in figure.  If you are not familiar with the sport, a lot of training and meal prep go into making you stage ready.  I stepped on stage at 7% bodyfat, carrying as much muscle as my body would hold. Aside from the hours of strength training and cardio each week, I was methodical with my diet and the timing of my meals.  I would fit them in between clients and always timed my last meal to hit as soon as I got home.  

I created a habit.  My cue was walking through the front door at the end of the night.  I would walk to the fridge immediately, starving, and inhale my last meal of the day.  This carried on for months at a time while I was competing.  The season would come to a close, and I could eat a more balanced diet with looser timing.  

However, I did not let go of my habitual eating.  It did not matter if I just ate one hour before arriving home, it didn’t matter the time of day.  I would head straight to the kitchen looking for a meal.  Since I was not really hungry, I would stand there and stare, ultimately grabbing anything and satisfying the habit of wanting food.

Creating habits and breaking them takes time.  The first step is acknowledging that you have a habit to break or create.  If you find yourself habitually eating when you are not actually biologically hungry, you may want to implement strategies to redirect yourself.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t eat if you are not hungry.  It is absolutely okay to – and you SHOULD – find enjoyment in food, whether your stomach is telling you it’s feeding time, or you simply smell garlic being sauteed and suddenly crave a Sunday dinner, or you smell cookies in the oven and your sweet tooth needs some love.

But if your habit is a daily occurrence and you no longer know how to dial into what your body truly needs, you can end up with results that don’t make you feel good about yourself or your performance.     

A great tool for creating or modifying habits is habit stacking, discussed by James Clear in his book “Atomic Habits”.  This involves integrating new habits into established routines by pairing them with existing behaviors.  You will leverage the power of a current habit to assist you in making positive change. 

For example, if you have a habit like mine, where walking into your home cues you to head to the kitchen and grab a snack, you may choose to pair walking into your home with turning on some relaxing music or an audio book, going onto your yoga mat and doing a 10-minute flow to decompress.  Or maybe you walk in the door, turn the tea kettle on, brew a cup of tea, and read a book for 10 minutes. Choose something that serves you purpose and that you enjoy.  Create a new habit.  

EMOTIONAL HUNGER: 

It’s Friday night and your week was jam-packed with training, kids’ sports, work, and everything else that can throw your schedule for a loop. You’re tired, but definitely not hungry.  However, you cannot resist the urge to grab the package of Oreos that you’ve been avoiding all week.  It feels so good to let the sugary sweetness cover your tongue and maybe for a moment, you have a sense that the stress has melted away.   

Many of us experience emotional hunger, which refers to the desire to eat as a response to emotional cues, stress, or psychological factors – not because you are actually hungry. This type of hunger is driven by emotions and can serve as a way to cope with or suppress certain feelings. Understanding emotional hunger can help you develop a healthy relationship with food. 

When trying to identify emotional hunger, we have a few things to look for.  Common triggers include stress, anxiety, boredom, sadness, or loneliness.  When this is not coupled with physical signs of hunger – like your stomach growling or low energy levels – and the desire to eat is more sudden and driven by a specific emotion or situation, emotional hunger is creeping in. 

You may also find yourself craving comfort foods that you associate with positive memories. This form of eating is often characterized by mindless eating…you know, when you turn on a movie and eat a bag of chips or a sleeve of cookies and you have hardly a recollection of the saltiness or sweetness on your tongue.  It’s like the highway hypnosis of eating.  

After a bout with emotional hunger, some people experience guilt or regret, which does not help the situation.  While the impact of consistent emotional hunger and eating can lead to weight gain and a negative impact on reaching your goals, this does not have to be the case.  The key is to identify it, address it, and establish coping skills so that you can enjoy your food, and not beat yourself up over it.

Recognizing emotional hunger is the first step in addressing it. Developing alternative coping strategies for dealing with emotions, such as practicing mindfulness, engaging in physical activity, or seeking support from others, can be beneficial. Journaling will help with this, and is discussed a little further below. 

BIOLOGICAL (PHYSIOLOGICAL) HUNGER

You trained hard on Saturday with a brick workout that lasted three hours.  You felt great, hit your zones, finished it up with some yoga and mobility work, then spent the rest of the day with family.  By the end of the night, you fell into your bed and slept snug as a bug in a rug.  You sleep in on Sunday because you can, and take your time getting the day started.  By 10am, your stomach is growling and you are ready for a cup of coffee and breakfast.  This is biological hunger. 

Biological hunger is the natural, physical sensation that cues you to seek food for nourishment. It is a complex physiological process regulated by various signals and systems in the body. Understanding biological hunger will help you maintain a balanced and healthy approach to eating. This comes into play when we think about intuitive eating – a practice that may have been natural as a child, but then fades as emotional and habitual eating start to have an impact.

 Here are key aspects to consider:

Fluctuations in blood sugar can influence hunger sensations, so consuming balanced meals that help to maintain a stable blood sugar are important for regulating hunger.  Your own metabolic rate will have an impact, as will nutrient deficiencies, which may cause the body to signal hunger so that you intake specific nutrients.

Establishing regular meal times helps regulate biological hunger by allowing the body to become accustomed to these intervals, and hunger signals align with these established patterns.  As the body receives nourishment, feelings of fullness and satisfaction follow.

Understanding and responding to biological hunger signals is essential for maintaining a healthy relationship with food. It involves listening to the body’s needs, recognizing genuine hunger, and providing nourishment through balanced meals and snacks. 

JOURNALING TO HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF YOUR HABITS

Options abound for you to track your eating habits.  I do not believe that everyone has to (or should) track every bite of food everyday.  There is a time and place for that, but the goal is to dial into your body’s natural cues to make sense of what you’re eating, when you’re eating it, and why.  

Using an app like MyFitnessPal can help you stay accountable to the food you’re eating and open your eyes to the calories and macros you are (or are not) consuming.  If you couple this with journaling, you can paint a clear picture of your habits.  

Things to consider when journaling:

• Pay attention to triggers so you recognize patterns of emotional eating or unhealthy food choices. 
• Notice your nutritional intake and how it translates to macro and micro nutrients. This awareness helps ensure you’re getting a balanced diet and meeting your nutritional needs.  You may find yourself making better choices on nutrient-dense foods, or maybe you aren’t eating enough to support your current training.  If you don’t track it, you won’t know it. 
• Journaling helps establish regular eating patterns, like meal times and frequency. This can support improved energy management. 
• You will give yourself the opportunity to set SMART goals and assess your progress.
• Understand your cravings – do you crave sugary foods at the end of the night or on days when you are not well rested?  When are you craving more salty and savory foods? 
• Journaling allows you to correlate your physical activity with dietary patterns. Understanding this connection can influence both exercise and eating choices.
• Writing down your food choices holds you accountable for your decisions. It can also serve as a source of motivation, especially when you see positive changes over time.
• Create an increased commitment to making healthier food choices.

Journaling empowers you to make informed and positive changes in your diet and overall well-being.  While this does not have to be a long-term practice, if you are hoping to improve your habits, increase the nutrient density of your foods, decrease the likelihood of emotional and habitual eating, try journaling for at least one to two weeks.

PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION 

A final note:  The goal of understanding the three types of hunger is so that you can make progress towards reaching your health and fitness goals and become the strongest, healthiest version of yourself.  Food should be looked at as nourishment AND enjoyment.  I can’t say it enough – the goal is not to restrict or find guilt in any of your current habits, but to make you aware that they exist and empower you to make the CHOICE to create new habits if you know it will create success in other areas of your life.

Quick Tips:

• Think about lifestyle changes over quick fixes.
• Learn to be flexible and adapt to changes in your environment without guilt (think vacations, holidays, nights out with friends)
• Make small and steady changes over time. 
• Give yourself grace.  You are human and humans make mistakes.  Don’t treat it as good or bad, just treat it as an experience, learn and move on. 

In essence, diet behavior modification involves adopting a realistic and sustainable approach to nutrition. Embrace progress, practice self-compassion, and aim for a positive, long-term relationship with food and well-being can share with you the types of  hunger, how to identify them and tips to have better control over your eating choices and habits. Ultimately, it is up to YOU to make the CHOICE to take CONTROL.