A metabolism question

[ksmith]

...or something.

What is your baseline state, hunger-wise? Do you always feel sated (no desire to eat), except when you're expressly hungry? Do you only eat when your stomach growls, or do you let it get that far?

I'm trying to eat more healthy food and yes, lose some weight, and I'm trying to figure out--how am I supposed to feel? Is a constant mild feeling of hunger the sensation I should aim for, or not? What is the baseline for an average human being?

In all the diet and lifestyle articles I've read, this isn't addressed. External factors--food groups, calorie counts--work only for so long. How am I supposed to feel?

I fear the answer is that everyone is different, but otoh, not sure if that's true. I wonder if, because of the constant proximity and availability of food, our baseline has shifted up so that what we now call sated is really overstuffed, and what we call hunger is often simply craving.

Comments

[lrcutter.livejournal.com]

One of my goals is to never actually feel hungry. I need to eat every couple of hours or so to maintain an even blood sugar. If I've gone without food long enough to actually be feeling hungry, then I've gone too long.

Have you ever looked at this site?

http://www.nutritiondata.com/index.html

One of the ways it rates food is with a "fullness factor" (FF) They feel it's a better way to diet -- eating healthy foods that actually fill you up. The site isn't intiuitive I'm afriad, but you can use it for your diet plans. I keep a food journal, keeping track of everything I've eaten for a particular day. Then I go to the site, add those foods to my pantry, then total it up. The site then not only shows me the number of calories I've consumed, it also shows things like what percentage of the RDA am I getting of calcium, protein, vitamins, etc.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Wow--thanks for the link!