Hunger by definition is a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat.

A craving on the other hand is simply a powerful desire for something, so cravings aren’t limited to food…we can crave a television show or sex or to see someone we love.

The primary difference between hunger and a craving is that hunger is a physical sensation that happens from the neck down so for example, your stomach growling, but not because you ate something that didn’t agree with you, but because your body is saying ‘FEED ME por favor.

A craving happens from the neck up and it’s not a physical sensation, it’s mental and it manifests itself via thoughts. The one exception is if you see a commercial and start to salivate, but that might happen right after a super filling meal simply because the food looks delicious, meaning you’re not actually hungry, it’s that the ad stimulated memories, thoughts and ideas in your head about how delicious that food would be!

So, hunger is neck down, cravings are neck up.

Also, when you’re truly hungry you’d settle for just about anything food wise, but when you have a craving, you only want specific foods, so for example…

Let’s say you think that you’re hungry and a piece of pizza sounds super appealing, but then someone offers you a piece of salmon with a baked potato and some vegetables and you don’t want it…this is tell-tale sign of a craving that because if you were really hungry, you’d want the calories and the satiation that would come along with the salmon, potato and veggies. 

So as general rule, if you only want specific foods (typically there going to be hyper-palatable, high calorie, treat-like foods) you’re experiencing a craving.

On the other hand if you said you were hungry and someone offered up the salmon, potato and veggies and you scarfed it down…that was some legit hunger at play!

To take this example to an extreme, in the case of being REALLY hungry…you’ll eat things that you don’t necessarily even like that much, but if they contain calories you’ll throw em’ down the hatch because hunger isn’t picky.

There’s a saying that ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ and I think this might just be where that saying came from because when you’re ravenous, you’re not turning ANY food down!

What are the most filling foods?

They’re single ingredient whole foods without a doubt. Both a small glazed donut and a large baked potato have about 250 calories, but no one would argue that the potato is going to fill you up a lot more than the donut, so when your goal is fat loss, you want to choose single and minimal ingredient foods because they contain fewer calories, they’re much more filling and not to mention they’re way healthier.

There’s also a concept called the protein leverage hypothesis I want to touch on…the protein leverage hypothesis states that humans will prioritize the consumption of protein in food over carbs and fats and will eat until protein and have been met, regardless of energy content, thus leading to overconsumption of calories when protein intake is low.

I’ll repeat that in English…basically the idea is that we humans eat to a protein minimum, so when you eat a low protein diet, you’re body wants to eat more and more calories because it’s trying to attain that minimum protein target. On the other hand if you simply provide yourself with adequate protein or even slightly more, you feel satiated with fewer calories

Aka…if your goal is fat loss, prioritize protein

Being that you’re reading this, you’re probably not dealing with any sort of food shortage. We actually have more than enough food to feed the whole world, but unfortunately folks still go hungry due to political and food access issues, not because there isn’t enough food on the planet so…

We used to have a food shortage issue, we solved that, however we have the same evolutionary systems in place that drive us to want to eat a ton because we didn’t know exactly when our next meal was going to be…this is called an evolutionary mismatch.

Our inherent tendencies are geared towards a food scarce environment because that was our situation for the vast majority of human history, but recently we solved the whole food shortage issue and now we have food abundance…the problem is, that inherent tendency is still in place because evolution happens slowly.

What do we about this mismatch?

Like I mentioned before, we eat primarily single and minimal ingredient whole foods and we make sure that our diet has adequate protein. Outside of that we need to be super aware of our food environment as well

If you have treat foods in your house that you find difficult not to overeat, you’ve already lost because it’s not a matter of if you’ll eat them, it’s when, so as a rule only bring food in your home that you want to eat.

What else classifies as your food environment?

Television counts, food commercials kick up cravings because that’s literally exactly what they’re designed to do…the food manufacturers want you to buy their product.

Instagram, Facebook, even billboards on the side of the road classify as your food environment because they’re constant reminders of all of these super tasty, calorie dense food options that are available 24/7.

So for some folks I actually recommend unfollowing social media accounts related to food because you’re just not doing yourself any favours. If you like some accounts for recipes and things like that great, but the fewer times throughout the day you can be reminded of eating, the easier it’s going to be to stay on point.

Also, you shouldn’t even need much of any discipline or willpower in your home because the foods that require you to use willpower shouldn’t even be in your house to begin with.

Now for the folks who have families with different eating patterns, that’s tough…ideally you’d all get on the same page and eat healthfully, but that’s everyone’s personal choice. 

If you think about it, it’s fairly rare to see a mismatched fitness couple…or in other words it’s rare to see a really fit husband and unfit wife, or a really fit wife and an unfit husband. It’s also quite rare to see super fit parents and overweight children or even more so super fit children and overweight parents…

You might be thinking well that’s because of genetics, not really…it’s because of lifestyle.

Parents control what children eat because they purchase the food, so it’s just not possible for a young kid to eat whatever they want unless their parents make it so, and then when it comes to couples, we influence one another so much and we typically attract likeness, so generally fit people date fit people and unfit people date unfit people.

So if you take a step back and look at it, people are an aspect of your food environment too.

If you hang out with a lot of heavy drinkers, you’re probably going to drink more.

If the vast majority of your friends are sober, you’re probably going to be sober or something close to it as well

Now I want to be clear, I’m not saying ditch all your friends with habits or goals that don’t line up perfectly with yours, just be aware of how the people you spend the most time with influence you.

Also, protect your food environment and set yourself up for success because being that we have such an abundant access to food with old evolutionary mechanisms in place…it’s a recipe to be overweight.

As we start to wrap up here, hunger is a physical sensation from the neck down, cravings are thought-based and happen from the neck up.

If you’re having a hard time distinguishing one from the other, the absolute simplest way to tell the difference is the degree of your pickiness.

If you only want specific calorie dense foods (pizza, burgers, cake, doughnuts etc.) you’re probably experiencing a craving.

But if you’d also happily reach for super healthful single ingredient foods, you’re most likely legitimately hungry.

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