Xplora wrote:Casual C, something Joe Friel mentioned in a recent blog while he was on the high fat diet over the last 12 months, was that he was much more inclined to eat leftovers for breakfast. I think if your goal is to avoid grains, or processed foods, then you need to have a supply of food ready to go because hunger is mostly physiological and you can't stop it. It's guided totally by your head, but you can't breathe deeply to make the hunger go away.
Actually, I have found that is not at all the case for me. Before I stopped eating mainly processed food, I felt severely hungry 5 or 6 times a day. I was eating 8 or 9 times a day. When I got hungry I felt like I was starving and felt weak, shaky, sick, desperate and cranky! If anyone said anything to set me off I would fly in to a rage and yell and yell for no reason. I felt like I
had to eat or I would die. The food I chose to eat when I felt like that was always the most energy dense food that I could find... and by that I mean high in refined sugar. You probably think I am exaggerating. I'm not.
After switching to eating actual food, I will give you an example of how much my perception of hunger has changed. Provided I have a decent lunch, I can arrive home after work feeling hungry, go for a run, walk to the shops, buy ingredients for dinner, walk home and cook dinner from scratch and still not feel
ridiculously hungry. I certainly don't feel weak or shaky and I do not feel driven to eat. So no, I can't take a deep breath and make hunger go away, but I can defer eating to a suitable time if hunger feels gentle as opposed to feeling raging hunger. I also did a 24 hour fast on just water, no food or drinks and at no point did I feel anything close to what I used to endure 5 or 6 times every day. To me, the quality of food is far more important than the quantity of food.
For a different reason, I 100% agree with your comment "I think if your goal is to avoid grains, or processed foods, then you need to have a supply of food ready to go..." Definitely. The reason is that if the food is on my desk, in my fridge or in my cupboard ready to eat, I will eat it, I won't put the effort into seeking out energy dense alternatives... because that would be too much work. However, if there is no nutritionally dense food ready to go, I will eat whatever energy dense food is around.
It's not just me who has experienced a different perception of hunger on a nutrient dense diet. This has been studied...
http://toyourhealthnutrition.blogspot.c ... ty-by.html