Emotional Vs. Physical Hunger: What’s the Difference?

When you feel stress creeping in, how do you tend to respond? For some, it might be carving out time to run or meditate, but for others, it could be turning toward food for comfort – consciously or unconsciously.  

If you identify with turning to food when you feel stressed, know that you aren’t alone. And we’re not here to judge. Emotional eating, or eating in response to emotions, is more common than you might realize. According to the American Psychological Association, 38% of adults say they overeat or eat unhealthy foods because of stress.

While the conversations around this topic have improved, there’s still a ways to go. Our goal is to help you better understand what motivates your eating behaviors so you can take charge and make the changes you desire.

Let’s take a further look at defining physical hunger versus emotional hunger.

First, Let’s Define Physical Hunger

Hunger is your body’s way of letting you know it needs energy – and energy comes from the calories you eat, aka your food choices.

There are two main hormones to thank when it comes to communicating hunger signals, ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin tells your brain it’s time to eat when your stomach is empty, and leptin does the opposite telling your brain to stop when you are feeling full and satisfied.

Besides hormonal cues, there are also physical indicators of hunger. You’re probably most familiar with the sensation of stomach growling. In addition, light-headedness, low energy, shakiness, headaches, or problems focusing may be signs of hunger.

Why Else Might I Eat Besides Physical Hunger?

Seems simple enough. Stomach growling means it’s time to eat. But it’s not that linear. Many other factors motivate you to eat. Here are some examples to get you thinking about your own patterns:

• Social reasons such as a happy hour hang, holiday gathering, or birthday celebration
• Emotional reasons like when you’re feeling stressed, bored, happy, or sad
• Habitual reasons such as always reaching for a snack when you’re watching TV, reading, or driving in a car
• Health reasons, like a diabetic working on blood sugar regulation or an athlete striving to build muscle with an evening protein shake

While food can serve as a distraction from what’s on your mind, leaning on this habit too often might lead you to potentially overeat, or choose high-calorie comfort foods too often. The key is striving for a balance of eating for both nourishment and enjoyment purposes that support your health goals.

Impact of Emotions on Hunger

Ever noticed that when you do eat for emotional reasons like stress, you aren’t craving a carrot. Turns out there’s actually some science behind this connection. 

Cortisol is the hormone that gets released when you’re feeling stressed. It stimulates your overall appetite, but also that desire to reach for those calorie-dense food choices, like sugar and fat. This is due to central reward pathways. 

You can imagine the impact this might have on those individuals who live in a chronically stressed state.

One study found that chronically stressed individuals with higher cortisol levels tended to experience more significant weight gain when monitored for six months.

How to Get Back on Track

If you’re someone who is chronically stressed or tends to be more of an emotional person, this article isn’t meant to make you nervous. Instead, it’s meant to help you better understand the why behind your typical behaviors. Also, to motivate and encourage you to manage your feelings instead of turning toward food.

One tool we think can help is our notes feature within the Lose it! app. It’s a way for you to easily keep track of additional details – like how you’re feeling or what’s motivating you to eat.

Lose It! Support Article: How to Add a Note

 

Another feature called Lose It! Patterns is a Premium feature that shows correlations between your food and exercise logging and your budget. It can give you helpful feedback on what behaviors may be helping – or hurting – your progress. (Remember: the more consistently you track, the more support we can give.)

 

Lose It! Support Article: What Are Patterns?

 

Lastly, reviewing your macronutrient breakdowns, at meals or snacks, can be a good visual tool to help better identify any emotional eating patterns – like a higher sugar or higher fat intake after dinner.

It’s inevitable that you’re going to eat for reasons beyond physical hunger. And honestly, that’s ok to some extent. We want you to enjoy your food choices – the taste, texture, and smells – just as much as we want you to properly nourish yourself.  

If you need more support on your emotional eating journey, we encourage you to reach out to a registered dietitian, behavioral psychologist, or medical provider.

Remember: eating behaviors can be changed. The first step is all about understanding your patterns and the second step is creating a plan.