I'm never hungry but once I start eating I can't stop page

[Therealdeal]

I don't have any health problems that I know of and my weight is perfect. A weird thing is that I can just fast without feeling hungry. I don't feel full or anything, I could just eat and enjoy it but I'm definitely not hungry. But once I eat a small piece of chocolate or 3-4 macadamia nuts I suddenly go into binge mode and I always literally run outside to calm down before I start binging. If I were to eat according to my body I would probably not eat for 2days and then eat like 7000 calories at once. Any ideas why this could be?

[mmsantos]

In my opinion, this is how we should eat - feasting and fasting is how humans evolved to eat. I suffer from the same "problem" myself. Can easily fast for a long time without feeling hungry, but then go into 'eating mode'. I think it's just what happens when you eat real food.

My advice would be to not snack on chocolate or nuts, or certainly not break your fast with them. Always break your fast with a BIG meal with fatty meat and vegetables. That way you will feel satiated and won't be inclined to binge on junk. At least that's what worked for me, hope it works for you too!

[adamm]

I don't have any health problems that I know of and my weight is perfect. A weird thing is that I can just fast without feeling hungry. I don't feel full or anything, I could just eat and enjoy it but I'm definitely not hungry. But once I eat a small piece of chocolate or 3-4 macadamia nuts I suddenly go into binge mode and I always literally run outside to calm down before I start binging. If I were to eat according to my body I would probably not eat for 2days and then eat like 7000 calories at once. Any ideas why this could be?

Everyone has "trigger foods". Find yours ,and don't eat them. Simple

--Me

[Nady]

Limbic hunger

from Better Is Better: Fast-5 Fat Loss - Part 2 Of The Bert Herring Interview

Adam: That makes sense. I wanted to ask you about hunger. I think any one that's tried fasting, will probably be a little bit more familiar with the different types of hunger that exist. You tend to experiment with it a little bit when you're fasting. You discussed certain categories in your book; can you just talk about that a little bit?

Bert: Yes, I refer to two types. One that's called somatic hunger. "Somatic" just means "of the body". The other is limbic hunger. Limbic hunger refers to the limbic system of the brain which is where your instinctive behaviors are.

The reason I make that separation is that there's hunger behavior when a person is driven to eat despite whatever they might feel in the rest of the body. The somatic hunger refers to the sensation of discomfort in the belly.

One of the things I became aware of, that's why I did my study on this, is that many people go through the behavior of eating and are driven to eat, and I had seen myself doing this, even if they had a conscious recognition that they were not particularly hungry.

And certainly a conscious recognition that the fat storage was certainly ample on fuel. So they knew they didn't need the food, they weren't necessarily feeling hunger in their belly, but it was still a compulsion to eat. So that's what I call limbic hunger. The somatic hunger is the crampy, uncomfortable feeling in the belly.

Adam: Interesting. It's driven a lot I would imagine by emotions, boredom and social aspects play a big role in driving those hungers. I liked in the book how you said that just shutting it off completely, just throwing the switch, helps you overcome that urge to eat.

Instead of saying, "Well I can just have a little bit of this and a little bit of that", which turns into a lot of something you didn't mean to eat in the first place.

Bert: That's one of the keys of any fasting regimen success, I believe. It's a lot easier to just not eat than to eat a little bit, because of the instinctive response that we have apparently acquired. When our bodies realize that food is available, it is a drive to eat more than what we need of it, so that we have some stored for later.

Adam: Which was probably very useful a couple of hundred thousand years ago.

Bert: Absolutely, because all we had for a refrigerator was what we could store in our bodies

[Therealdeal]

Everyone has "trigger foods". Find yours ,and don't eat them. Simple

--Me

ALL foods are trigger foods for me

[Sandra in BC]

ALL foods are trigger foods for me

I don't believe that. You would get that worked up about a big ass salad or some hard boiled eggs???

[terrax]

Sounds like you may have Binge Eating Disorder. Any emotional/stress issues that you are also dealing with now that may cause the binging?

[jakey]

I don't believe that. You would get that worked up about a big ass salad or some hard boiled eggs???

you, clearly, have a healthy relationship with food. you also don't understand a binge eating disorder.

OP, you may well have a binge eating disorder. i've suffered horribly with this in the past. there is no easy answer. all i can tell you is that if it helps to "literally run outside to calm down before [you] start binging," do so. make it a habit. then work your way into mentally taking that run outside, while remaining physically.

you'll need some cognitive behavioral therapy to work with this issue. but you can bring it under control, i promise you that!

[Damiana]

OP, you just mentioned that chocolate and nuts make you go into binge mode. Like Sandra said, would you go crazy on some hard boiled eggs?

[Team Oberg]

Chocolate and nuts are my binge trigger foods as well, and that whole "everything in moderation" thing is bullshit. I can't moderate so I go without. I legit ate about 3000 calories of cashews in an afternoon. After cutting these things out of my diet I not only binge less, but if i do binge I know that the calorie counts wont rack up.