The other day I stumbled upon an article “Don’t Eat When You’re Not Hungry” about the 5 Common Types of Hungerless Eating (poweringmuscles.com). And I identified myself in many of the eating types. We’ve all heard about emotional eating—eating because you are bored, tired, procrastinating, stressed, pms’ing, etc…, but there were a few others that served as great reminders to me!

Here is the list:

Emotional Eating: Often the factor that drives our eating is not physical hunger but emotions such as happiness, sadness, or even boredom. Learn to tell the difference between real, physical hunger and emotional food cravings. Physical hunger tends to come on gradually, does not involve cravings for specific foods, and goes away when you’re full. Emotional eating urges come on suddenly, involve cravings for specific foods, and often don’t go away even when you’ve eaten. And if you feel guilty after eating, chances are it was emotional eating.

Spontaneous (or Social) Eating: Food is almost everywhere in our society, and often we eat it just because it’s there, even when we’re already full. This adds a lot of useless calories to one’s diet.

Unconscious Eating: Sometimes we eat without even being fully conscious that we are doing so. For example, while watching television you might eat half a box of cookies even though you’re not hungry. When you go to eat a cookie the next day, you wonder where half of them went.

Habitual Eating: Eating out of habit instead of hunger is known as habitual eating. Eating on a schedule is a good thing if the schedule is sensible, but becomes a bad thing when the schedule is not sensible. An eating schedule is sensible if it has you eating only when you’re hungry, and is not sensible if it involves eating without hunger. Eating breakfast at home before work and again in the coffee room at work is an example of senseless habitual eating that will surely lead to weight gain.

Clearing Your Plate: The four types of hungerless eating described above involve starting to eat when you’re not hungry. But sometimes we start to eat when we’re hungry and don’t stop when we’re full. Instead we keep eating until we finish the food that’s in front of us or until we are uncomfortably stuffed. This type of hungerless eating is just as detrimental as the others.

Yikes guys, I’m guilty of most of these!! Now that we have defined each type of “hungerless eating,” take some time to to identify which ones you struggle with in your life. Next it’s time to make a game plan…check back for IE Part 3: Relearning How and What to Eat.