Toxic Hunger vs. True Hunger: The Endless Cycle and Signs
You have just finished a meal and soon after you feel:
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Dizzy
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Grunting stomach
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Headache
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Stomach cramps
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Tremors, fatigue, weakness
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Irritability
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Esophageal spasms
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Inability to concentrate
These symptoms are generally the feelings that we interpret as hunger. These uncomfortable symptoms can be experienced to different degrees by different people.
And for many people, these uncomfortable symptoms are the bane of all their attempts to lose weight by eating less food.
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Since eating eliminates the symptoms, they are mistakenly believed to be those of hunger.
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These symptoms consistently lead people to consume more calories than necessary, and this pervasive overeating behavior has led to an obesity epidemic and a continuing rise in preventable chronic diseases.
Are these sensations true signs of hunger?
Conventional wisdom, and even medical textbooks, would suggest that it does. But many doctors and scientists now disagree.
According to Dr. Fuhrman, it’s all about Toxic Hunger, “The typical Western diet is characterized by high-calorie processed foods, oils, sweeteners, and animal products and is low in phytochemicals and other micronutrients. There is evidence that such a diet is low in micronutrients and phytochemicals, resulting in inflammation, oxidative stress and accumulation of toxic metabolites. When digestion is complete, the body begins to mobilize and eliminate waste products, causing uncomfortable symptoms. If we allow waste metabolites to accumulate by eating food unhealthy, they will feel discomfort when the body tries to mobilize and eliminate these wastes. I propose that these sensations are actually symptoms of detoxification and withdrawal from an unhealthy diet, which lacks crucial micronutrients. Scientists now know that unhealthy foods have in the brain similar to those of addictive drugs. “
What is toxic hunger?
Toxic hunger is a physical addiction to an unhealthy, nutrient-dense diet. The symptoms associated with hunger are actually signs of your body’s toxicity.
Our bodies are so contaminated with heavy metals, GMOs, antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, herbicides, high fructose corn syrup, and chemicals that many Americans don’t even know what real hunger feels like.
It may not be wrong to compare the American diet to drugs; they are toxic, addictive, and harmful to the body.
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Processed foods are packed with ingredients that sound like a science experiment with a shelf life of a decade.
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In addition to our so-called healthy fruits and vegetables, sprayed with a chemical mix of pesticides and herbicides that add to the chemicals your body is ingesting.
What happens when you eat this chemical mixture called food?
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Your body starts playing 20 questions.
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Your body doesn’t recognize it
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Your body’s internal organs and digestive system have no idea what to do with these mysterious “foods” and chemicals.
When these chemicals enter your body, your body protects itself by storing the foreign toxins in its lovely fat cells, away from your vital organs. This is a necessary survival mechanism that occurs naturally within your body.
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Can you imagine what happens to your fat cells every day after ingesting all these toxins? … They get bigger and bigger!
What happens after these chemicals enter the body?
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Your blood sugar quickly rises to an extremely high level, releasing insulin to bring your blood sugar level down to a safe range ~ 60-100, releasing too much.
When too much insulin is released into your body:
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It makes you fatter and makes you store fat.
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Makes your blood sugar drop too low
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Making you toxic, hungry, irritable.
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And then crave more of these chemicals
The cycle of toxic hunger continues throughout the day.
So what does real or true hunger feel like?
The sensation of real hunger (“true hunger”) is felt mainly in the mouth and throat. Not in the head or in the stomach.
By eliminating toxic hunger and getting back in touch with real hunger, eating is more enjoyable and you can maintain your ideal weight without extreme dieting.
It’s always hard to break a bad habit at first, but once the toxic starvation phase is over, your body can recover and repair itself.
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Imagine that you are addicted to cigarettes and you smoke 5 cigarettes a day and suddenly you stop smoking, of course it feels horrible at first. But if you can get through the detox phase, you really start to feel better.
The same is true of overcoming the toxic hunger phase.
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And, by improving the quality of your diet and increasing your intake of nutrient-dense foods, this can lead to reduced uncomfortable symptoms associated with toxic hunger despite lower caloric intake.