Eat Only When Hungry: Part 1

 If we do this we eat only to supply the demands of the body. We cannot repeat too often the admonition, do not eat if not hungry. If this plan were followed the present three meals-a-day plan would end. Also the practice of many of eating between meals and in the evening before retiring would cease. For most people real hunger would call for about one meal a day, with occasionally some small amounts of fruit during the day.

Hunger is the “voice of nature” saying to us that food is required. There is no other true guide as to when to eat. The time of day, the habitual meal time, etc., are not true guides. Although genuine hunger is a mouth and throat sensation and depends upon an actual physiological need for food, muscular contractions of the stomach accompany hunger and are thought by physiologists, to give rise to the hunger sensation.

Carlson, of the Chicago University, found that in a man who had been fasting two weeks, these gastric “hunger” contractions had not decreased, although there was no desire for food. The same has been observed in animals. Indeed these contractions are seen to increase and yet they do not produce the sensation of hunger. I consider real hunger to be a mouth and throat sensation.

Part 2 to "Eat Only When Hungry" will be available soon.