Reasons you eat when you’re not hungry

It is important to know the difference between your body’s desire for deliciousness and real hunger, as it is totally cool to eat solely for pressure. TFW your blood sugar has dropped, your hunger hormones flow, your satiety hormones go MIA, and your stomach physically churns as it been so long since you ate lunch.

This is because, regularly eating for a reason besides hunger can cause you to dissociate eating and hunger and so you end up with overeating and gaining weight, warns Amit Sood, MD, professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and author of Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-free Living.

It's why you should think twice about the urge to eat when you crave food in any of the following situations:

Attractive dishes

Humans are designed to feel hunger when we see food, according to evolutionary psychologist, who says it's a survival mechanism that was designed to hold over hunters and gathers in times when food was sparse. But now that food isn't too hard to come by.

Overthinking

The brain isn't great at storing calories for fuel. When you really buckle down at work, it can easily run out of energy, which stimulates to eat no matter what's in your stomach. The problem is that thinking extra hard doesn't necessarily burn extra calories or increase the amount of calories your body needs to function.

Unsatisfactory previous meal

When you allow yourself to eat something on your mental list of foods that are bad for you, you could fall prey to what psychologist Jean Kristeller, PhD, author of The Joy of Half a Cookie: Using Mindfulness to Lose Weight and End the Struggle With Food, calls the "I've blown it" effect. It's when you finish your small dish of ice cream, then end up eating the rest of the pint right out of the freezer because you've already ruined your healthy eating day.

Movies

It has been suggested that the fast camera cuts and sound variation in action movies activate snacking and lead to throw back up to twice as many calories as you watch something more chill. The same goes with the sad movies. If you must eat while you watch movie, just pre-portion it, instead of having the snacks simultaneously.

It’s time to eat

Somewhere along the line, humans of yesteryear evolved into supermarket shoppers programmed to eat three square meals a day. But there's no reason to dig into a major dinner if you've snacked throughout the day or force-feed yourself a major morning meal before your stomach is awake enough to actually crave food, especially now that experts doubt the health benefits of breakfast, in the first place.

Stress

The body releases dopamine when you eat sweets and other delectable; it's only natural to reach for food when dopamine levels take a nosedive, according to Dr. Sood. "Fake hunger can be satisfied by sensory experiences other than food intake,” So the next time anxiety creeps up on you, try listening to your favorite Spottily channel before resorting to dessert.

Thirst

Most of the foods contain at least a little bit of water, it is only natural to reach for food when you're super thirsty and it's more readily available than something you can sip. But using the formula to quench your thirst could add extra calories.

You're buzzed

Even though alcohol contains lots of calories, drinking it increases your body's desire to eat more, slashes your self control, and (as late-night pizza eaters may already suspect) the short-term rewarding effects of food. Once your brain catches on to this, it associates alcohol with food cravings that feel a lot like hunger regardless of your body's need for food. That’s why it is the smart plan to avoid the fake hunger by making sure of having the best food while you are drunk.

Multitasking while eating

Even if the real hunger led you to the dinner table in the first place, distracted eating could land you in the clean-plate club after your body's physical need for food has been met. That's because when you use one hand to shovel forkfuls of dinner into your mouth, and the other to thumb through your Facebook feed, your brain can't fully process the look, smell, and taste of your food as it travels from your plate to your stomach. a bad thing, considering it can take up to 20 minutes for the food you've eaten to reach your stomach and send the message to your brain that you're full, while all those cues can help the brain get the memo before you end up with a button-popping problem.

To avoid overeating in the first place, focus on your food and "eat mindfully." That means eliminating distractions (phone down!) and putting your fork down between every few bites to actively assess how the food feels inside your body. Then, after you finish the food on your plate, take a breather or break from the dinner table to clear non-essential dishes before you refill or get all up in dessert

Messy kitchen

You might not think much of your sink full of dishes or mail-covered kitchen counters. But turns out, simply hanging around a cluttered kitchen can enhance the urge to snack and reach for sweets; in particular, according to the research it is found that women in chaotic kitchens ate more overall, favoring cookies over crackers and carrots. It is again one more reason to keep your counter tops clean and the food out of your vision.