Are Hunger Pains Part Of Your
Binge Eating Problem? 

"I get hunger pains all the time"

"My food cravings don't seem to go away even when I've just eaten"

"I don't seem to feel full up until I've eaten so much that I'm completely stuffed"

Binge eating and other chaotic eating patterns can upset our body’s internal mechanisms for regulating our hunger.

These mechanisms consist of a complex system of nerves and chemical messages that let our brains know when we need more food and when we are satisfied.

They act as a system of checks and balances, but if our eating behaviour has been chaotic for a long time, as in eating disorders, this system can be out of balance and we will have become sort of de-sensitised to when we are genuinely hungry or full up.

Just some of the chemicals involved in hunger are:

GHRELIN - helps create hunger pains as it is released when the stomach is empty, or when our blood sugar and protein levels are low. There is evidence that suggests that Ghrelin is also released as a 'conditioned response' and this is what helps us feel hungry when we smell or see food, or even just think about it.

LEPTIN, on the other hand, suppresses hunger. This chemical is a type of protein that is released as our fat cells start to expand. It counteracts the effect of Ghrelin and another powerful hunger chemical called NPY. There are theories that some people may be less sensitive to the effects of Leptin and that this may go some way to explain why some individuals may have difficulty controlling hunger pains and go on to experience weight problems.

NPY (Neuropeptide Y) - is one of the most powerful chemicals that increase our hunger. Among other things, it is released as our blood glucose and protein levels fall. NPY exerts its influence in the limbic system in the brain - which is also the area which affects our emotional experiences, and this may partly explain why eating has such a powerful emotional impact on us!

CCK (Cholecystekinin) - This hormone helps to tell the brain that we are satisfied. It is produced when the stomach receptors stretch and so lets the brain know that we can stop eating. It counteracts the affect of NPY. An interesting point here is that there is evidence to suggest that when our stomach receptors have become repeatedly overstretched, which of course can happen in binge eating, then we can no longer produce enough CCK, so we will not be able to tell properly when we are full! The way to correct this is to retrain our stomachs through regular small meals spaced throughout the day.

One problem is that it seems the systems that promote hunger are more powerful that the systems that suppress it! This is probably an evolutionary development connected with the drive for survival, with the hunger-producing chemicals urging us to hunt for food.

However, we now surrounded by food so much of the time, but those hunger pains are still there!

Binge eating upsets the self-regulating nature of these hunger chemicals because it upsets our blood sugar and other nutrient levels, and also by the way it repeatedly stretches our stomach receptors.

Re-training our system and getting back in touch with when we are truly hungry or satisfied involves sticking to balanced meals spaced regularly throughout the day, For instance, having breakfast even if we don’t normally do so, having something nutritious to eat even if we are still binging or purging, having a healthy snack in between meals.

This can start to re-train our hunger system, bring some stability back to our blood sugar and other neurotransmitter levels, and start to bring us back into touch with our natural hunger and satisfaction signals.

This can of course take time for us to get used to, but with regaining some nutritional stability, we can then also look at any emotional hunger problems we might be having, and therefore attack our hunger pains from both sides!