10 Reasons Why You’re Always Hungry

It’s been a mere hour and 48 minutes since your last meal, and you’re spending more time figuring out the shortest Google Maps route to your nearest Pinkberry than you are finishing up that huge project due at 5 p.m.

While some people may double check to make sure they have their keys when they leave the house, you have to make sure you have a snack. And if you forget? Let’s just hope no one’s around to witness how hangry you get. You think you’re eating enough, but no matter what you put in your body, you always seem to develop maddening cravings.

So, what exactly is going on here? It turns out that hunger is a pretty complicated function and is influenced by both biological and psychological factors. (And there are also the devilish foods that make you hungrier, too!) We found some of the most common, scientifically-backed reasons why some of us are constantly ravenous. Read up so you can finally fill up and feel satisfied!

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1. You eat a lot of refined carbs.
Even if you’re eating something at every meal, if your day looks something like this—a cup of sugary, flaked cereal for breakfast, a slice of pizza or a sandwich on white bread for lunch, chips for a snack, either white rice or pasta for dinner, and then a chocolate chip cookie for dessert—your problem is that you’re constantly fueling yourself with nutritionally-deficient refined carbs. Lacking the satiating fiber of their original form, simple and refined carbs burn up quickly in your body, which spikes your blood sugar and then causes it to crash. Low glucose levels are what triggers your hunger hormones, leaving you with a craving for more carbs!

Eat This! Tip:
For slow-burning, clean sources of energy, choose complex carbs such as grains like brown rice, quinoa and triticale, cruciferous vegetables, fruits, and whole-grain sprouted bread. Sprouting grains is one of the ways to get more nutrients out of your food.

2. You’re actually thirsty.
Did seeing that picture of water just make you forget about what you thought was a hungry tummy? A study in the journal Physiology & Behavior suggests people inappropriately respond to thirst over 60 percent of the time by eating instead of drinking. That’s because your hypothalamus regulates hunger and thirst, and sometimes it mixes up its signals. Just sipping on H2O is the solution to quelling your hunger pangs and, ultimately, helping you slim down. In fact, preloading meals with water can shave hundreds of calories from your daily intake. A study published in Obesity found that drinking two cups of water before eating led people to consume 75 to 90 fewer calories over the course of a meal.

Eat This! Tip:
Next time you’re hankering for a snack, knock back a cup of water first and wait 20 minutes. If you’re still hungry, eat something. And if you’re sick of plain ol’ H20, whip up some of these 50 Best Detox Waters to rev your metabolism and boost your fat burning potential!

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3. You eat while watching T.V.
Everyone knows that you eat with your eyes, but it turns out, your ears also play a role. A new study, published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, tested how our perception of the sound of eating food affects our eating habits. They had two groups of participants eat crunchy foods, one with white-noise-producing headphones and the other without. These headphones were intended to mimic everyday behaviors of distracted eating, such as watching TV or listening to music while you eat. It turned out, participants who were less aware of the sound of the food, because of the levels of white noise, ate more than those that could hear the food they were eating.

Eat This! Tip:
Step away from the TV (or computer, for all you cord-cutters out there) and lower the music during dinner. And if you’re out to dinner at a busy restaurant, maybe think about ordering something crunchy! As long as you can hear the food you are eating, it’ll make you aware of the fact that you’re actually eating food. When you’re unaware, you basically forget that you’re eating, which can lead to an increase in food consumption.

4. You’re always stressed out.
While stress may shut down appetite in the short term—it pumps out the hormone epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) that triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response and puts eating on hold—if stress persists, it’s a different story. Your adrenal glands then release a different hormone called cortisol, which will not only trigger your hunger hormones, but it will also pull lipids from the bloodstream to store them in our fat cells.

Eat This! Tip:
You might not be able to control exactly what’s happening in your life that’s making you stressed, but you can control what you’re putting in your body. Make it these Teas for Weight Loss That Combat Stress!

5. You’re not getting enough sleep.
If you feel like you’re always delving into your office snack stash, you might be able to blame your lack of sleep. Nutrition expert and star of “My Diet is Better than Yours” Jay Cardiello explains that when you don’t get enough sleep, levels of leptin (the “I’m full” hormone) drop, which in turn increases appetite and makes comfort food more appealing. Besides stimulating your appetite, certified holistic health counselor, Seth Santoro, explains a lack of sufficient sleep “can cause you to burn fewer calories, lack appetite control and experience an increase in cortisol levels, which stores fat.”

Eat This! Tip:
Having trouble falling asleep? Get the recommended 7-8 hours of shut-eye by following this One-Day Plan for Better Sleep.

6. You eat according to calories, not nutrients.
It’s not calories that satiate your hunger, it’s nutrients: fiber, protein, and healthy fats. Unfortunately, simple, refined carbs are lacking in all three and so are many 100-calorie snacks. And they’ll just fill your body with fast, cheap calories. So no matter how much you eat, your body will go in search of more food. The result: a sluggish, hungrier you — one who’s more likely to dive into the snack drawer.

Eat This! Tip:
Start your day with a high-protein, high-fat food like Greek yogurt, a veggie-filled omelet, or chia pudding, and you’ll reduce your hunger overall.

7. You eat too quickly.
Hunger hormones take anywhere between 20 to 30 minutes to get to your brain, according to Cara Stewart, RD, LDN, so if you wolf down your entire meal in under 5 minutes, you’ll most likely eat more than your fill. Scientists believe it’s because your hunger hormones act in a relay, passing off feelings of fullness between each other before telling your brain. This system takes some time to work, which is why it’s best to eat slowly. Yet another reason why fast food makes you fat.

Eat This! Tip:
When your entrée arrives, dive in and eat half, then wait at least 10 minutes before coming out for round 2. While you chat and sip water, your stomach will have a chance to digest and decide whether you’ve had enough— no matter what the plate’s saying.

8. Your Instagram feed is loaded with food pictures.
As it turns out, scrolling through your social feeds is just as bad for your gut as seeking out those trending treats themselves. A review published in the journalBrain and Cognition found that when we see “food porn,” it exacerbates our desire for food through a channel of neural and physical responses called “visual hunger.” In other words, even if we’re not physically in need of food, our bodies will send a signal to our brains that we want to eat. So what exactly is going on here? Scientists found that the concentration of the “hunger hormone” ghrelin increases in response to seeing food images.

Eat This! Tip:
Looking at those “food porn” images of oozy yolks dribbling down cheesy burgers is going to make you hungry—even if you weren’t before you started scrolling—which puts you at risk of over consuming and eating the same high-energy, belly-busting foods. If you’re trying to lose weight, unfollow some accounts that post images of unhealthy dishes, and start following accounts that highlight better-for-you choices: a study in Experimental Brain Researchfound that our brains don’t become as alert in response to seeing photos of low-energy, healthy foods like veggies.

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9. You go for diet drinks.
Whether it’s diet or regular, soda is one of the sugariest foods you can consume. And while many of us know sugar makes you crave sugar, artificially sweetened products and sugar alternatives (like aspartame, acesulfame K, and sucralose) can actually ramp up your appetite even more than real sugar, causing increased calorie consumption over time. According to a study in the British Journal of Nutrition, researchers found that while drinks sweetened with glucose and fructose (two components of regular table sugar) increased satiety and decreased the hunger hormone ghrelin, drinks sweetened with an artificial sweetener were not able to affect satiety hormone signaling at all.

Eat This! Tip:
If you’re drinking soda for energy, check out these 23 Best Foods for Energy instead. Most of these energy-boosting foods are actually, well, food, and will properly decrease levels of your hunger hormones while giving you lasting fuel to help you tackle the rest your day.

10. You skip meals.
This might sound like an obvious one, but it’s more than just the fact that you aren’t feeding your body. Skipping meals has actually shown to be able to make you feel hungrier when the next meal rolls around, according to the National Institute of Health. When you don’t eat, your body can deplete its blood glucose stores, which promotes an uptick in the hunger hormone ghrelin, ramping up your appetite.

Eat This! Tip:
Try not to let more than 4 or 5 hours go by between meals, and keep healthy snacks on hand at all times to help curb hunger before it makes you overindulge.

For more reasons why you’re always hungry, read the rest of the article at Eat This, Not That.