Could It Be Hunger? Sneaky Signs You Might Be Undereating

When you think about signs of hunger, you likely will think first of a growling stomach or a feeling of emptiness in your abdomen. In reality, for many folks with a history of dieting, disordered eating, or busy, distracted lives, hunger can show up in much sneakier ways.

Your body might whisper its needs before it ever urgently yells at you.

Missing (or choosing to ignore) those early signs can lead to rash decisions and guilt spirals. In this blog, we’ll discuss why traditional hunger cues can be unreliable at times and how to start recognizing the subtle ways that your body expresses hunger.

But what if your body doesn’t reliably express hunger? Or… you don’t know how to catch those signs?

Believe it or not, long-term dieting blunts your hunger signals over time. According to a 2019 issue of Appetite, findings showed that “people undergoing CR (calorie restriction) habituate and experience less hunger over time even though CR is maintained” (Dorling et al., 2019).

Many diets rely on calorie restriction and/or cutting out an entire food group to ensure “fast physical results.” When we do this, our body starts to believe that we don’t have consistent access to food. Rather than rub it in, your body takes the hint and stops reminding you to eat. For more on this metabolic process, check out the book Sick Enough by Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani.

An extensive history of dietary restriction is one of many reasons why you may not recognize your hunger & fullness signals. Through my time speaking with clients on basic biological needs, I’ve learned that people may not even know what hunger feels like if it's not hitting-them-over-the-head obvious. Typically, when you ask someone what hunger feels like in their body, they will respond with gnawing in their abdomen. This is correct, but it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to hunger signs.

If you are someone with any form of neurodiversity, basic biological cues may feel silent altogether. Diagnoses like ADHD and ASD tend to correlate with low interoception (Olivardia, 2022). Interoceptive awareness can be described as the strength of the alerts within your body to signal hunger, thirst, tiredness, urination urges, and more.

How to recognize hunger in all its forms

Sneaky signs of undereating look different for everybody. Hunger can show up as mental and physical symptoms through subtle shifts in how we feel and function. Whether it is your mind wandering towards lunch in a meeting or a wave of fatigue or dizziness, your hunger is valid. Your body is feeling that it's low on fuel and is trying to get you to meet those needs.

Some folks describe a strong gastrointestinal expression of hunger. These symptoms include, but are not limited to, gnawing, emptiness, growling, reflux, and nausea. Getting in touch with your body may be uncomfortable for you in any sense. As intuitive eating dietitians, we recommend working on your body trust and a great, practical step to build that trust is to honor your hunger- any and all of the signs you experience.

One place to start is checking in with yourself every 3-5 hours- do you notice any of the signs below? If so, you might be low on fuel even if it doesn't feel like hunger.

If you are rresonating with any of the symptoms… have a snack! Just kidding, but actually - sometimes that can help you tell if what you're experiencing is hunger or something else. If you're feeling dizzy or have a headache - try a snack and if it doesn't help, now you know something else might be going on, especially if you've been eating consistently for a while.

If your hunger cues seem off, here are some places to start

If your hunger cues seem off (you can't identify them or they seem irregular), start with asking:

• Am I eating 3 meals per day at minimum?

• Do I leave my meals feeling satiated & satisfied?

• Do my meals contain multiple food groups and/or components?

These questions, and the steps that follow from them, are an essential foundation for a healthy relationship with food! We cannot analyze the variety of our diet, if the consistency & adequacy are not met. In addition, eating consistently allows your body to trust that food is here again, and it won't be taken away. Every time you notice hunger and you meet it, you build connection and trust with your body. We notice many of our clients come in with inconsistent or missing hunger cues, and over time these cues return as they are fueling their body adequately again.

At the end of the day, your body is always trying to tell you something, even if the messages are faint or unfamiliar. Learning to recognize and respond to less obvious signs of hunger is an act of care, not indulgence. Instead of waiting for extreme symptoms to justify eating, begin by honoring your needs consistently and compassionately. Nourishment isn’t something you have to earn or justify.

So next time you're feeling tired, irritable, or just in a funky mood, pause and ask yourself:

Could my body be communicating with me?

Thanks for reading! We'd love to hear your thoughts and work with you if this is something on your mind. We see clients in our Charlotte and Corneilus offices, as well as virtually throughout NC, SC, and a handful of other states.

Citations:

Dorling, J. L., Bhapkar, M., Das, S. K., Racette, S. B., Apolzan, J. W., Fearnbach, S. N., Myers, C. A., Stewart, T. M., & Martin, C. K.; CALERIE Study Group. (2019). Change in self‑efficacy, eating behaviors and food cravings during two years of calorie restriction in humans without obesity. Appetite, 143, Article 104397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2019.104397 

Olivardia, R. (2022). Interoceptive awareness and ADHD. CHADD. https://chadd.org/adhd-news/adhd-news-adults/interoceptive-awareness-and-adhd/ (chadd.org)