What is hunger?

I was listening to a tremendous podcast which is well worth listening to, where Dr. Peter Attia was interviewing Dr. Jason Fung.Part way through the podcast Dr. Attia was reflecting on how he feels during a 7 day fast (he does this for health, not for weight loss). He and Dr. Fung agree that there may be some true hunger on the second day, but really the hunger one feels is more psychological than physical.Dr. Attia felt that the hunger he felt on the fifth day of the fast was no worse than that he might feel after a few hours of not eating. I know he is right. Often I will find myself reaching for food at the first sign of a mild feeling of stomach emptiness. The feeling is not painful....but the ‘reach for food’ is a reflex. If I was busy, I know I wouldn’t even notice the sensation, or would be very unlikely to pay attention to it.The point of this is that I feel most of us should reflect whenever we are making a grab for food, using the words “Am I hungry?” Feel the sensation. Is it painful? Are you going to collapse? If you don’t eat, what would happen? I know the answer to all these questions. It’s not painful, you won’t collapse and nothing serious will happen. We have become so habituated in our reach for food that it becomes the norm to quickly satisfy any hunger. If you are old enough, remember the time when our parents would not allow any snacks between meals, and would tell us to go outside and play until dinner was ready. Those were easier times, with no smartphones and tablets to distract us. We didn’t die of starvation!See how long you can go without snacking! If you feel some sort of hunger (whether physical or mental), how uncomfortable is it on a scale of 1 to 10? I will accept a 10 if you have had nothing to eat for a month! Or compare it to something else. We will tolerate discomfort of relationships/work/ exercise and push on, yet our threshold for accepting a bit of hunger is low.Learn to develop resilience; try not to give in to ‘hunger’, unless it is really severe. If you do, don’t overindulge. A small quantity of food easily minimizes hunger (one apple or an egg or 10 almonds), we don’t have to eat a great deal of food.I am finding the more people practice longer and longer periods where they don’t eat, the more they realize how easy it is not to be snacking every 3 hours. We live in a blessed society with abundance of food; none of us really, ever have to concern ourselves about hunger; food is (unfortunately?) always nearby.Listen to the podcast. Hunger is nothing to be afraid of. Conquering this is a great achievement.Keep working at it. It’s never easy, but you can do it!Dr. Doug