Benefits of Eating When You’re Hungry Vs On Schedule

For ages we have been following the 3 meals a day norm. Although this eating standard fits our social convention perfectly, it is not the healthiest thing to do.  Studies suggest that eating when you’re even moderately hungry is much healthier than eating when you are not hungry at all. In this article we will know about the benefits of eating when you’re hungry compared to that when eating according to a schedule. But first lets know about hunger and eating habits a little more.

So why do we eat when we are not hungry?

Our day to day routine is the real dictator of binge eating unhealthy food. Humans need food every 3-4 hour. Hence, we munch on those delicious fatty snacks to which provides us the much-needed energy. Furthermore, most of us succumb to “The Hunger Games”. Those ruthless food cravings we get even we are quite full. Not only we eat more than our requirement, but also gain the dreadful excess fat.

Benefits of Eating Only When You’re Hungry

1. You’ll Actually Like What You Eat

The hungrier you are, the more you enjoy your meals even when it’s something you don’t usually like to eat. Green vegetables and salads, which you earlier resented as ghaas phus won’t taste so bad after all.

Source: Giphy

2. Glucose Levels remain intact

When you give in to food cravings, you fill up yourself with unnecessary food. What happens next? Your glucose levels rise up really fast. This has damaging effects on your health.

Source: Giphy

3. Helps in Coping with Eating Disorder

On practicing mindful eating, you gain awareness of your body. You’ll be in tune with your hunger cues. With time, the urge to eat when not really hungry will be reduced to a great extent.  

4. No more “I’m Sad and Food is my only Support”

Source: Giphy

Whenever we are sad or stressed, we gulp on delicious food. We all know this not healthy. When you begin mindful eating, you actually feel more self-compassion and don’t use food as your only chance to keep yourself from falling apart.

Check out Food that uplifts mood.

5. Your Fitness Goals won’t seem so difficult after all

Mindful eating coupled with exercise is a great way to get rid of that jiggly belly. And not just belly fat your entire body gets in good shape. Your metabolism improves and you feel so much better. 

Source: Giphy

Right now, this may seem impossible to do. Adopting this in your life will be hard at first but with time you’ll surely get the hang of it. You will only get the benefits of eating when you’re hungry when you never starve yourself or only eat foods loaded with fat and carbs.

Just remember the golden rule “Eat when you’re hungry. Stop when you’re full”.