Dietitians suggest getting in tune with hunger cues to differentiate between "mouth hunger" and "stomach hunger".

Our tastebuds can be perplexing little units. They're designed to help us unlock the pleasure of food, but sometimes they seem to take over our brain's food choice department, prompting unhealthy choices and bingeing.

Dietitians suggest we get in tune with our hunger cues to differentiate between "mouth hunger" and "stomach hunger".

Stomach hunger meaning a physiological need for fuel; and mouth hunger meaning a desire for taste, potentially to help you cope with boredom or strong emotions.

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"True hunger is a feeling below the heart — it’s a growl or a grumble in the belly," accredited practising dietitian Lisa Donaldson tells Coach.

"It's not a response prompted by boredom, habit, or a workmate trying to sell off a charity chocolate or two."

Donaldson, who is a spokesperson for the Dietitian's Association of Australia, says that in modern society it can be challenging to be really in touch with our hunger signals.

"We are constantly surrounded by food – we see it flash up on our screens, we smell it when we walk past the café and we overhear people talking about ordering a pizza for dinner – it’s often difficult to escape," she says.

"As such, we are constantly reminded of food and suddenly feel the urge to eat without actually being hungry."

Here's how to listen to your body and give it what it needs.

Why it's hard to understand hunger

Food, weight and disordered eating psychologist Kellee Waters says that so many people have been on deprivation diets that they have lost their hunger intuition.

"They have actually turned off their metabolism so they don't know when they're hungry and when they're not," she tells Coach.

Canadian dietitian Michelle Allen agrees that getting in touch with your hunger cues is essential if you want to feed yourself well, however she prefers to break hunger into three "types" – mechanical hunger, aesthetic hunger and chemical hunger.

"Mechanical hunger is the feeling of an empty stomach, often accompanied by growling or churning, or a sense of hollowness or tightness in the stomach," she writes on her blog, The Fat Nutritionist.

"This is the hunger that, if you ignore it long enough, can go away altogether, or get really uncomfortable."

Allen defines aesthetic hunger as the longing for food.

"It’s more than just needing the taste and physical feel of food, it’s also eating for emotional reasons – celebration, grief, comfort, nostalgia," she says.

"It is the need of enjoyment, since enjoyment is actually a critical part of good nutrition."

The final variety is chemical hunger, which is the shaky, weak, light-headed feeling you get if you forget to eat or don't have time.

"These are not feelings that come directly from the stomach, but from your blood, your glycogen stores, and even sometimes depleted vitamin and mineral stores," she says.

"When chemical hunger is fulfilled, you won’t only get full, and the food won’t only taste and feel good, but you’ll feel satisfied for a while after eating, and maybe even get an overarching sense of vague well-being that follows you around over the days or months that your eating continues to be consistent, varied, tasty, and nourishing."

How to tune into your hunger

Waters says that introducing regular meals and snacks helps teach your body to make "true" hunger known.

"Some people don't eat until lunchtime or the afternoon and by the time they feel their hunger, they consume a full day of calories," she says.

But if you start introducing regular meals, Waters says that your metabolism could kick back in within six weeks to three months.

"You might start with three meals a day and once you eat with a routine and with regularity, you'll find your metabolism starts kicking in and you go 'Oh I think I'm hungry'," she explains.

"If you think you're hungry, ask yourself when you last ate. Three to four hours is a nice time frame because that's when your blood glucose starts to drop and some of your brain chemistry starts to drop and your body naturally needs a little bit of food."

If you are looking for nutritious food, then that's a good sign that your body is probably looking for fuel.

"If it's hunger, you'll go for foods that are going to nourish your body but are also tasty," Waters says.

If you're feeling lonely or depressed and constantly reaching for food, Waters suggests doing some journaling to get clear on what's going on in your head.

"Acknowledge what you are feeling and write it out – Why am I lonely? Why do I need this comfort right now? What's going on inside me?" she suggests.

"Then develop a list of things you could do to fill that."

Eating must still be pleasurable

None of this is to say that you should only ever eat for nourishment — food and pleasure go hand-in-hand and it would be a sad state of affairs to only eat when our stomachs grumbled.

"You don't want to eat until you're fully stuffed on a regular basis and you don't want to eat because someone else is pushing food onto you and you don't want to use food for love and comfort or to fill a void when you're on your own," Waters says.

"You've got to find foods that give you some pleasure and enjoyment but don't over-excite or comfort too much, and that you can sustain for life."

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