Hungry again? Why certain foods don’t really fill you up

Do you ever feel like you have a black hole in your stomach? Welcome to the «I could eat all day» club.

So what’s the reason behind this? According to a study by King’s College London, one in three people are «big dippers», meaning their stomachs growl soon after eating because their blood sugar levels drop more than average, around two hours after a meal to be precise. This makes them go back to the fridge earlier than «little dippers» – and more often.

Hungry again: potential causes of returning hunger pangs

But there are also other factors which could make those hunger pangs return, even after an extensive meal – regardless of whether you’re a big dipper or a little dipper. The list is long and, apart from pregnancy, includes lack of sleep, stress and excessive sport. If you eat too quickly or are distracted while eating, don’t be surprised that you don’t feel full or are quickly hungry again, either.

But there’s one more point on the list: the nutritional content of the meals. According to Prof. Louis J. Aronne metabolic expert, bestselling author of weight loss books and former president of The Obesity Society there really are foods that don’t keep us full for long or can even make us hungry.

Calories aren’t reliable

One calorie is one calorie? True. Prof. Aronne claimed that depending on what the ingredient is, there’s a huge difference in satiety and duration. Different nutrients are hormonally controlled differently in the metabolism and the degree of processing and the rate of absorption also result in different hormonal reactions.

According to Aronne, meals with a higher proportion of protein, for example, generally trigger a greater feeling of satiety than meals that contain more carbohydrates or fat – even if the number of calories on the plate is similar. Aronne said that numerous studies have shown that protein-rich meals are better at stimulating the release of satiety hormones such as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1).

The same applies to dietary fibre, i.e. the predominantly indigestible food components, especially from plant foods. Aronne explained that fibre is a type of carbohydrate that takes longer to be digested, so it can slow down the emptying of the stomach. And when they’re digested in the lower digestive tract, they also promote the release of appetite-suppressing hormones such as GLP-1.

Fuller for longer: prioritise these foods

If you feel hungry soon after a meal, this is also because your meals were probably rather low in protein and fibre. This can be remedied by incorporating protein-rich foods such as eggs, prawns, tuna or chicken breast into your diet and fibre foods such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and grains.

Aronne advised that an omelette with vegetables on wholemeal bread in the morning keeps you full for longer than toast and jam. Plus a positive side effect of this for anyone who has to watch their weight is that you then eat on average 140 calories less at lunch.

According to expert Aronne, these foods and nutrients also signal «full» to the brain for a longer period of time – thus preventing the return of hunger pangs.

Green leafy vegetables: Spinach, radicchio or romaine lettuce are rich in vitamin K, which regulates insulin levels.

Black tea: Coffee after a meal? After a carbohydrate-rich meal, reach for a cup of tea instead. The polyphenols in black tea lower the blood sugar level by ten per cent – until the next snack.

Still water: Dehydration and thirst often masquerade as hunger. If
you just ate and you still have an appetite, fetch a glass of water.

Watch out for satiety resistance: ingredients to avoid

There are also some ingredients that you should avoid if you’re a glutton. These include those that can cause a kind of satiety resistance, and thus returning hunger pangs. According to Prof. Aronne, these include the following.

Fructose

Fructose has the same energy density as glucose (even if you often need less of it because it’s twice as sweet), but it leads to a lower insulin release. This is problematic because insulin signals to the brain that it’s full, explains Aronne. And it gets even worse: fructose is said to increase the desire to eat even more – even if you’re already full. In addition, fructose is converted directly into fat and stored in the fat deposits and prevents fat burning while at the same time increasing fat build-up.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to avoid fresh fruit. Aronne explains that it’s more about industrially processed foods that are sweetened with syrupy fructose preparations and these are responsible for two thirds of annual fructose consumption, such as juices, lemonades, mixed milk drinks, fruit yogurts, cornflakes.

Sweeteners

Aronne stated that sweeteners are empty molecules that only trick the brain into thinking it’s being supplied with sugar. When the ’scam’ is discovered, the brain is disappointed and defiantly demands the energy it had already prepared itself for. After all, your body doesn’t want to go to the trouble of preparing everything for storing energy in the fat deposits for nothing. In other words, it now demands new, «real» fuel and makes the stomach growl, even though it’s just been fed.

It’s best to completely avoid sweeteners – which are often found in «light» products – as they disrupt the brain’s cleverly designed supply system. Just eat something substantial right away when you want something sweet. It doesn’t have to be a chocolate bar. A banana is just as sweet.

Alcohol

A glass of bubbly for your aperitif, a beer with a steak and then a digestive schnapps – if you keep this up for a month, you should put the scales away as a precaution. Alcohol doesn’t just have a lot of calories. Alcohol with high percentages also whet the appetite. Aronne states, that it stimulates stomach acid production and the well-known ravenous appetite. After the body has reacted to the sugar in the alcohol with a strong release of insulin, all that remains at the end is a low blood sugar level, which the brain wants to counteract as quickly as possible by eating.

Unfortunately, the liver is busy breaking down the toxin at the same time. Aronne explains that to do this, the body has to stop burning fat.

Palmitic acid

Even with particularly tasty, fatty food (think fast food) the satiety signals can be overridden. Aronne explains that certain food components change the entire brain metabolism very quickly and make it resistant to the hormones insulin and leptin, which usually trigger the ’full’ signal. In experiments with rodents, the blockage caused by high-fat foods even lasted three days. He says it’s also been observed in humans that regularly overeating leads to bigger portions in the long term because they have more appetite.

According to the expert, one particular saturated fatty acid, palmitic acid, inhibits appetite regulation. It’s found in beef and dairy products, for example. Unsaturated fatty acids, such as those found in olive and grape seed oil, on the other hand, have no influence on your appetite.

Researching the causes

If you stick to all the nutrition tips and still struggle with cravings and hunger, you need to look for the causes somewhere other than your plate. A few possible causes were mentioned earlier – from pregnancy to medication.

According to Prof. Aronne, the reasons for not feeling full are often external because in today’s stressful times, many people are simply so distracted that they no longer notice whether they’re hungry or full and then eat something out of habit because it’s lunch break.

And psychological causes shouldn’t be underestimated either. Constant hunger, even though you’ve just eaten something, could also be a sign that you’re trying to fill a completely different «hole» and are eating for emotional reasons.