Hunger Vs. Cravings

The South Beach Diet™ encourages you to resist cravings and to respond to hunger. But if you're like many people, it's not always easy to tell which is which. I know I can't. Here are some simple guidelines that can help you determine the difference:
I got this from the SBD forum.

Hunger is the feeling you get when you experience a normal and gradual drop in blood sugar about four or five hours after a meal. It's your body's way of telling you that eating is overdue.

Cravings, on the other hand, happen within a couple of hours after your last meal. "They're caused by exaggerated spikes and dips in blood sugar that occur after we eat highly processed carbohydrates like white bread, cake, and white rice. These foods are digested so quickly that they cause an almost immediate rise in blood sugar followed by a rapid dip soon after," says Dr. Agatston, preventive cardiologist and author of The South Beach Diet™. It's this drop in blood sugar levels that causes a craving. Ironically, eating highly processed foods can actually make you hungry!

So many view the word "craving" as desiring a particular food or beverage. "Oh I am so craving chocolate right now!" But cravings in the SB sense are more of an overwhelming, quickly brought on "hunger pang". SB cravings that the program helps control are not food specific. Anything food specific is a mental craving or desire. SB may help that indirectly because if you are not really hungry from the blood sugar/insulin response, you may be able to have the mental strength to maintain your own self control more easily. But you still need some form of self control and a determination that you are going to succeed and stay on plan to the greatest extent possible. Recognizing the differenence between hunger and physical cravings is an important thing to learn and be aware of with your body.

Keep blood sugar level:
High GI foods cause such a sugar rush, that the body overproduces insulin. And too much insulin then takes the blood sugar too low.... High insulin levels promote fat storage. The high insulin as a result of the sugar rush pushes glucose into the cells as quickly as possible, and any sugar not used IMMEDIATELY is stored as fat. Or if the cells are glucose intolerant (part of metabolic syndrome) the excess sugar in the blood will be stored as fat. Actually, the blood sugar will also be used to replenish glycogen stores (energy storage in the muscles), but if those are already full, the blood sugar goes straight to fat. That's why keeping blood sugar levels more even also keeps insulin levels much lower, and thus avoids the fat deposition effects of excess insulin.

Craving is another word for reactive hypoglycemia! For years I knew I suffered with hypoglycemia, and the "cure" I thought was eat some sweets.......Oh how I suffered! If I only had a cheese stick instead.....