7 Reasons you Are Always Hungry After Eating Junk Food

Can we even begin to describe how delicious that slice of pizza that’s full of cheesy delight tastes or how you cannot absolutely satisfy your sweet tooth by eating just one cupcake. We do agree junk food is irresistible and even if you are trying to lose weight, it takes mammoth will power to stay away from these yummy delights. Junk food is usually high in calories, sugar, sodium, and refined carbs. Sweets, candies, chocolates, biscuits, cookies, fast food, sweet beverages, colas, etc. that offer little to zero nutritional value to the body can be considered as junk food. The thing with junk food is that one never reaches satiety and we are left hungry soon after. But don’t be surprised if we tell you how often we feel hungry is largely determined by the kind of food we eat. Therefore, it’s important to cut down junk food in order to get healthy and lose weight, but first, let’s dig into the reasons why you are always hungry after eating junk food.

Why Do We Have Cravings For Junk Food?

We crave for junk food because they are mostly made of empty calories and sugar, which the body quickly breaks down into glucose for energy. When you get extremely hungry, you would want to reach for a cinnamon bun rather than an apple because the former will instantly soothe your hunger. The toughest thing that everyone encounters when trying to eat healthy or to lose weight is to battle intense junk food cravings. An indulgence occasionally with such food, maybe once or twice in a week, should pose no problem, but when junk food starts replacing healthy food in your daily diet, your health will take a toll and weight loss will become impossible.

Reasons you Are Always Hungry After Eating Junk Food:

1. Junk Food Spikes Up Insulin: When we eat junk and fast food, which is largely made of refined carbs, it causes sharp rise in the hormone insulin. Also, since such food has refined carbs, the body quickly breaks it down into glucose form, to be used by the cells for energy. These glucose molecules are then picked by the hormone insulin (which regulates blood sugar) which then transports the glucose into the cell for energy. Once the glucose is cleared up from the bloodstream by insulin, the body senses lack of fuel and asks you to replenish energy by eating more food. This is the major reason why you would never feel satiated after eating junk food. We need a good balance of protein, fiber, and complex carbs in the diet to keep appetite in check.

2. Lack of Nutrients: Our body needs nutrients to function and junk food lacks any nutritional value. Even if you eat a good amount of junk food, the lack of nutrients will trigger hunger pangs once again.

3. Most of them are Comfort Foods: Junk food not only triggers the pleasure center of the brain, a large population of people actually turn to junk food for comfort and to reduce stress, and since everyone is leading a stressful life, it’s no wonder we are indulging in stress eating frequently.

4. Junk Food Has High Glycemic Index: Eating foods with high glycemic index can cause insulin spikes which leads to storing of extra calories as fat in the body. Pick foods with low glycemic index (less than 55) to lose weight effectively. Some examples of low GI foods are apple, chickpeas, lentils, soy beans, brown rice, cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber, onion, radish, spinach, sweet potato, yam, etc. Also eat fiber-rich food to regulate blood sugar level and reduce craving for junk food.

5. Highly Addictive in Nature: It’s a fact that junk food not only adds unhealthy and high-calorie ingredients, they also add pleasurable ingredients such as sugar, salt, and transfat that activate pleasure center of the brain, leading to a sort of an addiction, where one tends to crave for such food again and again. Additionally, junk and processed food dulls out tastebuds and as a result, you no longer enjoy healthy food. Junk food is unhealthy, rich in calories, and lacks nutritional value, and that’s why it’s important to break junk food addiction.

6. Dehydration: When the body is dehydrated, it sends out mixed signals that we often confuse as hunger pangs and cravings. Sipping on water through the day can help keep tabs on junk food cravings.

7. Not Sleeping Well at Night: When you have disturbed sleep at night or have slept less for 7 hours, you would have noticed that you woke up extremely hungry and are craving for high-fat and sugary foods. That’s because less sleep triggers the production of hunger hormone “ghrelin” which in fact raises the appetite. Get your 7 hours of sleep and you will wake up fresh without the appetite of a giant. The fight against cravings start not at the beginning of the day but the previous night – a good night’s sleep helps to lower hunger hormone “ghrelin” and lower stress hormone “cortisol.” Both these hormones can trigger cravings and that’s why it’s important to keep them in check with good quality sleep.

If you desperately want to eat healthy and lose weight, follow the Rati Beauty diet for proper meal plans. Replace junk food with healthy food that’s equally delicious – download the Rati Beauty app for more details.

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