Strange Sensation of Hunger 15 Minutes After Eating
Hi Ted -
I'm hopeful that you might be familiar with my symptoms and can offer a suggestion. Thanks for all the time and dedication you put into the Earth Clinic site!
I'm a 39 year old female, living in Chicago.
Medical history: About 25 lbs overweight, - thanks to my last pregnancy (and have been unsuccessful in getting the weight off, despite many efforts) I have Polycystic ovary syndrome (so I am already aware my hormones are not right). Otherwise healthy, I think?? - however after reading your site I am likely highly acidic and will test this weekend - reason I being I have had 2 kidney stones in the past. I think my problem is hormonal, because at a particular point in my monthly menstrual cycle, I do not have this problem, which is when I have my period. At that time I am not usually hungry at all. But I'd love to hear your opinion on this.
My problem is the feeling I get 15 minutes after I eat. I've done a lot of experimenting over the years with foods and I cannot find a cause or resolution, nor can I find another human that can relate to this feeling. At breakfast (7:30am or so), I'm usually OK (tolerable) until about 10. By 10:00am I'm hungry - a normal hungry, so I have a snack. Generally an apple and some almonds. Snack goes alright, but 15 minutes later I have this gnawing feeling in my stomach that cannot be relieved by ANYTHING I've found. So I live with the feeling and have lunch about 12:00pm. By then the annoying feeling has subsided and true hunger has taken over, so I have my lunch as normal. Again, 15 minutes after I finished my lunch the gnawing feeling comes back. This gnawing feeling will get progressively worse as the day goes on, so by the time I've had dinner at 5:30pm my stomach ‘feels' like I've never eaten anything all day. The evenings are the absolute worst. I just want to eat anything in site to make the feeling go away - even though I know I should not be ‘hungry' because I just finished a meal or a snack and If I did eat more it wouldn't help anyway - I tried it. I refrain from eating after dinner despite my discomfort - but I am miserable with this feeling.
The discomfort is not painful, it's annoying and uncomfortable. Like being hungry, without the physical growling feeling. I'd rather be hungry with the growling, than experience this feeling. In other words - I feel worse after I eat - even if I was starving at the time. I call this symptom a ‘hungry feeling', but I'm sure I'm not actually hungry - I just don't know what else to call it. Obviously I can't just not eat all day - I have to eat, but I don't want to because I know I'll be so miserable afterward. This feeling also makes it more difficult to lose the 25 lbs I need too. The thought of eating less in a diet and still feeling awful is not appealing - if you know what I mean.
I've eliminated:
All soda - 2 years ago
All coffee - 1 year ago
All artificial sweeteners' - 2 years ago
High Fructose Corn Syrup - 6 months ago
Portion sizes don't seem to matter, I've tried big and small
Food groups don't seem to matter, I've arranged my diet so that I had days were I eliminated a food group for the entire day - no change in the feelings
I've tried HCL (Hydrochloric acid pills), no improvement.
I've tried fiber pills too - no luck
My diet
I'd estimate that 30% of my diet is now organic
I eat 5 small/medium meals a day
I eat fruits, veggies, eggs, soy, turkey, nuts, organic yogurt (my only dairy product), fish, chicken, beef occasionally. I cook and season with sea salt. Also, whole wheat pastas, very, very seldom eat breads or cereals. I consider myself a clean eater. I read the labels and study up on the ingredients if I don't know what they are.
I recently added White Chia Seeds to my diet for constipation - which eliminated the constipation, but did nothing for the problem described (I wasn't expecting it to though).
I take my Omegas
Sometimes I take a magnesium supplement to help me stay asleep.
When I spoke with my primary physician he immediately assumed that I had acid reflux and prescribed acid blockers. He guaranteed that if the acid was my problem then the medication would give me relief. I reluctantly tried and it never did work and so I stopped taking it. He then ordered an ultrasound to check for gall stones (which I didn't think I had anyway), and that came back negative. He then advised me to see a gastro specialist. At that point I stopped going to the Dr. for this problem because I felt like the Dr's were just eliminating things instead of helping me find the causes of the symptoms. My Dr's don't seem to like the fact I study medical issues often and am educated enough about them to question their reasoning. Anyway….
Also, previously - thyroid tested ‘normal', but on the low end. (‘I'm very sensitive to cold also, which can be thyroid or hormonal'). I've also seen a endocrinologist who did nothing other than confirm the fact that I had polycystic ovary syndrome and my adrenals are fine.
When I've tried to describe this problem to both Dr's they just look at me like I have 3 heads. They can't relate to someone who never gets that ‘full-happy' feeling after they eat.
Please let me know if there is any other information I can provide that might help you determine what could possibly be causing this.
Again, thank you for your help Ted. Your time is very much appreciated.
Stacy
I have one case of another woman with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome also) so her issues were similar to you, being about 30 pounds or more overweight and have very very large apetitite after 12 p.m. She also have similar symptoms to you, being slightly hypothyroid and took an estrogen Diane hormonal replacement therapy (which was later discontinued) as it causes obesity issues. Much of her problem came from previous exposure to fungus during her teen years and a house and that created a cascade of other health issues beyond this email I can address.
The major issue of this hungry appears to be hormonal in nature and dietary imbalances that had to be corrected. The fruit diets was almost completely eliminated to at only once a week or less, which was what was causing the hungry symptoms. The hungry symptoms is a common condition of hypoglycemia or temporary low blood sugar that is the major issue. This followed by lack of energy, or hypothyroid conditions plus polycystic ovarian syndrome to further worsen the obesity issue.
Therefore the dietary change were to eat foods that will trigger the brain to stop eating. The triggering mechanism I found to be amino acids and protein rich foods, that were traced to be fish diet. Basically the basic meals fish and vegetables, with some chicken. The fish are protein rich foods plus some amino acid supplements to trigger the brain it is full. The other issue that is important is the hypothyroidism, which results in obesity from lower metabolic rate, and hence kelp was taken. The kelp she took was 250 mg kelp and she took a lot because of the iodine that was needed, so she took anywhere from 5-10 capsules a day to give the energy boost. Although taking almost everyday isn't going to be that helpful as it may cause some acne condition so it was later reduced to once every other day.
Interestingly enough zinc gluconate 25-50 seemed to trigger reduction in appetite since it is well known that taking zinc triggers loss of appetite. However, it should be taken appropriately and not too much, as too much may cause vomiting. However, interestingly certain people like this woman don't seem to have trouble taken zinc gluconate often and seems to require zinc needed to control appetite without the side effects of vomiting that occurs with taken zinc for most normal people who are not overweight. However, this can be taken once every other day for instance.
The other symptoms she has different from you is she has a chronic fatigue symptoms which required an addition of BHT to deal with brain fog, besides the iodine to raise the energy and the almost daily B50 vitamin B complex supplements.
She also has depression, sometimes severe ones which required 200 mcg of yeast Selenium needed to stop depression, but to some extent the folic acid taken five times a day or taken 5 capsules all at once at 100 mcg each.
Where weight is a problem she took a dilute borax 1/8 teaspoon in one liter of drinking water almost everyday, which seemed to help reduced the weight, which shows itself up particular with smaller neck and head sizes, and to some extent other parts of the body except the tummy area, which required more time
Meat even, a small amount of meat plus fruits, besides completely avoiding vegetable oils from cooking except for the use of oil was important. The feeling of hungry was eliminated almost entirely on taking fish oil suplements 1000-2000 mg a day, eating fish, and salads as the main cause, but also avoiding nearly completely of any snacks. Snacks is a real problem even the innocent salted nut bags that the manufacturers secretly add MSG under the name of hydrolyzed protein that caused an hungry appetite. So it would seem most of the hypoglycemic issue were resolved by eating fish, avoiding almost completely of fruits, with exception of once everyday vitamin C sodium ascorbate 1000 mg.
For the polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), to reduce the calcium buildup required taking the magnesium supplements such as 500 mg, in addition to zinc, and avoiding completely the vegetable oils and polyunsaturated fatty acid as the major issues. However certain food list had to be avoided, these major ones are potatoes, wheat products (she used millet bread instead), dairy products,. and peppermint oil found in toothpaste (used non peppermint toothpaste - such as baking soda). Those were the food intolerances, fruits included. However, because she had severe pressure in her uterus from the PCOS mentioned, including the stopping of hormone supplements (estrogen), and the lack of menstruation (skipped a period), a small amount of EDTA (disodium EDTA with baking soda was needed) and the menstruation period came back with a vengence. The point was to reduce calcium buildup quickly so only one dose was taken at 250 mg with plenty of water. Therefore to control the bleeding, and thicken the blood, vitamin K was taken for a week plus once in the morning whey protein. A whey potein, by the way is a blood thickening while an EDTA is a blood thinner. However other blood thinner also exists in vitamin E and fish oil too.
The condition of ovarian symptoms she needed to take borax usually 5 days out of a week because it was the borax remedy, 1/8 teaspoon in one liter of water, that was needed to increase (mostly across the board) the hormone that was needed. So borax I used as a way to increase hormones, in generally when glandular functions are a problem. PCOS in her case, along with hypothyroidism existed because of moldy house exposure while she was young, but she was also a heavy eater of sweets, chocolates and pastries. So the fact that stopping it did help the aftershock effects was still there. Hence to further control the blood sugar, chromium polynicotinate 1000 mcg, - 1500 mcg, cinnamon tea, was also taken.
It should be noted that throughout this regimen baking soda and potassium citrate was taken as the major remedy to normalize the bowel movement in weight reduction. I have found that potassium, and even potassium bicarbonate, potassium gluconate and potassium citrate causes normal bowel movement, much like the baking soda, only it works much more stronger than just the baking soda alone.
The remedy of alkalization that was used, as best as I can remember it was 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda plus 1/4 teaspoon of potassium citrate in 1 glass of water, taken twice to three times a day. A larger dose is possible such as 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda plus 1/4 teaspoon of potassium citrate was used also. This restored normal bowel movements and once the constipation is relieved, the weight loss occurs with faster digestive process.
Hypoglycemia is a difficult issue, but major remedies were fish diet (mostly) and salads, plus some occasional chicken. However, fish oil supplements which contain DHA and EPA omega 3 type 2 was an important part of the remedy, taken at 1000 mg x 2 for example. Some amino acid supplement was needed. However, certain B vitamins can give an extra push to reduce blood sugar problem, in particular is the B1 thiamine mononitrate 300 mg, and B3 300 mg niacinamide, and perhaps B6 pyridoxine hydrochloride 100 - 300 mg., but also sodium vanadate (vanadium supplements) and chromium polynicotinate 1000 mcg. also. Biotin may help too. However it was the granulated lecithin one tablespoon 1-3 times a day that helped the blood sugar problem, especially with the issue of congested fatty liver problems. That and the selenium seems to resolve the fatty liver problem removing the hypoglycemic as it is the liver that supplies energy to the entire body. So a drop in liver problem may be one of the issues causing the hypoglycemia leading to hungry feeling after 12, but especially during dinner.
While it is hard to explain the entire problem of this issue, fruits should be avoided, snacks avoided, and vegetable oils avoided, while it is the amino acid supplements and adding more fish diet that reduced most of the hunger feeling experienced. This is because the brain signals the feeling of fullness, from certain amino acid founds in fish, and other protein diets. One simple example, is I can't eat a lot of tuna salads for example. I just feel full after eating them much more quickly then if I eat snacks, fast food, or other products. The reason is that certain foods are simply lacking in certain amino acid that triggers our feeling of fullness that is the secret. Still blood sugar need to be contained, but it is the fatty liver that is causing more of the share of low blood sugar that triggers the hunger.
It should be noted that farming practices has cause the cows to be low on omega 3, very high on omega 6 is one reason supplements and fish diets are used. Cows today are grain fed as well as fed with dead Cow carcasses in order to save costs and this makes for very unhealthy meats, especially the softer meats. Softer meats of cows are done by confinging the cows in close quarters without any walking space so they are almost crippled. So it is the tough meats and grass fed cows that are most healthy, and this concentration camp treatment along with cannibalistic cows is what is causing the mad cow's disease.
I know it's difficult to cover everything. But the key is to eat an early dinner (before 4 or 5 p.m.), and eating fish will reduce a lot of hungry feeling, even eating more often will reduce most of the appetite, while avoiding nearly all fruits. Salads and fish are the major ways to reduce weight for this case of woman I had success with. Zinc seems to curb appetite in the short haul and removing fatty livers with granulated lecithin and selenium supplements seems to reduce hypoglycemia over the long haul. Increase energy, and hence burning fat were accomplish through kelp supplements as it contains iodine, but may increase acne from frequent taking it. Interestingly kelp seems to flush out dormant viruses and mycobacterium from the system, which is why acne did occur. So it cleanses by pushing out the dormant pathogens from the system that reduces the energy level of a person resulting in obesity. As to the portion of salads to fish, this depends on the individual choice, some may like more salad, some may like more fish. If a person with a record of surgery and cancer problems the portion of vegetables is 80% while fish is 15% and chicken perhaps about 5% of the makeup. This won't tax the body of chymotrypsin and trypsin which also plays a role in maintaining the first line of defense in the immune system. If those are low, than hypothyroid sets in (pathogens seem to reside there leading to reduced hormonal production) such as a virus or mycobacterium.
Ted