what do you do when a hunger pang hits?
Oddly enough I don't get that hungry. The trick seems to be to delay eating as long as possible because once you start eating you will actually feel more hungry. Most people who post on the Facebook page I'm on don't start eating until the afternoon, or they skip eating altogether until dinner, basically because most of the time they just aren't that hungry. I have read about why this happens, and don't think anyone quite understands why yet, but there is now a train of thought that breakfast may not be "the most important meal of the day" especially if you are trying to reduce calories. It's even mentioned here in the FAQ section of the website.....
There have been different studies using different approaches. People who took part in Dr Krista Varady's studies of Alternate Day Fasting (ADF) had just one meal a day, at lunchtime. Those who took part in Dr Michelle Harvie's studies of the 2 Day Diet at several small meals a day. Michael prefers having two meals a day, breakfast and an evening meal. Mimi prefers several small meals. Which approach is better? The one you can stick to. Some people find, for example, that eating breakfast actually makes them feel hungrier later in the morning.
The other interesting thing is that hunger pangs are very temporary. If you wait for about 20-30 minutes those hunger pangs always disappear. At least they do for me. My theory is that our body acts a little bit like a spoiled child that stamps its foot and grumbles because it wants a new toy (food), but if you ignore it, the child will go away and use all the other toys (fat) it's already got.
Even when I did my 36 hour fast the other day, I thought I would be ravenous when I woke up the next morning, but I honestly could have skipped breakfast again if I really wanted to. However, as soon as I had breakfast I was then hungry a few hours later.
On a fast day I will go for a walk when I get up, then I'll have a big glass of water and a bit later I'll have a coffee with some skim milk (roughly 20 calories) and then I won't have anything else apart from water until around 2pm, although sometimes I will skip that too because I'm just not that hungry.