This. Next time it happens, go to a mirror and stick out your tongue. If there’s a crease down the middle, that means you are dehydrated. Drink 8 oz of water every 45 minutes until your tongue is flat and smooth again.*
Once I started tracking this, I couldn’t believe how often it was true, or how much better I felt once fully dehydrated.
*If you find that you immediately need to pee, and out comes almost exactly the same amount you took in, it’s because you were so dehydrated that your body was withholding urine to compensate.
I suspect this problem contributes to a lot of overeating issues. When you have a backup plan for what you’re going to eat when you feel that way, it helps a lot. Removes the idea of a ‘decision’’ from the equation. Otherwise, if you’re me, you’ll say ‘‘to hell with it’’ and order a pizza.
For me, this usually translates to “I really don’t feel like cooking and I wish something would magically appear on the table for dinner.” Eventually, I’ll work thru it but there are times I’d love to have a replicator that could figure out what I want even when I can’t.
Wouldn’t work for me, I have a deep scar there [when I was 5 I had a dentist decide to work on me with no novocaine. He ended up with 13 stitches in his hand from me biting him while trying to get away. Last time my mom let my Grandmother suggest a dentist which turned out to be the one Grandmother had been going to for about 40 years and mom then opted for an Eastman School of Dentistry trained and teaching staff pediatric dentist. One of the old school non-Eastman type drills [no water spray to cool the work surface] can really dig a line in tissue!
Better test is the skin pinch, or to not let yourself get dehydrated in the first place. I do the military thing and track my urine output by color. Well, and I tend to be drinking some form of water all the time anyway - beats snacking.
I have that happen fairly often. Usually I just have a peanut butter sandwich when that happens; for whatever reason those go down OK anyway, and have become something of a favorite of mine for “food as fuel”.
I drink water when I am hungry (I drink a lot of water). I also find that light exercise (walking, yard work) will stop hunger pains and trigger thirst pains.
I’ve had that feeling in the past, probably when I was more bored than hungry. But I’m currently on chemo. I’ve not had the nausea that I was told to expect, but I have had strange sensations that I was hungry and not hungry at the same time. Also, for several days after a chemo session nothing tastes good to me, and a lot of food just seems dry. It fades away between sessions.
Fortunately, I’ve only go one more round to go, and my oncologist expects me to be cured when it’s over. Actually, she thinks the surgeon got all of it when he removed the tumor and the chemo is to catch any stray cancer cells that may have still been there.
A good full-sour pickle hits the spot, and is low on calories.
OTOH, I’m 56 now and I realize I have only so much pizza to eat before I die, and Brooklyn is the North American pizza Medina --the Mecca is New Haven, Connecticut – so I indulge at least once a week.