Do You Lose Weight When Your Stomach Growls

Most of us have experienced a growling stomach, but does the rumbling noise mean you need food and what happens if you ignore it? Will ignoring it hurt you or is it a sign that your body is losing weight?

A growling stomach is not necessarily a sign of hunger. Hunger is a hormonally-driven communication between your gut and your brain. The gurgles and sounds that we hear coming from inside of us are most likely related to the digestion of food that goes on for hours after we eat.

Your digestive tract is lined with smooth muscles. When you eat something, these muscles contract to mix the food with digestive juices so you can get the nutrients out of the food.

Why Does Your Stomach Growl?

During hunger, the muscle of the stomach and small intestine is largely inactive. The muscles experience cycles of contractions that play a housekeeping role that cleans out residual contents like mucus, food particles, and bacteria so that your system is prepared for its next meal.

These stomach contractions make noise. With no food in your system, your hollow digestive tract acts like an echo chamber and you hear all of the gurgles and groans and growls that you associate with hunger. (1)

But, here again, these sounds are caused by muscle contractions. You could be experiencing a growling stomach, but not feel physically hungry.

Ibs & Stomach Noises: What You Need To Know

Should you eat to quiet your stomach or ignore the noise? The housekeeping contractions that happen in your empty stomach are cyclic, so you might experience the stomach growls for 15 to 30 minutes as the contractions are happening, but then notice that they go away for a period as the muscles move into the relaxed phase of the cycle.

If you ignore the growling, it will simply move through its cycles. As long as you’re not in a quiet meeting, have a digestive issue or a condition like diabetes in which you need to be attentive to blood sugar fluctuations, you’ll do no harm to your body by ignoring the noises.

How do stomach growls relate to weight loss? A growling stomach does not automatically mean that your body has transitioned into a fat-burning state. As I mentioned, the muscle contractions that create the noise are always happening, but we don’t hear them when food is muffling the sound.

When You're So Hungry That Your Stomach Rumbles An...

You could simply be a noisy digester. Excessive gas, swallowing air by eating too fast, and underlying digestive issues all have the potential to accentuate the rumbling noises. A belly growl does not necessarily equal fat loss.

If your desire is fat loss, then your growling belly needs to be paired with two additional internal conditions. Your glycogen energy stores must be low and insulin must be low.

When food energy is not coming in through your mouth, your body keeps running by pulling energy out of storage. Glycogen is your easily accessed energy storage tank because it is essentially stored glucose, which is easy to burn.

Does Hunger Mean You're Burning Fat And Can You Lose Weight Without Feeling Famished?

The glycogen containers inside of you are small and get used up quickly. Fat, on the other hand, contains a lot of stored energy. Fat is hard to access because the fat release is blocked when insulin is elevated in your blood.

Stretching out the length of time between your meals will deplete glycogen and lower insulin and likely result in more noticeable belly rumbles.

Stretching out the time between eating is something that the weight loss world refers to as intermittent fasting and I have a blog post and video on three ways to do intermittent fasting that you may want to read or watch next.

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Why Your Stomach Growls And How To Stop It, According To Doctors

Finding the right fasting routine for your body and lifestyle takes time. If you’d like to avoid common fasting mistakes and find ways to make fasting easier, I encourage you to download this FREE guide!

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Enter your information below for instant access to the strategy & free video series that explains how to get the most out of the strategy!Your stomach growls for a number of reasons, not all of which relate to hunger. Excess gas, stomach bloat and underlying gastrointestinal problems may all be the cause of excessive stomach rumbling, according to the National Institutes of Health. Stomach growling might be a sign that you are hungry, but might also be a sign that your food is digesting as it should.

My Miserable Journey Of Shedding 25 Pounds In 6 Weeks

Listen to your body when you hear your stomach growling. If you have eaten a meal recently, your stomach is probably rumbling because it is working the food through your intestine. If you are eating more vegetables, such as broccoli and beans, for example, the additional gas produced may cause more noise in the intestine. If you notice stomach bloating and flatulence in addition to the rumbling, this is a sign that you are having digestive trouble, rather than a sign of hunger, the University of North Carolina School of Medicine reports.

If your stomach growling is accompanied by hunger pangs, you may be ignoring your body's need for food. If you continue to ignore stomach growling, you may notice that you become lightheaded or get a headache. Consistently ignoring your body's hunger signals may make you lose weight in the short term, but may cause nutritional deficiencies, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. Gross hunger may also cause you to binge and overeat to compensate.

Once you have learned the differences in stomach growling noises your stomach makes, you may anticipate your need for food before the rumbling starts by paying attention to your hunger pangs. However, be careful not to confuse thirst with hunger, the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corp cautions. As you get older, you may mistake thirst with the need to eat. If you are not sure which you are experiencing, have a glass of water or wait 20 minutes to see which complaint seems clearer.

Why Your Stomach Growls

Occasional stomach rumbling can be a good sign if you only experience it after you begin to diet. If you have been ignoring your body's natural signals and eating out of boredom, loneliness or habit, it is encouraging that you are experiencing real hunger. However, dieting should not punish the body, so respond to your hunger with healthy foods. The U.S. Department of Commerce's Eating Healthy guide recommends keeping healthy snacks on hand if hunger strikes between meals.

Do not starve yourself. A growling stomach is most often a sign that your body requires food, so do not feel guilty about eating when you hear it. This is the healthy and natural response to hunger, Eastern Illinois University explains. As you continue to lose weight, your appetite will change and you will need smaller amounts of food to feel full.