@KL, they are much less frequent now but I do still have them.

Because we are trying to rotate foods and juggle optimal ratios of nutrients, we can frequently do a great job of anticipating our needs even if it's somewhat accidental. It's inevitable, though, that either our needs fluctuate or we mis-judge our needs at times.

Emotional highs/lows definitely affect my hunger as well.

So, when I find myself much hungrier than usual I start with a nice feed of fatty meat (I fix about twice my normal but don't necessarily eat all of it) then I eat a crunchy salad and, if still itchy to eat, I have some fruit. I haven't had to go past that on any day in the last 3 months.

I don't mean this to sound dismissive. I really don't. But, here's goes.

More than we typically realize, what we call "hunger" has a huge mental component. Think of all the times you ate all the calories you needed, yet you kept eating (even though you might have called it "grazing" as a way to pretend you weren't really putting food in your mouth). Why did you (and I) keep doing that, even though our bodies didn't need one more calorie? Because we were eating for "emotional" reasons. Or whatever else you want to call it.

Look, if you're not eating enough, or enough of the right stuff, you may have "physical hunger." But you probably are eating enough, so the best recourse you can make is to hang out with your mind, your desire, even those nasty beings called Cravings.

Get to know them, the Cravings. They are the beings that get people to buy lottery tickets, lust for movie stars, drink too much, drive across town to get some silly food item before the store closes. Know them is different from do what they say. Know them so you can "no" them. Best way I've found not to obey the dictates of Cravings is to occupy myself with other, better activities.

On days when "nothing satisfies your hunger," take a look at everything other than food, first.

You won't get sick from deli meat, but that meat may have had extra fun stuff in it to shut off your satiation reflex. Did you feel stuffed, but still wanted to eat more? That might have been fructose, or more than likely MSG hiding as "Natural Flavor" (or protein isolate, or many other names.) Also, most deli meats contain very little fat so you wouldn't get satiety signal from this that you would from a hunk of meat. (Since fat goes rancid easily, so from a shelf-life perspective, the manufacturer wants it to be lean - the same is true for when you make jerky, you want it lean so it doesn't go rancid.)

Now, it's very possible that you were ravenous because you had a big ass workout before and actually needed the calories. I've had days like that where I could put away several lbs of steak.

Could it just be that the massive amounts of salt usually present in deli meats are making you thirsty, and so you're confusing thirst with hunger? I don't know if that would explain why you were hungry to begin with, but it might explain why a little didn't do the trick, and you ended up eating more of it.

I get super duper hungry when I work out too hard. My hunger the next day is insatiable. I haven't figured out what to do about it yet, other than ramp up activity slowly.

I wrote a sweet blog post titled, "I can't stop eating!" The post talks about three triggers that keeps us eating. You should read it.

http://www.thewholekitchen.com/i-cant-stop-eating/