This post will explore why you may feel hungry even after eating a meal.
This is the perfect blog post for people who are trying to lose weight and can’t seem to control their hunger, or for those who want to know more about how your body works when it comes to food cravings.
I will break this post into categories such as: what causes hunger hormones to raise, the difference between physical and psychological causes of hunger, how long it takes your body to digest food, and with all that you hopefully get why you feel hungry even after eating.
What causes hunger:
Hunger is one of our body’s defense mechanisms. There are several factors that influence your body to feel hungry or not.
For example, the main hunger hormone ghrelin is produced in our stomach and sends a message to the brain when we are hungry. Ghrelin levels increase before meals and decrease after meals, making you feel less hungry. The more ghrelin your stomach produces, the hungrier you feel.
However, the hormone leptin plays a big role as well and is produced by fat cells (which makes sense, right?).
Leptin tells our brain when we are full and also decreases the amount of ghrelin that is released by our stomach. High levels of leptin result in feeling less hungry and low levels result in feeling hungry.
From these two hormones alone, the people altering their levels are causing hunger. There is more to it though.
Doing intense exercise increases your hunger by increasing the levels of ghrelin that are released while doing mild exercise decreases both leptin and ghrelin which results in feeling less hungry/full for a longer amount of time.
What about psychological factors?
It is important to mention that our brain and psychology play a huge role in hunger as well! We sometimes feel hungry even after we ate or “forgot” to eat due to stress, depression or just daydreaming about food. Our brain also plays a big role in how much we eat, the type of food we eat, and sometimes how fast we eat!
It all comes down to what our brain tells us. For example, you ate a whole bag of cookies right before going to sleep because your brain said “hey, I’m lonely here in the dark, let’s make some friends”. It doesn’t know the difference between a cookie friend or a real friend, it just wants it.
How long does it take to digest food?
A lot of us think that if we eat fast, our body will have less time to register “I’m full” or “i’m hungry”. This is not true at all! It doesn’t matter what you eat or how fast you eat, your body is going to feel hungry as long as your energy levels are low.
Food is usually digested within 4-6 hours after you have eaten it, meaning if your last meal was at 10 pm and you didn’t eat anything until 12 pm the next day, your body will most likely still be digesting that food from 10 pm!
It takes a little bit longer for your body to digest protein and carbohydrates than it does to digest fat.
How long does it take for hormones to be produced?
In order for you to feel hungry, the hormones ghrelin and leptin have to be released from their storage sites within minutes after your last bite. This is why you can’t feel hungry or eat less if you don’t pay attention to what and how much you are eating.
The more food we put in our bodies, the higher the levels of these two hormones will be and we will feel hungrier. If we reduce the amount of food we intake but keep the same amount of calories, ghrelin and leptin levels won’t be affected and we will still feel hungry.
How many times do you eat?
Ghrelin is produced before every meal but leptin is only produced after the first meal of the day. Having breakfast, eating small meals during the day, or having more than 3 meals a day doesn’t change ghrelin or leptin levels at all.
What do hormones have to do with weight loss?
Ghrelin and leptin are the main hormones when it comes to weight loss. If you want to lose weight, these hormones will have to be under control. When we eat too much or eat high-calorie foods, our bodies automatically produce more ghrelin which then makes us feel hungry and want to eat more.
If we just keep on repeating the same routine where we don’t have time to think about our meal portions and food choices, we will be under these circumstances all throughout our life.
In conclusion, hormones play a very important role when it comes to weight loss and hunger which is why in order for us to lose weight, we have to understand what these hormones are and how they work with our bodies.
Having a healthy diet that consists of low-calorie, nutrient-rich foods is the best way to keep ghrelin and leptin under control which results in being able to lose weight in a long term.
Food for thought..
Have you ever wondered why we crave and eat certain foods?
Certain food preferences and choices may be related to our hormones. We all have cravings but what we don’t know is that we eat these foods because of the way they affect our brain, not our stomachs.
Our tastes and cravings are also connected to hormones such as ghrelin but not just that, taste buds also have a major role to play!
The stimulation of chemicals within the brain is what triggers the release of ghrelin and leptin hormones.
Our bodies send signals to our brains letting them know when we are hungry or full. This stimulates us to eat certain foods which will activate these hormones associations with hunger and fullness as well as our taste and smell receptors.
The things we eat and drink all play a role in either stimulating or blocking these hormones and receptors.
Some foods can stimulate those receptors to let your brain know you are full before you have eaten enough, making it easier for you not to overeat. Other foods will stimulate those hormones to make you feel hungry and in turn, overeat.
The foods we eat can make our appetite go up or down, depending on the effect they have on our hormones and receptors.
This is why it’s always better to keep your diet balanced rather than eliminating certain food groups.