Hunger Is A Gift

What if feeling hungry isn't the problem? What if, for some people, it's actually part of the healing?

I have become increasingly frustrated with our cultural obsession with suppressing hunger.

Don't get hungry.

Drink more water.

Have another cup of coffee.

Fast longer.

Distract yourself.

Take something to suppress your appetite. (hello peptides)

Push breakfast later.

Ignore the growling stomach.

And somehow we have turned not needing food into a badge of metabolic honor.

Meanwhile, after years of reading food journals from my high school health students and reviewing food diaries with clients in my nutritional therapy practice, I keep seeing the same thing:

People aren't eating enough!

Protein. Essential fatty acids. Minerals. Vitamins. Amino acids. Carbohydrates. Salt. Nutrient-dense whole foods.

Even on days when someone reports eating plenty of "junk food," I often look at the journal and think:

Where are the nutrients? (and then wait.... you still are in a caloric deficit!)

We live in a world with an extraordinary abundance of food while somehow creating bodies that are inadequately nourished.

It's one of the wildest observations I've made as a nutritional practitioner.

What If Nervous System Regulation Starts With Food?

"Nervous system regulation" has become a popular phrase.

And there are some wonderful tools available.

Breathwork.

Prayer.

Walking.

Sunlight.

Grounding.

Meditation.

Cold exposure.

Saunas.

Supplements.

Red light.

But sometimes I want to ask:

Have you eaten?

Because before we purchase another supplement, download another meditation app, or learn another breathing technique, maybe we should make sure the body has enough raw material to do what we're asking it to do.

Your nervous system does not operate independently of your nutritional status.

Your brain requires energy.

Your cells require energy.

Your adrenal glands require nutrients.

Your thyroid requires nutrients.

Your body requires amino acids, fatty acids, glucose, minerals, vitamins, and electrolytes to perform the thousands upon thousands of biochemical reactions happening every day.

Food isn't just something sitting in your stomach.

Food is information. Food is building material. And food is energy.

Sympathetic vs. Parasympathetic: Why Digestion Loves Safety

Your autonomic nervous system has different branches that help your body respond appropriately to what's happening around you.

The sympathetic nervous system helps mobilize resources when action is required—the classic "fight or flight" response.

Heart rate can increase.

Blood pressure can change.

Glucose can be mobilized.

Energy gets prioritized toward surviving the immediate demand.

Digestion becomes less of a priority.

Then there is the parasympathetic nervous system, often nicknamed "rest and digest."

In this state, the body is better positioned to support digestion, secretion of digestive juices, intestinal motility, nutrient absorption, recovery, and repair.

Think of it like this:

Sympathetic mode is the fire alarm. Parasympathetic mode is the kitchen.

If the fire alarm is going off, nobody stops to bake bread.

The body prioritizes the emergency.

But here's where I think the conversation gets interesting:

Not eating enough can itself become another stressor the body has to manage.

So we can spend all day trying to convince a body that everything is okay while simultaneously failing to give it adequate fuel.

It's a little like sitting in a car with the gas light flashing while repeating:

"You are safe. You are safe. You are safe."

The car might appreciate the encouragement.

But it still needs gas.

Maybe You Don't Need Another Nervous System Hack. Maybe You Need Breakfast.

I recently posted something on Instagram that got some pushback:

"If you're stressed, maybe you just need a cookie."

Now before somebody screenshots that sentence and decides I've become the Cookie Monster of nutritional therapy, hear me out.

Am I claiming a cookie is the world's healthiest food?

No.

Am I suggesting everyone regulate their emotions with Oreos?

Also no. (besides homemade chocolate chip cookies are better than Oreos!)

My point was about fuel availability.

A cookie can provide readily available carbohydrate/energy, and can remove one potential physiological stressor, lack of fuel.

Carbohydrates provide readily available glucose, which the body can use for quick, easy energy. Eating also communicates something very different to the body than continuing to restrict food while already under significant physiological demand.

Imagine your body as a household during a winter storm.

The furnace is running.

The lights are on.

The refrigerator is running.

Everyone is home.

And you're worried about how much electricity you're using, so instead of supplying more power, you keep unplugging appliances.

At some point the solution isn't another energy-saving trick.

You need adequate power coming into the house.

That's what I'm talking about with food.

Sometimes what looks like a body that desperately needs another "regulation technique" may also be a body saying:

Please feed me.

And yes, if someone has gone far too long without eating, even a cookie provides quickly available carbohydrate.

Would I rather pair that carbohydrate with protein, healthy fat, minerals, and real food?

Absolutely.

But the larger point remains:

We cannot discuss physiological stress without discussing whether the body has adequate fuel.

The Client Who Wasn't Hungry

I had a client begin working with me whose stress was through the roof.

Her symptoms reflected it. Her blood work gave us clues. The additional assessments we used in my practice raised more questions about stress and metabolic function.

Then I looked at her food intake.

She ate one meal a day.

Dinner.

That's it. This had been a habit of years!

Her blood sugar regulation appeared to be struggling. Her energy was struggling. Her digestion was a mess.

But she wasn't hungry during the day.

She would wake up, drink coffee, go about her day and have very little desire for food.

Then evening came.

She crashed.

And she would inhale a giant dinner.

So we didn't begin with an enormous supplement protocol.

We started with food.

Specifically, I asked her to eat a small, protein-rich breakfast.

Because she really wanted to continue intermittent fasting, we found a compromise that worked for her. Instead of eating one enormous meal in the evening, we shifted her eating window earlier and worked toward two nutrient-dense meals—a breakfast and a later lunch.

We simply started getting more nourishment into her body earlier in the day.

Then something happened.

About a week later, she told me:

"I'm waking up hungry now."

And she was NOT happy about it.

I, on the other hand, wanted to leap for JOY!

Her body was changing its signaling.

I don't interpret one symptom as proof that cortisol or any single hormone has "balanced", human physiology is far more complicated than that, but the return of a normal morning appetite after chronically under-eating was an encouraging change to me.

She hated it.

I loved it.

And therein lies one of my battles as a practitioner:

Sometimes clients don't like the wins.

When Did Hunger Become the Enemy?

This is especially something I encounter with middle-aged women. And I find with my teenagers too! They pick up what moms put down!

There can be decades of belief systems wrapped around food.

Eating less is good.

Being hungry is bad.

Skipping meals means discipline.

Not being hungry means your metabolism is working perfectly.

Taking up less space is desirable.

Appetite needs to be controlled.

And then when the body begins communicating again:

I'm hungry. Feed me.

The immediate response is:

"How do I make this stop?"

I want to flip that question.

Instead of immediately asking:

"How do I suppress my hunger?"

What if we first asked:

"Why is my body asking for food?"

Maybe it needs something.

That's not a moral failure.

That's physiology.

Hunger Is More Complicated Than "Your Body Needs Calories"

Of course, hunger isn't always a perfect measurement of nutritional need.

Sleep deprivation, for example, can alter appetite-regulating hormones including ghrelin and leptin and may increase hunger and food cravings.

Stress can affect people differently. Some people lose their appetite completely. Others become ravenous.

Blood sugar swings can influence hunger.

Hormones influence hunger.

Medications can influence hunger.

And then we have hyper-palatable foods.

You can't eat just one potato chip.

I dare you.

Food manufacturers are very good at creating combinations of sugar, starch, fat, salt, chemicals, flavor and texture that encourage us to keep reaching into the bag.

That is different from saying that hunger itself is dysfunctional.

We have to distinguish between:

"My body is asking me for nourishment."

and

"This food is incredibly rewarding and I want to keep eating it even though I'm physically satisfied."

Those aren't necessarily the same signal.

Our Kids Are Eating Food but Missing Nutrition

This has become especially striking to me through teaching high school health.

I have students track their food.

And I see junk food.

Sure.

But I also see under-eating in more ways than one.

A teenager may eat processed foods throughout the day and still consume surprisingly little of the nutrients required to build a growing human. ALSO, I am seeing a trend even with consuming mostly junk they are still under eating in "calories"!

So yes, they may have eaten chips.

Yes, they may have eaten cookies.

Yes, they may have consumed plenty of refined carbohydrates.

And they can STILL be inadequately nourished.

They need actual food.

A growing teenager doesn't become nutritionally sufficient simply because he ate 800 calories of snack food.

Calories and nutrient density are related, but they aren't interchangeable concepts.

Your 30 Trillion Cells Need Building Materials

This is another reason I don't like reducing food to calories.

Your body isn't a calculator.

It's biology.

Protein supplies amino acids needed to build and repair tissues and make enzymes, neurotransmitters and countless other compounds.

Healthy fats provide essential fatty acids and contribute to the structure of cellular membranes.

Carbohydrates can provide readily available energy and help support the body's energy demands.

And micronutrients: the vitamins and minerals that barely get any attention in calorie-counting culture, participate in an astonishing number of biological processes.

SALT.

Don't even get me started on salt.

I'm saving that rant for another day.

But you get my point.

Your body requires raw materials.

Are We Overfed—or Under-Nourished?

I used to assume something that I think most of us have been taught.

We live in a society with high rates of obesity because people simply eat too much.

Period.

After years of looking at actual food diaries, I'm no longer satisfied with that explanation.

Obesity is complex and cannot be explained by one mechanism.

But what I've observed in my own students and clients has made me much more interested in the difference between energy and nutritional sufficiency.

Someone can consume highly processed, energy-dense food while still having a diet poor in protein, minerals, essential fatty acids, fiber, vitamins, or other nutrients.

Someone else may intentionally restrict food for years while their stress, sleep, hormones, activity, medications, environment, and metabolic health are simultaneously changing.

So no, I don't think the obesity conversation is as simple as:

People just need to eat less. People are already eating less!

I think the physiology deserves a much more intelligent conversation.

We have created an incredibly strange situation:

A society surrounded by food that can still be poorly nourished.

But What About Carbohydrates?

I know somebody is waiting for me to say it.

Yes.

I think carbohydrates can be incredibly useful.

Your body has remarkable metabolic flexibility, and humans can adapt to a range of macronutrient intakes. But the fact that the body can make glucose when carbohydrate intake is low doesn't mean carbohydrates are inherently harmful.

Fruit.

Root vegetables.

Squash.

Honey.

Dairy, for those who tolerate it.

Rice and other properly prepared whole-food starches, depending on the person.

These can be excellent sources of energy.

And for some people, especially those exercising heavily, chronically restricting food, dealing with high physiological demands, or struggling with thyroid and hormonal symptoms, continually removing fuel while demanding more from the body may not be the solution.

Bio-individuality matters.

The Peanut M&M Problem

And before someone interprets all of this as:

"Rebecca said my body wants peanut M&M's, therefore I should eat the family-size bag,"

let's talk about being human.

I'm writing this while looking at a bag of peanut M&M's that I bought myself as a birthday treat.

They're sentimental to me.

My grandmother kept them in her cabinet when I was a child, and I used to sneak them.

I rarely buy them.

Honestly?

They're disappointing.

They don't taste the way I remember them tasting while sneaking them out of Grandma's cabinet.

But I also know myself.

If I open the bag, I'm probably going to want to eat a whole lot of them.

Does that mean my body is desperately deficient in the sacred micronutrient M&M?

No.

It means I'm human.

Food can involve reward, memory, nostalgia, pleasure, habit and emotion in addition to biological hunger.

And humans possess another beautiful ability:

self-control.

We don't have to demonize food.

And we don't have to obey every impulse.

Both things can be true.

Hunger Is Information

This is ultimately what I want people to understand.

Hunger is communication.

Instead of immediately suppressing it, get curious about it.

When did you last eat?

What did you eat?

Did that meal contain enough protein?

Did it contain fat?

Did it contain carbohydrates appropriate for you?

Was there actual nutrient density?

Did you sleep last night?

Are you under unusual stress?

Are you training harder?

Are you growing?

Are you recovering?

Are you menstruating?

Are you pregnant or breastfeeding?

Has your activity level changed?

Your body isn't an inconvenience that needs to be silenced.

It's communicating with you all day long.

Feed the Body You're Trying to Regulate

So maybe your nervous system regulation routine doesn't need to begin with another supplement.

Maybe it starts with breakfast.

Maybe it starts with eating enough protein.

Maybe it starts with adding the carbohydrate you've been afraid of.

Maybe it starts with eating three actual meals instead of surviving on caffeine until 3 p.m.

Maybe it starts with minerals.

Maybe it starts with sitting down, slowing down, chewing your food and allowing your body to enter that beautiful rest-and-digest state.

And maybe, for the person who has chronically restricted food and hasn't experienced normal hunger in a long time, waking up and thinking:

Man, I'm hungry......isn't something to fear.

Maybe it's something worth celebrating!

Your body is talking.

Listen to it.

Feed it appropriately.

Stop when you're comfortably full.

Choose real, nutrient-dense food most of the time.

Enjoy the occasional peanut M&M.

And please stop treating hunger like your body has done something wrong.

Hunger is a gift.

For those who want a little more science and less rant continue reading ;)

What Does the Research Say About Under-Eating and Stress?

This isn't simply about having enough calories to make it through the day. The body has sophisticated systems designed to detect whether enough energy is available to support everything we're asking it to do.

When energy availability becomes too low, the body adapts.

Research on low energy availability (LEA)—a state in which energy intake isn't sufficient to cover both activity and normal physiological functions, shows changes across multiple endocrine systems. Researchers have documented alterations involving leptin, thyroid hormones, reproductive hormones, growth factors, metabolic rate, bone metabolism and, under some conditions, cortisol.¹⁻⁴

In other words, the body doesn't simply shrug its shoulders and say:

"Oh well, I guess she skipped breakfast again."

It responds.

Under-Eating Can Be a Physiological Stressor

One of the most interesting pieces of research for this conversation is a systematic review and meta-analysis looking at calorie restriction and cortisol.

Researchers found that fasting significantly increased cortisol, with the strongest effect occurring during more severe calorie restriction. Less-severe calorie restriction did not consistently raise cortisol, and the response appeared to change as the body adapted over time.⁵

That distinction is important.

I'm not saying that missing breakfast once destroys your adrenal glands or that every form of fasting is inherently stressful.

I'm saying something much simpler:

A significant shortage of available energy is something the body has to respond to.

Your body has to keep blood glucose available.

Your heart still needs to beat.

Your brain still needs energy.

Your body temperature still needs to be maintained.

You still have to walk, think, work, exercise, parent, drive, digest, repair tissue and respond to everything life throws at you.

When food isn't supplying enough energy, the body has to compensate.

That is physiology.

Your HPA Axis Is Part of That Conversation

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal, or HPA, axis is one of the body's major stress-response systems.

When the brain perceives a stressor, the hypothalamus can release CRH, which signals the pituitary to release ACTH, which then signals the adrenal glands to release cortisol.

Cortisol isn't a "bad hormone."

We need it.

Among its many jobs, cortisol helps make energy available when demand increases.

And this is where nutrition and stress physiology begin bumping into each other.

If you're already psychologically stressed, sleeping poorly, exercising heavily, drinking caffeine and then chronically giving your body less energy than it needs, food restriction may become one more physiological demand your body has to accommodate.

Research in female athletes provides a particularly interesting example. In one controlled study, just 14 days of low energy availability was associated with a 22% increase in systemic cortisol, along with changes in immune function and reduced exercise performance.⁶

That's worth paying attention to.

Maybe some of the bodies we're desperately trying to "regulate" aren't asking for another nervous-system hack.

Maybe they're asking for enough energy.

The Body Will Prioritize Survival Over Reproduction

Low energy availability doesn't affect only cortisol. Our country is dealing with an infertility crisis!

When the body detects inadequate energy availability, it can begin making some very intelligent decisions about where that limited energy should go.

Reproduction, for example, is biologically expensive.

Research has shown that inadequate energy availability can disrupt signaling within the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis and alter GnRH and LH signaling.⁷ ⁸

In one classic controlled experiment in exercising women, researchers found that it was **low energy availability—not simply the stress of exercise itself—that disrupted LH pulsatility.**⁸

Think about how profound that is.

The body is essentially receiving information about its energetic environment and adjusting hormonal signaling accordingly.

Reviews of low energy availability have also reported reductions in T3, leptin, IGF-1 and reproductive hormones, among other physiological adaptations.¹ ²

This is one reason I hesitate when someone tells me that eating as little as possible must automatically be healthier.

The human body isn't stupid.

It adapts to the resources available to it.

Hunger Hormones Are Talking to the Stress System Too

Then we have ghrelin, commonly called the "hunger hormone."

Ghrelin rises in anticipation of food and helps stimulate appetite. But ghrelin isn't simply an annoying hormone trying to make you break your diet.

It participates in a much larger communication network involving the gastrointestinal tract, brain, energy availability and stress response.⁹

Research has even demonstrated connections between ghrelin and the HPA axis, suggesting that ghrelin participates in the body's response to both metabolic and psychological stressors.¹⁰

A systematic review and meta-analysis found that acute stress can temporarily increase ghrelin concentrations in humans.¹¹

So hunger is far more complicated than:

"My stomach is empty."

There is an ongoing conversation between the gut, brain, endocrine system and available energy.

That's why I prefer curiosity over suppression.

Instead of immediately asking:

"How do I stop being hungry?"

maybe occasionally we should ask:

"What is my body trying to tell me?"

And Yes, Sleep Changes Hunger Too

This is also why I mentioned sleep earlier.

Hunger isn't a perfect measurement of nutritional need.

In controlled research, sleep restriction has been associated with changes in appetite-regulating hormones and increased hunger.

One study found that sleep restriction decreased leptin by about **18%, increased ghrelin by 28%, increased reported hunger by 24%, and increased appetite by 23%.**¹²

Another experiment found that even a single night of total sleep deprivation increased ghrelin and subjective hunger.¹³

So if you slept four hours and suddenly want to eat everything in the pantry, your body hasn't necessarily lost all self-control.

There may be legitimate physiological signals contributing to that appetite.

And here's my perhaps unpopular nutritional-practitioner thought:

If your body just survived a terrible night of sleep, it is dealing with an increased physiological demand.

That doesn't mean we need to eat donuts all day.

It means we should stop interpreting every increase in hunger as a character flaw.

But What About Junk Food Making Us Overeat?

This is where we need another important distinction.

Hunger and the desire to continue eating highly rewarding food aren't necessarily the same thing.

And we actually have some fascinating controlled research demonstrating this.

In a landmark NIH inpatient randomized controlled trial, participants were given either an ultra-processed or an unprocessed diet. The diets presented to participants were designed to be matched for several nutritional variables, and people were allowed to eat as much or as little as they wanted.

On the ultra-processed diet, participants ate approximately 500 additional calories per day and gained weight. When eating the unprocessed diet, they spontaneously consumed less and lost weight.¹⁴

THAT is fascinating.

Because it reinforces something I tell my students:

There is a difference between feeding your body because it needs nourishment and continuing to consume a food because that food makes it incredibly easy to keep eating.

Hence my potato chip challenge.

Eat one.

Just one.

I'll wait.

This is why I don't think "listen to your body" means:

"Every time I want a cookie, my mitochondria have obviously requested Oreos."

No.

We're still intelligent human beings.

We can recognize the difference between hunger, appetite, cravings, habits, emotional associations and the powerful reward characteristics of highly processed food.

This Is Why I'm Done Demonizing Hunger

When you put all of this research together, I think we need a much more nuanced conversation about appetite.

Severe energy restriction can activate stress physiology.

Low energy availability can alter endocrine signaling.

Insufficient energy availability can affect reproductive and thyroid-related physiology.

Ghrelin communicates with both appetite and stress systems.

Sleep deprivation can increase hunger.

Stress itself can change appetite.

And ultra-processed foods can make it easier to consume more energy than minimally processed foods.

All of those things can be true at the same time.

So no, hunger isn't a flawless diagnostic tool.

But it also isn't the enemy.

And for someone who has chronically restricted food, lived on coffee, ignored hunger signals and convinced herself that needing food represents metabolic failure?

The return of a normal appetite might actually be something worth celebrating.

Your body is communicating again.

Maybe instead of immediately trying to silence it, we should listen.

A note from me, Rebecca:

Nutrition and appetite are highly individual. Persistent loss of appetite, excessive or unexplained hunger, unintentional weight loss, significant weight changes, eating-disorder symptoms, or other concerning changes in appetite deserve appropriate medical evaluation.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent disease or replace individualized medical care. And yes, I did use Ai to help me with my grammar in my blog posts because, come on, I need all the help I can get with that! I also used it to help me find PubMed articles because it's a massive time saver, and I need to get back to grading students food journals!

PubMed references

1. Logue DM, et al. (2020). Low energy availability: history, definition and evidence of its endocrine, metabolic and physiological effects in prospective studies in females and males. This is one of your strongest general references. It describes LEA as a physiological stressor and reviews effects on leptin, thyroid, gonadal and GH/IGF-1 signaling, bone and muscle physiology.  PubMed: Low Energy Availability review

2. Elliott-Sale KJ, et al. (2018). Endocrine Effects of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport. Excellent support for your discussion of inadequate energy availability affecting thyroid hormones, cortisol, gonadal hormones, insulin/glucose regulation, appetite hormones and metabolic rate.  PubMed: Endocrine Effects of RED-S

3. Ihalainen JK, et al. (2024). Beyond Menstrual Dysfunction: Does Altered Endocrine Function Caused by Problematic Low Energy Availability Impair Health and Sports Performance in Female Athletes? Particularly useful for your female-client discussion and the broader endocrine consequences of prolonged/severe low energy availability.  PubMed: Low Energy Availability and Female Endocrine Function

4. Melin A, et al. Low energy availability/hormonal profiles research. Research in recreational female athletes found women classified as at risk for LEA had lower measured energy availability and lower T3 concentrations.  PubMed: Low Energy Availability and Hormonal Profiles

5. Nakamura Y, et al. (2016). Systematic review and meta-analysis reveals acutely elevated plasma cortisol following fasting but not less severe calorie restriction. This is probably the single best reference for your claim that severe food restriction/fasting can itself represent a physiological stressor involving the HPA axis. Importantly, it also prevents us from overstating the case: ordinary, less-severe caloric restriction didn't consistently increase cortisol.  PubMed: Fasting, Caloric Restriction and Cortisol Meta-analysis

6. Low energy availability and cortisol in female endurance athletes (2024). Fourteen days of LEA was associated with a 22% increase in systemic cortisol, immune changes and impaired exercise performance.  PubMed: Low Energy Availability, Cortisol and Exercise Performance

7. I'Anson H, et al. / reviews of undernutrition and reproductive signaling. Effects of undernutrition and low energy availability on reproductive functions and their underlying neuroendocrine mechanisms. Very useful for explaining how inadequate nutrition affects hypothalamic signaling, GnRH, kisspeptin and reproductive function.  PubMed: Undernutrition and Reproductive Neuroendocrinology

8. Loucks AB, et al. (1998). Low energy availability, not stress of exercise, alters LH pulsatility in exercising women. I especially like this one for your article because it experimentally separated exercise stress from insufficient energy availability.  PubMed: Energy Availability and LH Pulsatility

9. Appetite signaling: from gut peptides and enteric nerves to brain. Useful background for explaining that appetite is a complex gut-brain signaling system and that ghrelin is an important peripheral hunger signal.  PubMed: Gut-Brain Appetite Signaling

10. Spencer SJ, et al. (2015). Ghrelin's Role in the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis Stress Response. Excellent mechanistic background for your concept that hunger/energy signaling and stress signaling aren't separate systems.  PubMed: Ghrelin and the HPA Axis

11. Ghrelin as a Biomarker of Stress: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Across ten human studies involving 348 participants, acute laboratory stress produced a small acute increase in ghrelin.  PubMed: Ghrelin and Stress Meta-analysis

12. Spiegel K, et al. (2004). Sleep curtailment in healthy young men is associated with decreased leptin levels, elevated ghrelin levels, and increased hunger and appetite. The controlled study found decreased leptin, increased ghrelin, hunger and appetite following sleep restriction.  PubMed: Sleep, Leptin, Ghrelin and Hunger

13. Schmid SM, et al. (2008). A single night of sleep deprivation increases ghrelin levels and feelings of hunger in normal-weight healthy men. Particularly nice support for your caveat about sleep deprivation and hunger.  PubMed: Sleep Deprivation and Ghrelin

14. Hall KD, et al. (2019). Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. This NIH metabolic-ward trial is excellent evidence for your junk-food section. Participants consumed about 508 kcal/day more during the ultra-processed diet and gained weight, while losing weight during the unprocessed phase.  PubMed: NIH Ultra-Processed Food Trial