Why do I feel hungry all the time? I used to wonder that too, until I went 72 hours without food and hunger taught me a lesson I didn’t expect.
Years ago, before I learned to listen to my body, I used intermittent fasting to manage my weight.
The first time I fasted, I did it on purpose.
I’d just come off night shift at Arnott’s, the cookie company, during a new product launch, and I decided to see how long I could go.
I flew back to Sydney and made it 24 hours without food.
I remember marvelling that I could go that long. I’d never done it before.
Over the years I worked up to a 72 hour fast. It taught me more about hunger than anything else has.
Do I do it now? No. It makes me miserable. I have zero plans to ever do one again.
But what happened on the third morning changed how I think about hunger for good.
Hunger comes in waves, not a constant alarm
By the third morning I’d gone about 60 hours without food.
I’d felt miserable the night before, but slept fine. I woke up feeling completely normal.
No hunger at all. Went for my run like any other Wednesday.
Hunger didn’t hit until lunchtime. And when it hit, it was massive.
Here’s the part that surprised me. A glass of water and a distraction, and the wave passed.
Same again at dinner. Hunger built, peaked, then vanished, until the next wave.
If you’re scared of hunger, know this: it comes in waves. It passes. It’s not a constant alarm that only gets louder.
Why my body waited for my usual lunchtime: the circadian rhythm link
I skip breakfast. My first meal is always lunch. So on that last morning of the fast, my body didn’t ask for food until my usual lunchtime. Same again at dinnertime.
That’s your circadian rhythm at work.
Hunger hormones rise and fall on a daily schedule shaped by your habits, not just how long it’s been since you last ate.
How I identify physical hunger
You’ll know physical hunger when it hits. A gnawing feeling in your stomach. Your smell and taste sharpen. Everything sounds good.
Here’s the test. If you’re truly hungry, you’ll happily eat almost anything you normally enjoy. Broccoli. Salmon. Anything.
It’s not “only chocolate chip cookies will do.” That’s a craving, not hunger.
The thoughts get dramatic too. “I’m starving.” “I could eat anything.”
I had a friend, he’s passed now, who used to say he was hungry enough to eat the hand off a small child. Grim, but it captures it.
When hunger’s real, any food will do.
The two hidden drivers pushing hunger higher
Two things push hunger higher than it needs to be.
1. Too much carbohydrate.
Insulin sensitivity drops as we age. Mine is especially poor, I have diabetes.
During a week of eating extra bread and pasta for a coeliac test, my hunger went completely out of control. That’s the blood sugar rollercoaster.
You don’t need to cut carbs out. Just watch your quantities.
2. Not enough protein.
Your body stores carbs and fat, but apart from muscle, it can’t store protein.
Eat plenty of food but skip the protein, and your body keeps signalling hunger, even after you’ve hit your calories.
The fix: protein at every meal.
How I manage physical hunger
I minimise carbs to keep my blood sugar stable. Protein at every meal. I eat at regular times, so my rhythm stays steady. You don’t need to be exact, just consistent.
Even when I’m not hungry at mealtime, I still eat something. Usually not much, and that’s fine. It keeps my rhythm on track.
And when I do eat, I eat until I’m satisfied, not until a number tells me to stop. Stopping short just builds the hunger back up. There’s a psychological and emotional side to hunger too, a topic for another day. But eating to satisfaction turns all of it down.
My simple two step trick for when I’m ravenous
Sometimes you miss a meal and end up ravenous. I learned this trick from breaking my 72 hour fasts. First time, I opened the fridge and inhaled a tub of pate.
Second time, I had a boiled egg, waited 20 minutes, then ate properly.
Now, whenever I’m ravenous, I do the same two steps.
STEP 1. Grab something proteiny, a meatball, some cheese, whatever’s there.
STEP 2. Breathe for a minute and tell my body, we’ve got food, we’re fine. Then eat the rest of the meal.
That pause turns down the alarm.
Makes it easy to eat a normal amount instead of inhaling everything.
Ready for More Ease With Food?
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It’s called The Secret to Eating What You Want and Feeling Good in Your Clothes.
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My Best Bite
Most weekends my Irishman cooks, usually something from YouTube or a cookbook. This Sunday it was from the new Ottolenghi book: butterflied chicken on a bed of cabbage with soy and ginger butter.
The chicken was fine. The cabbage stole the show. All those chicken juices, soy, ginger, green onion. So good I had it again for lunch the next day. Melt in your mouth, like pappardelle pasta.
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I’m Excited About
This week I’m running an experiment: increasing my estrogen.
I’ve been on hormones a couple of years, and things were going well. Then in early August my sleep fell apart. Racing heart at night, feeling hot, not myself, easily rattled. Also oilier skin and hair, some acne on my neck, a receding hairline.
Turns out low estrogen throws off the estrogen to testosterone balance, which can cause symptoms that look like too much testosterone. Today’s day one of a higher dose. Hopeful it smooths things out.
In your corner,
Jules from Stonesoup xx
(Your favourite Australian Food Scientist)
See my bio
ps. Can I ask a favour?
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Watch this article on YouTube.
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