eli5: Why do you feel less hungry the longer you don’t eat?

Question

So when your body is expecting food and you don’t eat you obviously get those strong hunger pains, but why does that feeling begin to die down if you leave it for a bit?

In: 29

Answer 1

Lots of people talking about the complexity of the hormones and brain signals and they aren’t wrong. But I think one other answer to your question when talking about a normally fed healthy individual is that the liver actually kicks out a source of sugar to help mitigate the low blood sugar we are experiencing. This is called gluconeogenesis. This temporarily relieves the hunger pang.