If our stomach has digestion issues and we can’t eat a lot of food throughout the day, why does this not make our bodies feel weak? Why does the feeling of weakness only come when our stomach feels totally empty, even though we might eat less food when our stomach isn’t feeling well?

Question

I have gone for weeks with very low appetite due to illness, and I often ate very small portions of food before feeling totally full, but during these time, I practically never felt tired or weak. Once my stomach was better, however, I was able to eat a lot more food, and as soon as I feel hungry, I usually also generally feel fatigue and muscle weakness until I have eaten. How is it possible that I can feel less weak when I am consuming less food?

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Answer 1

The “weak” feeling has less to do with the amount of food in your stomach and more to do with your overall blood sugar levels. The goal of the human body is to maintain balance (homeostasis) and it has many, many mechanisms to maintain that balance. Some do involve the state of your stomach, and when it’s empty there are hormones that can be released to tell you “Hunger”…

But that is separate from what many people associate with “Hunger”, the dragging, the weakness, the “Hangry”…those all are happening because your body isn’t getting its preferred fuel source: Glucose ( a type of sugar).

Now the body can break down stores of fat to generate energy without using Glucose (ketosis, whole idea of the Keto diet), but that’s less efficient and takes longer to get the same result…it could break down its stores of Glycogen (condensed sugar essentially), but again that takes time….or it can influence you to just eat something else, ideally a simple carb that will give it that sweet, sweet Glucose (actual pure glucose tastes nasty btw).

This is part of what makes giving up refined/processed foods so hard. You brain is the biggest Glucose wh*re of them all and guess who runs this show? Your unconscious knows what it wants, and it rewards you when you cave. The “rush” from bingeing on treats isn’t your imagination, your brain really does release Dopamine (a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure) while you’re mowing down.

This was the long winded explanation you didn’t ask for, and it’s a bit simplified, but I hope it gives some understanding to the wild world of your endocrine and digestive systems.