Basically as the title says. If I’m already obese right, why does my stomach still feel hungry when it has “food at home” aka an excess stored up as fat. Why would it not just utilize the energy that is already there and then when it gets to a certain body fat percentage become hungry again at that point? Why does the body just continue to store up fat to an uncomfortable and unhealthy point and keeps asking for more food when there is already so much available to it?
UPDATE: Thank you everyone for your responses. There are lots of great explanations and viewpoints here 😊.
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Food has two purposes – a source of energy and a source of raw materials to repair cells and build new cells. And hunger, therefore, has two possible meanings “I need energy” or “I need raw materials”.
Because there is always repair work to do (like any complex machine, cells are breaking down, being damaged, or dying all the time – and you have billions of cells in your body) your body gets hungry when it has run out of raw materials to carry out this repair.
Your stored body fat is not useful for this purpose, so no matter how fat you are, you will regularly get hungry. Not because of a lack of energy, but because of a lack of raw materials. And if you don’t eat the right foods (eg if you eat a load of sugar rather than a source of protein) they won’t do much to stop your hunger either. This is why a high protein meal keeps you fuller for longer than a high carbohydrate meal – it stops the body running out of the raw materials for longer.
If you don’t give your body the necessary raw materials it will start breaking down your muscle to get the protein it needs to keep the more important organs as healthy as possible. This is why fat people when they diet often end up losing lean body tissue as well as fat. Because not only are they reducing their energy intake to below what their body is using, they can very easily drop their raw materials intake below what their body needs.
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