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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Being obese is more like being addicted to cocaine than it is like sensibly stockpiling calories. Once you understand that you’re dealing with an addictive derailing of the brains reward systems , like a cocaine addict , the answers to questions like yours become obvious. “Because your brain and hormonal system are acting like coke fiends” that’s always the answer. Would you ask “ how come doing cocajne just makes me want more cocaine? Why doesn’t my body realize enough is enough?” Because that’s basically what you’ve asked here.
In nature (which programmed us) , food is basically money, and the fat you have is your bank account that you carry around.
Most people want to keep growing their bank account regardless of how much they have, there isn’t really a point where people say “thats enough, now I want to see it go down”.
Your body does the same thing with fat.
Fat isn’t just stored energy; it’s more like emergency reserves
Burning energy from fat isn’t as efficient as burning from sugar, so your body doesn’t really wanna hit that red button until it knows it has to.
It’s pretty simple. In people with normal metabolism the body self regulates it’s weight. The fat cells secrete leptin, same more leptin drives hunger down
In people who are insulin resistant, the body is constantly in a high glucose state and therefore in a high insulin state.
Insulin is a signal to burn glucose instead of fat, so when the body has constant high insulin, it’s very hard for it to burn fat.
Fat isn’t just stored energy; it’s more like emergency reserves
Burning energy from fat isn’t as efficient as burning from sugar, so your body doesn’t really wanna hit that red button until it knows it has to.
It’s pretty simple. In people with normal metabolism the body self regulates it’s weight. The fat cells secrete leptin, same more leptin drives hunger down
In people who are insulin resistant, the body is constantly in a high glucose state and therefore in a high insulin state.
Insulin is a signal to burn glucose instead of fat, so when the body has constant high insulin, it’s very hard for it to burn fat.
Because your body is operating on a glucose fuel system, meaning when it’s registering the need for fuel it requires more glucose – which is essentially the result of processing carbohydrates and sugars.
Fat stored in the body is the result of your system converting that long term excess glucose into fat.
Fat as a fuel source is not readily available for access and requires a deliberate transition for your body to recognise its usefulness.
This is the whole philosophy or method behind the ketogenic diet.
If you’re driving a petrol car and you run out of fuel with a additional diesel tank it’s altogether useless although it’s still fuel.
In addition to the genetics everyone is talking about, no one has mentioned epigenetics yet – epigenetics are ways that the body changes the way it inteprets your DNA depending on what is going on around it. For instance, if your grandfather lived during a famine, your parent and likely you are going to have different epigenetics that tell your body to behave in different ways – eg continue to build fat resources as a reaction to living in famine. Both your genetics/DNA and your epigenetics control a lot of who you are. Your DNA always stays the same but your epigenetics can change over time depending on what you’re dealing with. It doesnt have to be YOUR lived experience or written in YOUR DNA that determines how your body reacts to something like storing weight.
There is a school of thought that believes what youre saying – that every healthy person has a normal weight range that is correct for their body and that they will naturally settle into. But that has the caveat of “healthy”. You can have physical maladies like malabsorption, insulin resistance, etc that mean your body is STILL hungry because its not getting what it needs despite the amount of food. You can also have mental and emotional reactions, whether thats high stress and increased levels of cortisol or something like an eating disorder where you overeat (your question applies to people with anorexia too – on the flip side its even more illogical that someone starves themselves to the point of death).
DNA, your inherited epigenetics, your own epigenetic scenarios from your life, your physical and mental health all play a very complex role.
In addition to the genetics everyone is talking about, no one has mentioned epigenetics yet – epigenetics are ways that the body changes the way it inteprets your DNA depending on what is going on around it. For instance, if your grandfather lived during a famine, your parent and likely you are going to have different epigenetics that tell your body to behave in different ways – eg continue to build fat resources as a reaction to living in famine. Both your genetics/DNA and your epigenetics control a lot of who you are. Your DNA always stays the same but your epigenetics can change over time depending on what you’re dealing with. It doesnt have to be YOUR lived experience or written in YOUR DNA that determines how your body reacts to something like storing weight.
There is a school of thought that believes what youre saying – that every healthy person has a normal weight range that is correct for their body and that they will naturally settle into. But that has the caveat of “healthy”. You can have physical maladies like malabsorption, insulin resistance, etc that mean your body is STILL hungry because its not getting what it needs despite the amount of food. You can also have mental and emotional reactions, whether thats high stress and increased levels of cortisol or something like an eating disorder where you overeat (your question applies to people with anorexia too – on the flip side its even more illogical that someone starves themselves to the point of death).
DNA, your inherited epigenetics, your own epigenetic scenarios from your life, your physical and mental health all play a very complex role.
Because your body is operating on a glucose fuel system, meaning when it’s registering the need for fuel it requires more glucose – which is essentially the result of processing carbohydrates and sugars.
Fat stored in the body is the result of your system converting that long term excess glucose into fat.
Fat as a fuel source is not readily available for access and requires a deliberate transition for your body to recognise its usefulness.
This is the whole philosophy or method behind the ketogenic diet.
If you’re driving a petrol car and you run out of fuel with a additional diesel tank it’s altogether useless although it’s still fuel.
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