Why is it, that you can eat a 2,000 calorie meal, and in theory, you shouldn’t need calories again until the next day, but you can be hungry again 6-8 hours after you finish eating? Is your body just not capable of actually processing that many calories?

Question

I think the title kind of says it all, but I watched a video of someone eating a 2.1k calorie burger, and his friend said, good now you won’t need to eat for 24 hours and they laughed, then I thought, ” wait why is it that you would be hungry again after 6-8 or so hours, is our body that inefficient with those calories? Does this mean that when you eat over a certain limit of calories you body just puts the rest into waste and some into fat? How does it work?

Update: Wow thanks for all the upvotes, awards, and comments. I really appreciate all the new information and help on this topic.

In: Biology

Answer 1

Okay I’m going to explain this like you’re a high school student instead.

There are only certain sugars that your body can use for immediate energy use (glucose). Amylase and lipase are enzymes that break down polysaccharides into disaccharides which are then further broken down into glucose. Once all of your energy needs are satisfied your body will store the excessive glucose in your liver as glycogen and outside of liver as fat stores. Once all of your circulating glucose is depleted your body will release hormones like leptin and ghrelin to make your hungry and eat more for more readily available glucose. If you don’t eat when hungry but your body still needs energy it will dip into its glycogen stores first then into lipolysis and ketogenesis as glycogen stores ae depleted for energy.