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

Depends on your eating habits also. Certain foods (high in carbs/sugar) will play strange games with blood sugar and insulin levels. These things are what signal hunger more than anything. So you could eat a big meal before bed, and wake up first thing and be starving as if you hadn’t eaten for months. You actually feel that way because you ate late the night before, and especially if it is food high in carbs/sugars. It’s not a calorie deficit, but hormone signals.

Answer 2

Your body is like a steam engine. The fireman gets a load of coal (food) and either shovels it into the engine (your body’s metabolism) or shovels it into the [tender](https://www.lionelstore.com/LionelStore%20Product%20Images/636847-1.jpg) (your fat reserves).

Hunger is the fireman saying “hey, just so you know I’m not getting any coal right now… could be an issue.” He doesn’t care that the tender has plenty, just that no more new stuff is coming in.

Answer 3

Hunger is not directly tied to calorie intake. Your body uses a lot of different metrics to decide whether you should be eating, including nutrient levels and how full your stomach is. That system is tuned to our evolutionary past, when our diets were much less calorie-dense. When you’re mostly eating stuff like berries and lean meat, it’s not possible to consume 2,000 calories in a single meal, so the body prompts you to eat multiple times per day. Someone who eats all that in a single burger will have enough energy to make it through the day, but their body will eventually start screaming at them to eat something anyway.