90. Tornado Siren Hunger vs. Regular Hunger: How GLP-1 Medications Help You Reconnect with Your Body's Signals

In this episode of Weight Loss Made Simple, Dr. Stacy dives deep into the world of hunger—what causes it, why it can feel overwhelming, and how GLP-1 medications can help you manage it. If you've ever felt like your hunger is out of control or have been afraid of getting hungry again after being on GLP-1 meds, this episode is for you!

Dr. Stacy breaks down the science behind hunger hormones like ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and leptin (the satiety hormone), explaining how they work together to signal when to eat and when to stop. You'll learn how these hormones can get disrupted by things like sugar and stress, leaving you feeling hungrier than you should or making it harder to recognize when you're full.

She also introduces two types of hunger that many of us experience: Tornado Siren Hunger and Regular Hunger. Tornado Siren Hunger can feel like an emergency, overwhelming and out of control, while Regular Hunger is a more manageable, gentle reminder that it's time to eat. Understanding the difference is key to making better food choices.

Plus, Dr. Stacy shares practical tips for managing both types of hunger, including how to recognize your body's signals and when to reach for healthy snacks or meals. Whether you're on GLP-1 medications or not, learning to reconnect with your body's hunger cues can help you make better decisions around food and feel more in control.

Key Takeaways:

• Understand the difference between Tornado Siren Hunger and Regular Hunger.
• How GLP-1 medications help regulate hunger hormones for more manageable hunger.
• Practical tips for managing hunger, including hydration, mindful eating, and keeping healthy snacks on hand.
• The importance of mindfulness and tuning in to your body's signals.

If you’ve been struggling with hunger or just want to get better at managing it, tune in to this episode for actionable tips and insights!

Resources Mentioned:

• Episode 13: The Sweet Truth https://www.buzzsprout.com/2259978/episodes/14279355

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Weight Loss Made Simple. Today I wanna talk all about hunger. All about hunger. Not just the science of it, which we will talk about some. Not just GLP-1 effects on hunger, but we will talk about some. But I also want to give you some real tactical tips and tricks of how to just become more in tune with your own hunger and how we can just

start to trust our bodies again. I will tell you that the number one concern I get from my GLP-1 clients is when hunger starts to come back and the real fear of hunger. And I get it, right? When you have had an over desire for food and you have a very strong urge reward loop set up, hunger feels like a tornado siren. It feels

Unstoppable it feels like something you have no control over so it makes total sense that When through ever what mechanism you get to a point that you're not feeling that way And then it starts to creep back in that it would cause some fear and panic. I totally get it So that's why I wanted to do this episode today because I don't want us to be afraid of hunger even naturally thin people get hungry

Okay, hunger is a normal feeling. It is a normal process in our body. It serves a purpose. It has just gotten to a point for most of us where it was not reliable and it was too demanding and it got a little bit scary. So that's why I really just wanna talk.

a little bit more about it and hopefully by the end of the episode you're feeling a little bit more comfortable, a little bit less afraid and have some real things to try and experiment with and some things to pay attention to just to bring mindfulness back. And I hope that you get to the point where you believe you will be able to trust your body and it signals again at some point, even if you don't know. So let's talk about hunger hormones for just a couple of minutes. I know I've done a full episode on them before, but I want to remind us about our hunger hormones and how they work.

Hunger hormones are very important. They regulate when we're hungry and sometimes they lag a little bit on telling us when we're full, but they are there for us. So the two big ones are leptin and ghrelin. So ghrelin, I like to think of that as growl, right? So leptin is our hunger hormone, I mean ghrelin, sorry. Ghrelin is our hunger hormone, ghrelin growl. Its job is to tell our brain,

I'm low on energy, it is time to eat. It's like a little alarm clock and it wakes you up when it's time for food and it growls and I used to think of that as growl, right? Cause it felt pretty aggressive and it can feel aggressive. It's not supposed to feel overly aggressive, but sometimes it does. And so that is ghrelin. Ghrelin is interesting because ghrelin is tamed like a lion and it starts to get used to our timing. So if you're someone who never eats breakfast, you're very rarely going to be hungry for breakfast. But if you always eat breakfast at 9 a.m. your body will get used to upping your ghrelin or producing ghrelin giving you those hunger signals right around 9 a.m. So we can train ghrelin

and it is responsive to our schedule, that does lag, right? So if anyone has ever tried to change what time of day they eat, or if you've experimented with intermittent fasting, and maybe you've tried to push breakfast for a little while, you will see, like those first few days are a little bit harder, and then Grelin kind of learns the new pattern, and...will let you have those two hours without feeling super hungry. So that's ghrelin. It's our hunger hormone. It says it's time to eat. It's our little growling gremlin hormone and we can train it to a schedule. Leptin is the one saying I'm full. Okay, so leptin says I've had enough. Leptin kicks in and tells your brain when it has time to stop eating. So.

It is beautiful when these are balanced and are doing their jobs correctly. So we get a little push from Grellin when we're hungry, a little knock knock on the door of it's time to eat. And then if we eat nice and slow, Leptin can kind of signal like I think I've had enough time to stop. So the problem is most of these are disrupted in different ways by sugar and overly processed food. If you wanna go back and hear exactly how, go back to an earlier episode, I'll link it in the show notes. But if we're having a lot of sugar, if we have not had enough sleep, if we are thirsty, all of these things can disrupt these hormones. So if we have been in a place where we have been overeating or eating a lot of sugar, eating a lot of processed food, sometimes we can't rely on these hunger signals, which can be very, very frustrating. Sometimes ghrelin can be much stronger than it needs to be. And sometimes leptin like never shows up for the party, right? That's what it feels like. I'm hungry all the time. I never feel full.

When I first started giving up sugar and I had learned about a hunger scale, which we can talk about later, I realized I was so out of touch with my hunger. I legitimately would feel like starving and then I wouldn't do anything. And then like 20 minutes later, I'd be like, I don't even know if I'm hungry at all. Right. So I would have these dramatic swings in how hungry I felt.

and I was hungry every two hours no matter how much I ate. So it's one thing to be hungry every two hours if we're having a small snack. Like if I'm eating an apple and then two hours later I eat some almonds and then two hours later I eat something else, that's one thing. But if I'm having a full meal and I'm hungry, like I haven't eaten two hours later, that's inappropriate hunger. Physiologically that doesn't make sense that my body should be.

upping the ghrelin and asking for more food, leptin should really still be hanging on two hours later if I've had a large meal. So it's interesting if you do nothing else after listening to this this week, that you just start tuning in to see what's going on. Like, am I hungry? How hungry am I? If I do nothing, what happens in 20 minutes? If I eat, what happens in 20 minutes?

So I would love for you to just start trying to tune in a little bit.

So let me explain regular hunger for those of you who have tornado siren hunger like I did. And I know I've mentioned this before, but.

When we have a lot of dopamine surging from our food, so again, processed sugar, blah, blah, right? So if I'm having a lot of dopamine surge and I have regular hunger signal and I don't give in and my addicted brain wants that drug, it is going to make my hunger or tornado siren.

It is gonna feel incapacitating. It's gonna be all I start to think about is gonna take over like everything. It doesn't matter how hard I'm working or what I'm trying to get done. My brain is going to be demanding food and that is from this like surge of ghrelin or just really it's a dopamine demand but that is what it's gonna feel like. And for many of us who overate and might be on these medications, that goes away.

we get more of regular hunger. Regular hunger should be a nice rolling wave. Okay? It should be like a little knock knock at the door. Like, I don't know if you've noticed, but it's been a while since we've eaten and we could use a little bit of fuel and then we can, and then it'll get a little more, it'll get bigger, right? That's the wave. So it'll come in a little bit slow. If we ignore it, it'll be a little bit louder next time.

And then if we ignore it, ignore it, like at some point, it's gonna be like, hey, seriously, it's time to eat. Okay, but that is very different than the immediate super intense feed me now, which made me think of...

Now I can't remember the name the movie feed me see more right so This very intense tornado siren must have food now very very different than regular hunger Which is like this gentle rolling wave that gets a little bit bigger a little bit louder as we go so tornado sour and feed me now like very Hormonal in the eat and balanced. It's not how it should work

usually from being sugar addicted or just having too many processed foods, this is a dopamine problem generally, versus regular rolling hunger. I think this is important to understand the difference because when our brain is triggered and high emotion and wants to turn it off, it is not gonna give you a gently rolling wave, right? It's gonna try and signal the tornado siren

So that can just be like a signal that you're being triggered. If you out of nowhere have a tornado siren and you're like, huh, I definitely just ate an hour ago. I shouldn't be this hungry, but I just had this really like bad interaction with somebody. We can start to just mindfully navigate that and see where maybe it's our emotions fueling our hunger signals.

versus really the need for food. So I will tell you the other way that that works and why that happens is our brain is very smart and it knows that food releases dopamine, especially our sugar and processed foods, we get that dopamine. So if we are feeling an uncomfortable feeling and it wants it to end and it wants that dopamine, even if we're not really hungry,

it's going to mimic hunger signals. So it's gonna set off the tornado siren in an effort to get the dopamine.

So GLP-1s calm the tornado siren. And I think what happens, cause a lot of people will say, I'm just not hungry on them. I am starting to have a theory that maybe they're just going back to regular hunger, but it's been so long since that has worked, that normal hunger has been a part of their life, that we're just super out of touch. So that gentle knock at the door, might not even be registering if you've started these medications and you're thinking, I'm just not hungry, I don't know, like what's going on? Maybe you're a little bit hungry, but you've just been so out of touch or so used to tornado siren that you're not recognizing the wave. So how can we manage hunger?

If we are having regular hunger and we sort of feel the knock at the door and we check in and we're like, yeah, it's been like a reasonable amount of time since I've eaten, like at least four hours, we need to eat a balanced meal, right? Protein, fiber, healthy fat. Healthy fats are gonna keep us feeling fuller longer. Proteins, we need that to build our muscles, to keep our muscles up. And fiber because...

Everybody needs more fiber than we get, keeps everything moving the way it's supposed to move. We need to have liquids. We need to stay hydrated. Okay, remember we've talked about sometimes when our body's saying we're hungry, we're really just thirsty. So if you get that gentle knock for hunger and you're like, it's only been like two hours, maybe we're thirsty. So maybe we have a glass of water first. And then the next thing we wanna do,

When we decide like, yes, it's time to eat. I'm going to have a nice balanced meal. I've already made sure I'm hydrated. We want to practice mindful eating. So what does that mean? Means we want to be a little bit undistracted, right? We want a nice calm place. I am a huge fan of setting a nice plate, even if you are at work. So we can use glass storage bowls. We can use real silverware. We can bring a fabric napkin.

we can turn off our computer, limit our distractions, and mindfully eat. Why do we wanna do this? This really helps leptin not have such a huge delay. So instead of feeling hungry or feeling full, like an hour after I've finished eating, I might start to get some of those full signals a little bit faster if I'm not distracted and really paying attention.

So that's regular hunger. What if I get tornado siren hunger? Absolutely, I think that is the time to be like, whoa, what is going on for me? If we haven't had it in a really long time, why am I having it? Like did I have been emotionally triggered? Did I eat something with a lot of sugar yesterday that my brain is like looking for dopamine? What's happening for me? I would absolutely drink some water. I would.

if we've had a stressful interaction or some sort of highly emotional interaction, maybe we need to do some relaxation techniques, some breathing techniques, maybe we need to go for a walk, something like that, or just sit with our feelings. We could process a feeling. It's not the worst thing that's ever happened, I promise. And then the next thing we can do is,

If we have come from a place where we have had a lot of tornado siren hunger and we are trying to do something different, but maybe we have really just abused our body. Maybe we have over-dieted, over-deprived, all of these things. Maybe we just need to have some high protein or high fat snacks available to us, okay? Full disclosure, this is me. I had...

I've done every diet available. I've been over-dieted since I was nine years old. If my body feels super deprived of food or thinks it's gonna be deprived of food or has even a whiff that it might be deprived of food, it can really spur some overeating for me. It gets a little panicky. I don't even always recognize it's happening. But since I have learned this about myself, I am like a squirrel. I have got healthy stuff.

all where it needs to be, okay? So I have mixed nuts in my car, I have stuff in my desk at work, I have snacks available if I start to get tornado siren hunger and I can't figure out what else is going on, okay? So if I need to eat, I will eat a little something that's on my protocol and I have that ready for myself so that I can, it helps.

just make sure that I don't overeat later. I do this a lot with my clients because they will eat lunch at clinic and then they will be charting, charting, charting and trying to get home. And then they're overeating at dinner. And it's a combination of it's been too many hours since they've had lunch and just this like brain wanting to relax after charting. So what we'll do is we'll have a nice small snack on our way home or right before we leave to go home.

I don't actually, I don't like eating in the car if we can help it, but sometimes things need to happen. Okay, so regular hunger, start to really tune into that. If you've never had that or it's been a really long time and you guys are not familiar with each other, start to just tune in and see what it feels like and is it an appropriate time for hunger? Is my body asking for something else? Can I just drink some water and like make sure it's not that first?

And then can I have a really well-balanced meal and eat it super mindfully? If I'm having tornado siren hunger and it's been a long time since that's happened, really try and figure out emotionally what's going on for you. Use some relaxation techniques, any of your grounding techniques if you can't figure it out. Maybe journal, have a glass of water. And then if you're like, I think maybe I really am hungry and maybe like it's just.

It's been too long since my last meal and I'm not gonna eat for a while and I wanna make sure I don't overeat like I'm feeling a little binge panicky, maybe have a healthy snack ready for you. So let's talk about the hunger scale really quickly. I'm gonna leave you with that. I think I've given you some tactical tricks. The hunger scale is like zero to 10. Okay, so zero is, I just ate, I'm so full.

absolutely don't need to eat ever again, right? This like maybe after Thanksgiving. And then it goes all the way up to 10, which is like, I'm starving. Okay, like I'm gonna eat my arm or whoever walks by too slow. I'm getting them and I'm gonna eat. So we wanna be somewhere like four to six. Okay, we wanna be where we're not so full that we can't get up and go for a walk or.

while talking to our friends, okay? That's a great level of like, I've had enough to eat, but I can still go and do some movement. And then six, like we don't wanna be so hungry that we are getting a tornado siren. So sort of that tight window where we just need to eat a little bit and then we like.

assess, right, if we're never at a tornado siren, we can be real mindful about what we eat and how much we eat. And then if we, we don't get too full, like we can still go and be productive the rest of our day and not crash after lunch and still be able to go and participate in whatever we need to participate in. So that would be great.

For a lot of you, that might be really difficult to start figuring out what exactly those numbers mean. They're a little bit different for everyone. Just start to experiment and see. Really, when I tried to experiment with this, I realized I was hungry all the time and that it was fluctuating still wildly. I was like, okay, forget this. I can't, I need to re-regulate myself first and then I will come back to it. And if that's where you're at, amazing. So good to know about yourself.

One of the easiest ways to re-regulate is just really starting to decrease the amount of concentrated sugars and processed foods and sort of calm that dopamine down. And that is really gonna help you. Just, we wanna get rid of that tornado siren if at all possible. So hopefully this has been helpful. If you have questions about this, please reach out to me, support at sugarfreemd.com. If you've tried any of these things and they have worked or you have tips or tricks for anyone,

Please reach out on Instagram, @sugar_freemd, and let us know what's going on. Everyone would probably benefit from all the tips and tricks they can get around the hunger scale. It's been so damaged by most of our food and the better we can sort of get in tune with ourselves, the better. Remember, it's all about mindfulness. So please share this with a friend if you thought it was helpful and I will talk to you next time. Bye.