#151 - Is it Hunger, Food Noise, or Hormones?

Feeling hungry all the time? Or do you feel like fullness just doesn’t land the way it used to? You’re not imagining things—and it’s not about discipline either. Hormonal changes in menopause can change how you experience hunger, and that can be disorienting.

In this episode, we answer a listener’s honest question about feeling constantly hungry, and explore how biology, behavior, and hormones all intersect. We break down the three types of hunger—physical, emotional, and taste—and why food noise can feel especially loud right now.

You’ll hear how estrogen impacts fullness signals, how sleep and brain energy play a role, and most importantly, how to work with your changing body, not against it. We share ways to build satisfying meals, spot emotional hunger with compassion, and reconnect with your body's wisdom.

This one’s for anyone in or around menopause who’s ready to stop fighting hunger—and start listening to it.

Links Mentioned: 

EP 117: How to Decode Your Cravings in Menopause

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Looking for more about midlife, menopause nutrition, and intuitive eating? Click here to grab one of my free guides and learn what I've got "on the menu" including my 1:1 and group programs. https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/links

Transcript

Jenn Salib Huber: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr Jenn Salib-Huber. I'm an intuitive eating dietitian and naturopathic doctor and I help women manage menopause without dieting and food rules. Come to my table, listen and learn from me trusted guest experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you. Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. And if you're looking for more information about menopause, nutrition and intuitive eating, check out the midlife feast community, my monthly membership that combines my no nonsense approach that you all love to nutrition with community, so that you can learn from me and others who can relate to the cheers and challenges of midlife. Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of the Midlife Feast. So this idea for this episode actually came from a listener question, so I want to start by reading the question so you can get a sense of why I wanted to tackle these three things hunger, food, noise and menopause or hormones together. Hi, jen, I have a question about hormones and hunger. In the past year, I feel like I'm hungry all the time and can't feel full the way that I used to. I asked my doctor about it and she said that it was something called food noise and suggested it could help. I said no for now, as I don't think that I need it, but I'd love to hear your take on this. Thanks for this question, ellen.

Jenn Salib Huber: 1:30

Now, if you're listening to this podcast, chances are you have some kind of complicated relationship with food, either in the past or now, or maybe midlife has kind of stirred things up again. Ellen's question is one that I get, not infrequently, but I often hear things like I'm hungry all the time, what's wrong with me? Or I used to be able to go all day without thinking about food and now I feel like I just want to eat all the time. Or I'm scared to trust my hunger because I'm worried about gaining weight and often I can't tell if I'm hungry or just tired or emotional or hormonal or whatever it is. So I want to make sure that we're talking about all of those things and giving you a little bit of context about how menopause may or may not be related to what's going on. So first I want to just spend a couple of minutes talking about the different types of hunger.

Jenn Salib Huber: 2:25

So we have physical hunger, emotional hunger and taste hunger. I'm not going to go into these in like great detail, but emotional hunger is the one that I've probably talked about the most and if you want to learn more about that and cravings, episode 117, I think, is the one that you want to go back to. But physical hunger is probably the most straightforward right. This is like your tummy is rumbling, your body is telling you that it needs fuel, nourishment, it wants you to eat, and physical hunger can show up differently depending on you know, personality, genetic makeup, needs, medication, sleep, all those kinds of things. But in general, it's this like slow burn of I'm more and more interested in eating and I'm getting these signals from my body that I need to refuel. Emotional hunger is a little bit different. It can happen with physical hunger at the same time, so you can absolutely be emotionally hungry and physically hungry.

Jenn Salib Huber: 3:25

Usually, when we're talking about emotional hunger, what we actually mean is an intense desire to eat for reasons other than physical hunger. So some people might call this emotional eating, for example, but really it's just that strong desire to eat for reasons other than physical hunger. We're going to come back to that, don't worry. And taste hunger is the. I want to eat it because I know that it tastes good. I know that I'm going to love how it feels in my mouth as I'm eating it. You know the whole experience of it. So some people might call that, you know, tricky hunger or reactive eating, but really taste hunger I like to think of as a barometer to satisfaction. So if you're trying to figure out like what do I enjoy eating Because satisfaction is the secret sauce Taste hunger can be a really helpful tool, but you have to trust it and you have to trust your body that it knows what it's doing.

Jenn Salib Huber: 4:18

Now I want to talk a little bit about appetite and food noise. So, food noise is a newer term, and so food noise is something that we hear a lot about in the media and the news. With people who are using GLP-1 medications, so things like Ozempic, like Wagovi, those kinds of medications One of the things that we often hear from people is that they have less food noise. But what exactly is food noise? So, food noise being a relatively new term, there were some researchers that have actually started looking at how can we define this, how can we start to conceptualize? So just two years ago in 2023, there was a proposed kind of conceptual model. So early days is what we're all saying here and they defined it as a heightened or persistent manifestations of food cue reactivity we're going to come back to that too in a second often leading to food related intrusive or obsessive thoughts. In other words, you're just thinking about food all the time.

Jenn Salib Huber: 5:16

Now. Reactive eating and food cue reactivity is not a new concept. And intuitive eating we talk about reactive eating quite a bit and we even have you know exercises and worksheets on practice not reacting. So recognizing what your reactive eating cues are and learning to respond to them differently. That doesn't mean saying no, it doesn't mean saying yes, but it just means trying to press pause and observe, like, what is happening when I experience this reactive moment, this cue, when this cue shows up in my life and I really want to eat all the things, what is happening?

Jenn Salib Huber: 5:53

Now, what about appetite? What is appetite? So appetite is the interest in eating that we have, and so a lot of people think that maybe appetite and food noise are essentially the same thing. But food noise is maybe happening on, you know, is happening on a bigger scale, so it's maybe happening more often, but essentially appetite is what makes us interested in eating. Now I was recently quite sick and I was experiencing some very mild physical hunger, but I was experiencing zero appetite. So that's a great kind of real life example of how appetite is the interest in eating. And so when you're sick and you're eating just because you know that your body needs nourishment, it's not satisfying and you really aren't putting a whole lot of thought into what you're eating because you're just trying to kind of fill that bucket, fill that hole. Now there can be times when you are not hungry but you have a lot of appetite for something. So these might be foods that you really enjoy, these might be foods that you're looking forward to. This can also be increased appetite or emotional hunger for eating because of, maybe, some feelings that you're feeling. So this is just my opinion, but the way that I see it, I think that food, noise and appetite are versions of the same coin, and it makes sense that medications that slow down digestion, absorption of food would decrease appetite in the same way that I experienced it when I was sick. So I think we're early days into understanding, kind of, how this all plays out. But what I really want to talk about today is what is the relationship with menopause, what is the relationship with hormones? And if you're experiencing a lot of food noise or increases in appetite or emotional hunger, whatever you want to call it, what can you do about it? So let's talk about what causes these increases in appetite.

Jenn Salib Huber: 7:49

So not eating enough is probably the most common one, because that means that you're physically hungry. If you are physically hungry, as you've probably experienced, you want to eat more. You're more interested in eating, and the here's a scenario that I often see People will be trying to kind of watch what they eat. So maybe they're skipping carbs at breakfast, they're just having an egg white omelet or they're having a couple of eggs, but they're not kind of building that balance on their plate. So their physical hunger goes down. So they're not, you know, as hungry as they were before they ate, but they don't really reach that level of like comfortable fullness and satisfaction. So their appetite continues. They're still interested in eating, even though they may not be feeling hunger in the same way that they were.

Jenn Salib Huber: 8:47

Another really common one is lack of regular opportunities for pleasure and enjoyment with food. If you are always trying to eat perfectly, if you're trying to kind of build these perfectly balanced plates and you're playing food Tetris like a champ and you have all of your macros worked out but you're not thinking about do I want this? Do I enjoy this? Is this something that I'm looking forward to? And if you don't experience the satisfaction and pleasure of eating, you may find yourself pleasure seeking with an increased appetite. So a really common scenario for this one is evening snacking. Nothing wrong with an evening snack, but what a lot of people will tell me is that they'll say I'm eating really well, I'm eating all my meals, I'm eating regularly. I'm putting you know I'm not restricting anything, but I still can't get out of the cupboard at eight o'clock at night. I'm constantly looking for that satisfaction.

Jenn Salib Huber: 9:44

And when we back it up a little bit and we start looking at well, what were your meals like in terms of pleasure and satisfaction? Did you enjoy them? Were you looking forward to them? Did you stop what you were doing long enough to kind of notice that you were eating them? And often we're not building in that pleasure and satisfaction into our day regularly and so, as a result, our appetite for pleasure is still there. So that's a really kind of great way to think about. What can I add in? So, using intuitive eating's add-in philosophy, what can I add in for pleasure and satisfaction? One of the things that we talked about in the Feaster community not too long ago was like trying to plan for that satisfaction earlier in the week, so planning to have foods that you enjoy on Monday, planning to go to lunch with your best friend on Tuesday instead of waiting until Friday. So build in pleasure and satisfaction earlier in your week.

Jenn Salib Huber: 10:41

Emotional hunger and emotional eating are very closely tied to appetite and what we might be calling food noise, because we have this pathway to avoid pain and seek pleasure. And eating is pleasurable Because we have this pathway to avoid pain and seek pleasure. And eating is pleasurable, especially when we allow ourselves to have pleasurable foods only maybe when we feel like we've earned it or when we're experiencing a negative emotion. So when you're experiencing that emotional hunger around or with a really strong feeling, then it makes sense that if those strong feelings are hanging around more often, for whatever reason, you may be thinking about those foods more often.

Jenn Salib Huber: 11:20

Another thing that can impact both appetite and hunger is our sleep changes and stress. So we know that our brain is a hungry part of our body and about a fifth of our body's energy needs are used up by our brain, and our brain needs well over 100 grams of carbohydrates a day just to kind of function. And so if you're not sleeping enough to kind of recharge everything, you are more likely to have both physical hunger and appetite increased the following day because your brain is hungrier, it didn't get enough rest. And because your brain is hungrier, it didn't get enough rest, and because your brain is smart, it's also going to kind of you're going to crave those quicker, easier sources of energy because your brain knows that that's going to be a quick fix for feeling tired. This also plays into brain fog and so people who are experiencing kind of this brain fog of midlife, this mild subjective cognitive impairment that usually gets better this is not the time to be cutting down on carbs. So I've said that probably a thousand times on this podcast, but I'll take every opportunity I can to say it again Now stress is generally a negative emotion.

Jenn Salib Huber: 12:29

Yes, we can have positive stress, we can have good stressors, but negative stressors are ones that increase our stress hormones and those stress hormones can also get in the way of appetite regulation. And one of the big reasons why is that? If your body and brain perceive that you are under stress. So if your body is looking out for the tiger, it wants you to eat more so that it has the energy to run away. And so when you're under a lot of stress and sometimes we can't control it so this is often where acceptance and self-compassion come into this conversation If you're under a lot of stress and especially if you're experiencing that stress response and let's just say that it's also interfering with your sleep and it's also interfering with your self-care it's easy to see how food, noise, appetite and emotional hunger would all be impacted by that.

Jenn Salib Huber: 13:22

Now, what about the hormones themselves? So in perimenopause we have these fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone. In postmenopause we're kind of in a low new normal state, but we do know that estrogen and progesterone have an impact on hunger. Regulating hormones. The two most common ones are ghrelin and leptin. So ghrelin is like a gremlin that will growl when you're hungry, and leptin is kind of the signal to your brain and body that your stores have been recharged, your battery's been recharged. It's your fullness hormone. Now we're still learning about ghrelin and leptin, but we do know that it seems like estrogen fluctuations in particular may have an effect on how hungry we feel and, more importantly, how full we feel. So, kind of going back to Ellen's question, which was I feel like I never feel full, there's a good chance but we don't know exactly to what extent there's a good chance that estrogen is playing a role in that, and so, like leptin, estrogen may help to kind of not dampen but just regulate appetite, especially around fullness.

Jenn Salib Huber: 14:33

So we also know that these mood changes that are happening, these neurotransmitter changes that are happening, are going to have an impact on emotional hunger. So serotonin, you know, generally associated with, like happiness, and dopamine is also associated with pleasure, but also learning, and so we have these hormone changes that are up and down on a roller coaster and, as a result, we may be pleasure seeking more often, we may be looking for moments of pleasure, and that is where the emotional hunger comes in, because if you're seeking a moment of pleasure and our brains are extraordinarily smart and good at remembering things that have felt good and that we have enjoyed, it is going to have no problem saying, hey, just take the shortcut right into the kitchen. And so we need to acknowledge, kind of, there are some biological, physiological, hormonal changes that may be contributing. But it doesn't mean that it's going to happen always on autopilot or that you can't be part of that process, which is where the practice not reacting is such a helpful exercise in intuitive eating, because we can actually observe what's happening without judgment, and we can start to notice the patterns, the thoughts, the feelings and then really just kind of start to say like, is this still working? Is this feeling good? Is this something that I want to keep doing or is this something that I want to change?

Jenn Salib Huber: 16:00

And emotional hunger, especially in midlife and menopause, is also impacted by just how busy life is, so we have fewer opportunities for self-care and downtime. Life is busy, and maybe sitting down with your favorite snack at eight o'clock at night is literally the first time that you've had two minutes to yourself, and so your brain is very invested in maximizing all of the pleasure and satisfaction that it can get out of that time. So to kind of just recap a little bit about the hunger and the hormones yes, we do know that estrogen and progesterone are related to how we experience hunger and fullness, and so there's a good chance that when you're going through perimenopause and until postmenopause, when things settle down, you may notice that you feel hungry on a different schedule or you feel full on a different schedule. I've shared that. Until I was postmenopausal, I was somebody who you know I ate within five minutes of my feet hitting the floor coffee and food. That was like my number one mission because I would wake up hungry. That has been a big change for me in the last few years. I sometimes still wake up hungry, but maybe a 10th of what I used to, and the intensity of my morning hunger has definitely changed. I don't think it's really ultimately changed how I eat't think it's really ultimately changed how I eat the rest of the day, but that has been the biggest change that I've noticed.

Jenn Salib Huber: 17:25

So I want to just kind of normalize that if you're in midlife and menopause and you've thought, oh my goodness, what is going on, you're probably right. There probably is something going on. And if you feel like this idea of food noise is something that you relate to, maybe it's something that you're worried about, maybe it's something that you'd like to do something about. There are lots of ways that we can address this from a behavior perspective. So, while keeping in mind all of the stuff that's happening in the background with hormones, we can look at this from a behavior change perspective, and that is where I think people can feel really empowered, that they understand their behavior, that they understand what's happening and not just that they're kind of victim to it. So where do you go from here?

Jenn Salib Huber: 18:12

I'd like to leave you with this one kind of thought, and that hunger of any kind is not drama, it is data. Hunger is data. It is not drama. You don't need to fear it, you don't need to feel like it needs to be put into a corner. If you are physically hungry, eat. If you feel like you're not experiencing enough fullness, you can play around with adding things to your plate like protein, fats, fiber, variety. That will increase pleasure, satisfaction, fullness. And if you're emotionally hungry, if you feel like you've got so much going on, you're feeling all the feelings, and food is always what your brain is defaulting to. Just know that. There are lots of ways that you can kind of learn to feel a little bit more empowered and control of that and less worried that it is something that is happening outside of your control.

Jenn Salib Huber: 19:08

So I hope that this episode on hunger and fullness is helpful. I really love this question. So, ellen, thanks for sending it in In the show notes. I'm also going to link to a Google form where you can drop your question and I can answer your question on a future podcast, but for now, I hope you all have a great day. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Midlife Feast. For more non-diet, health, hormone and general midlife support, click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me. And if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review or subscribing, because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife.