Serenity and Fire with Krista

Why Sugar Makes You Hungrier: Ghrelin, Leptin, Insulin & the Metabolic Trap

• Krista Guagenti

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If you’ve ever wondered why sugar seems to make you hungrier instead of full—why cravings hit hard even after you’ve eaten—this episode is going to change how you understand your body.

In this episode, Krista breaks down the hormones and metabolic signals that quietly control hunger, fullness, cravings, and fat burning—often without us realizing it. We’re talking about ghrelin (your hunger hormone), leptin (your fullness hormone), insulin, and the metabolic trap so many people are stuck in today.

You’ll learn why sugar spikes don’t just affect your waistline—they disrupt hormonal communication, shut down fat burning, intensify cravings, and keep you riding a glucose roller coaster all day long. And most importantly, you’ll understand why this isn’t a willpower issue or a personal failure—it’s physiology.

In this episode, Krista explains:

  • Why sugar increases hunger instead of satisfaction
  • How ghrelin surges during blood sugar crashes
  • Why leptin resistance leaves you feeling “full but not satisfied”
  • How insulin blocks fat burning—even when you’re eating less or exercising
  • What a sugar crash actually is and why it triggers intense cravings
  • How GLUT4 works and why movement is one of the most powerful metabolic tools you have

This conversation is deep, eye-opening, and designed to give you clarity without shame. Once you understand what’s happening beneath the surface, you can stop fighting your body and start working with it.

If sugar, cravings, stubborn weight gain, energy crashes, or feeling out of control around food has been a lifelong battle, this episode will help you connect the dots—and remind you that nothing is wrong with you.

✨ Stay tuned, because in the next episode of the Sugar Series, Krista breaks down fruit, sweeteners, and the myths around “healthy sugars”—including honey, stevia, monk fruit, sugar alcohols, and why whole fruit behaves very differently than fruit juice.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Serenity and Fire, the podcast where wellness meets grit. I'm your host, Krista Guadenti, founder of Panacea Luxury Spa Boutique. Join me as we dive into the intriguing world of biohacking, clean living, cutting-edge spa trends, and the hustle, grind, and grit of entrepreneurship. From my personal battles with weight management, infertility, and the 30-year journey to create and launch my dream business, to building a sanctuary for those who have been touched by cancer. I'm here to share real talk, inspire big dreams, and spark a passion for holistic living inside each and every one of you. So let's dive in. Welcome back to Serenity and Fire. Today we're continuing with part two of our sugar series. If you haven't listened to part one yet, you're going to want to pause this episode and go back because this series intentionally builds on those foundational truths about sugar, glucose, and insulin. And we're doing that step by step so that by the end of this series, my hope is that you'll understand your metabolism better than most medical professionals were ever even taught. Today's episode is really a game changer because we're talking about the hormones and the transporters that control your hunger, your fullness, your cravings, and your ability to burn fat, as well as the metabolic trap that so many of us live in without even realizing it. I'm talking about things like ghrelin, leptin, and glute four, and why sugar affects all of those. I'm also going to explain exactly why sugar makes you hungrier, not fuller, why cravings intensify with the more sugar you eat, and what is actually meant when people talk about sugar crashes. This is the episode that will make you say, oh my gosh, this is why my cravings feel so unpredictable, or this is why I want more food even after I just ate. This topic gets pretty deep. So you're going to want to grab your mushroom coffee or your peptide hot cocoa, get your mind focused, and let's get into it. Because if you're anything like me, this is something you or even someone you know has battled with their entire lives. So first, let's talk about ghrelin. This is the hunger hormone that runs the show more than you realize. The word itself, ghrelin, even sounds mischievous, doesn't it? Think of ghrelin as your little gremlin. It's produced in your stomach, and when it pops up, it growls at you and basically says, Hey, I could eat, so feed me. Ghrelin rises when your stomach is empty, when you've had too long without protein, when your sleep is poor, when your blood sugar crashes, when you're stressed, when you've eaten ultra-processed foods, and when you've even eaten pure sugar or carbs without any protein or fat. And this is where sugar really comes into play because when sugar spikes, this results in a sugar crash, which in turn causes ghrelin to skyrocket. So let me explain this in a little more detail. When you eat something that spikes your blood sugar, especially something without protein or fiber, your glucose goes way up and it does it fast. And your insulin follows. Insulin then clears that glucose from your blood quickly, but for a lot of people, it clears it too quickly. In insulin-resistant people, this insulin response is often overshot. And that sudden drop in glucose, well, that is what's called a sugar crash, meaning insulin rises too high, it clears glucose too aggressively, and you end up with glucose levels that drop too fast, too low, and too suddenly. Physically, when you're experiencing a sugar crash, you may feel shaky, irritable, lightheaded, you may have low energy, you may feel distracted or have brain fog, and you can experience that hangry feeling. And you may also be suddenly starving and are craving carbs or sugar even after you just ate like an hour ago. Physiologically, what's going on in our bodies is that the ghrelin hormone is starting to skyrocket. So you feel like you're starving. Cortisol starts to rise. And again, this is one of our stress hormones in the body. And adrenaline's released. And as a result, your brain sends unsafe signals throughout your entire body, and then your cravings start to intensify. So, in summary, your hunger hormones go into an alarm mode because your brain thinks, we just lost fuel, something's wrong. So get food now. And that is what we mean when we say a high glucose or blood sugar level will lead to a sugar crash that will then lead to a surge in your ghrelin hunger hormones. People assume all of this just means that they love sugar or snacks. But what is really meant by all of this is that they're riding an unstable glucose roller coaster. And that's why eating a sugary breakfast can make you feel hungrier all day long. It's not because you didn't eat enough or that your metabolism is just burning like crazy all day long. I know that's what I used to think whenever I would eat a big breakfast and then be starving all day. I just thought my metabolism was going crazy. But it's really because your hormonal signaling got hijacked. It's how your body physiology signals that something's going on. It's not a failure of your willpower. So now let's talk about leptin. This is your fullness hormone or your satiate EQ or satiety, however you want to say that word. Um, this is the little messenger in your fat cells that tells your brain, I'm satisfied and I'm full and I've had enough. But when insulin is high all of the time, from the frequent eating, snacking, grazing, consuming those refined carbohydrates and sugary drinks, your brain becomes numb to the leptin. And this is called leptin resistance, which feels like you finish a meal and you still want a little something more, or you feel snacky all day, or maybe you're full, but you're just not satisfied. Or you crave sweets and carbs, even when you're not hungry, you have intense cravings, you have emotional eating, or you have weight gain despite eating normal portions. So there you have it. All those crazy things that we all thought were causing our uncontrollable cravings and our lack of food satisfaction aren't really the root source of what's going on. This isn't you failing, this is your body's physiology misfiring due to chronic sugar dysregulation. And leptin is truly the hormone of enough, but sugar interferes with its ability to speak clearly. And when leptin can't get through to our brain, your body behaves as if it's underfed, even if you're gaining weight. So, in a nutshell, sugar doesn't just affect your waistline, it affects your hunger, your fullness, and your sense of control. Okay, that's a lot to take in. And unfortunately, there's a lot more to this sugar story that you must understand, including what I would call the metabolic trap. But once you understand this, your entire relationship with food is definitely going to change. So here's the pattern that so many people live in. You eat sugar or refine carbs, and then your glucose spikes quickly. Your insulin then rises in response to that glucose spike. Your insulin then clears glucose fast, but sometimes it's too fast, resulting in that sugar crash. Your brain then senses danger, the ghrelin surges and you feel hungry again. Leptin signaling decreases, causing you to not feel satisfied or satiated. You then crave more sugar or more quick carbs. So you eat again and then your insulin rises again. And that cycle of glucose burning repeats and the fat burning then shuts off because whenever insulin is elevated, fat burning is completely off. Not slowed, not reduced, just off. And why is that? Well, because when insulin is high, your body shifts fully into glucose burning mode. And since your cells are busy processing all of that glucose, your fat cells stay locked tight. Even if you're eating less, dieting, or working out, your body cannot access the stored fat because insulin is blocking your access to it. The fat isn't stubborn per se, it's just inaccessible while the insulin is elevated. Repeat this all day, every day for months and years, and your metabolism will get stuck in this glucose-burning mode while storing fat at the same time. And the piece no one really ever talks about is that you can burn glucose all day long and still gain fat because insulin is blocking your ability to burn the fat you already have. And this is a concept that I never used to understand until really recently. So again, I just want to repeat that you can burn glucose all day long and still gain fat. And that's because the insulin is blocking your ability to burn that fat that you already have in your body. And this trap leaves you feeling like your willpower is broken. But nothing's wrong with your willpower. It's just your hormones and sugar's pulling the strings beneath the surface. If all of that isn't enough to change how you think about food, let's talk about the star of today's show, the substance in our bodies that makes carbs work for you, not against you. And that is GLUT4. GLUT4 is known as a glucose transporter. So picture each of your muscle cells with little tiny garage doors on them. When GLUT4 opens those doors, glucose can enter into the muscle to be used for fuel. Insulin doesn't need to rise as high, carbs get used instead of stored, and blood sugar stabilizes. When the garage doors are closed, though, the glucose has nowhere to go. So insulin rises and your body stores that excess glucose as fat. So how do we open the doors? Well, GLUT4 can do this in two ways. First, through exercise and muscle contraction. Movement, especially with strength training, opens GLUT4 without needing insulin. This is kind of like metabolic gold. It means if you eat carbs after movement, they're less likely to spike your blood sugar, less likely to spike insulin, less likely to be stored as fat, and far more likely to be burned efficiently. Movement literally changes how your body handles sugar and creates an environment that results in instantaneous metabolic flexibility. And the second way that GLUT4 can open that garage door on our muscles is through insulin. But in insulin resistance, this door becomes a lot harder to open. And that's why movement is one of the most powerful metabolic tools that you have. You don't need hours at the gym, you just need consistency. Walk, lift, move your muscles, and those doors will start to open. So let's simplify the whole story so far. Again, your sugar spikes ghrelin, so you're gonna start feeling hungrier. Sugar then dulls the leptin, so you don't feel full. Sugar is gonna in turn raise your insulin, so you're gonna have that constant glucose burning, so the fat burning is gonna shut off. The sugar is gonna trigger more cravings, so you're gonna eat more, and then this vicious cycle just continues over and over. Sugar reduces your GLUT4 sensitivity, so your carbs work against you. And then that is gonna lock away more fat, which means even if you're burning glucose, you're still storing that fat. That's why you can't out willpower sugar dysregulation. It's hormonal, it's chemical, and it's physiological. And once you understand that, then you can reclaim control. And what most people don't realize is that this glucose swing doesn't just affect your hunger and cravings, it affects your brain too. So your mood, your focus, your irritability, your resilience, all of it's tied to glucose stability, which we'll get deeper into later in some of our future episodes. And before we finish up today, I want to say this. Nothing is wrong with you. Your cravings are not a character flaw. Your hunger is not a total lack of willpower. There's some willpower involved, of course, which we'll dive into deeper. But the real truth is that this constant battle with food is your body trying desperately to self-correct in an environment it wasn't designed for. You're not broken and you're not weak. Your body isn't trying to sabotage you, I promise. It's just trying to find balance. So when you start stabilizing your glucose and improving your insulin sensitivity, everything else begins to fall back into place. Hunger decreases, cravings calm down, satisfaction returns, your energy stabilizes, your brain feels sharper, your mood lifts, fat burning becomes accessible again, and your relationship with food becomes a lot more tolerable and peaceful. And you stop fighting with your body and start partnering with it. Your body isn't misbehaving, it's following the instructions your physiology is giving it. And once we shift the signaling, everything changes. This series is all about giving you the understanding and the grace to make that shift. Now I want to be clear about one thing because this really does matter. So, yes, so much of what we talked about today is physiology. And yes, these hormones and signals are powerful. And yes, cravings and hunger swings are not a moral failure, but that doesn't mean willpower doesn't matter at all, because it does. There's a level of personal agency, accountability, and decision making involved in how we eat. And it's important that we own that, not in a shame-based way, but in an empowered way. Understanding your physiology doesn't replace willpower, it supports it. It makes willpower more effective, more realistic, and more sustainable. Because when your body is not fighting against you, your willpower finally has a chance to work for you. So to wrap up today's episode, I want you to imagine waking up without cravings, eating a meal that actually satisfies you, and feeling mentally clear instead of foggy. It's all possible, I promise. And we're gonna walk through it together. Everything I've described in this episode, the hunger swings, the cravings, the energy crashes, the stubborn weight gain, the feeling like your metabolism is just working against you constantly, every single bit of that is flexible. Leptin resistance can be reversed, ghrelin can be quieted, insulin can become sensitive again, glucose can become stable, and your body can absolutely return to a place where hunger feels calm, fullness feels natural, and energy feels steady. So make sure you stay tuned into serenity and fire in the weeks to come because we're going to talk about exactly how to fix all of this, including the simplest, most powerful steps you can take to restore that metabolic balance. So stay with me because the how is coming, I promise. In our next episode, which will be the third of this sugar series, we're going to talk about fruit, sweeteners, and the myths around healthy sugars. We're breaking down honey, sucralose, aspartame, stevia, monk fruit, sugar alcohols, and all the other sweeteners in between. There are a ton of them, and it's almost impossible to know what is what, but I'm going to break it down for you into satiable bites of information you can actually understand. Plus, we're going to talk about fruit, specifically why whole fruit behaves nothing like fruit juice. So for all of you moms out there, this is going to be an episode you don't want to miss. Okay, everyone, I know that was probably a lot for today, so thanks for hanging in there with me. Our next episode in the sugar series is going to further deepen and enrich what you've already learned in these first two episodes. So I can't wait to share more with you next week. If you're loving this series and the information has inspired you in some way, please share these episodes with those you love most because I know if it has helped you, it can definitely help them too. And remember, the best way to support the show is to leave a review and follow us on social at Serenity and Fire. Until next time, keep balancing Serenity with Fire. I'm Krista Guigenny and I'll talk with you in our next episode. At Panacea Luxury Spa Boutique, we don't just offer traditional spa treatments. We create rituals that relax your mind, restore your health, and rejuvenate your spirit. From biohacking technologies to advanced oncology trained care, everything we do is designed to help you heal on the deepest level with clean, holistic therapies, products, and amenities that are second to none. And right now you can experience two of my favorites our whole body LED light bed or hyperbaric oxygen therapies. And as a thank you for listening, you'll get 10% off your first session when you use the code Serenity10 at booking. What is your panacea? Let us help you find it because true wellness isn't a quick fix, it's a ritual.