What physiological effects result from consuming more food at once?

One of the changes that eating large amounts of food at once can bring about in the body is feeling more hungry.But the reason for this is not an increase in stomach size.

I'm pretty confident that's how I'll feel after eating too much: jitters, nausea, and of course a full stomach. But I'm also sure I'll make room for an extra roast the next day at lunch.

It's surprising when you think about it that the day after eating a large meal, you can eat the exact same amount again the day before. That means we did not learn the first time?

Why do we feel hungry again after a big feast day?

Does overeating increase the size of our stomach? Does it mean that your stomach has room for more food the next day?

Even thinking about it now makes me hungry again.

The answer is, for most people, you don't feel hungry for the large amount of food you recently ate. You feel hungry just for the sake of hunger.

But first of all, what exactly is the feeling of hunger?

In fact, the urge you feel to eat something is caused by several physiological changes inside your body.

It is true that the size of your stomach changes when you are hungry. The stomach contracts as food is digested and moves to the intestines. A rumbling sound occurs in the stomach as air and food move down together.

The sound is the first signal that we are feeling hungry, because it is heard and it happens in the body.

After the sound is made, the stomach begins to expand again in preparation for the intake of new food - this is under the influence of hormones.

However, it is not true that the stomach gets bigger by eating food. Stomach is very elastic. So even after eating a large amount of food, it returns to its previous state (about 1-2 liters). In reality, most people have roughly the same stomach capacity - height or weight doesn't seem to have much of an effect.

What we are less aware of is the release of hunger hormones: ghrelin from the stomach and hormones called NPY or Neuropeptide Y and AgRP from the hypothalamus. When the stomach is empty, ghrelin is released and this helps to trigger the production of NPY and AgRP in our brain. Both of these hormones are responsible for creating feelings of hunger, which often override our feelings of emotional satisfaction.

Conversely, lean people have higher ghrelin levels than obese people. You might think that the hormone that causes hunger would be higher in someone who eats more—but this contrast reflects how complex our digestive systems are.

While only three hormones are needed to feel hunger, we need a dozen or more to feel satiated.

Among them, GIP and GLP-1 play a role in the production of insulin, which is necessary to maintain normal sugar metabolism. Several other hormones work to slow the movement of food through our stomach so that our bodies have enough time to digest the food.

In people who are obese and have low levels of ghrelin, it may be that the high levels of insulin needed to digest high levels of sugar in their bodies inhibits ghrelin production.

Two substances are associated with feeling less hungry: CKK and PWAY. Patients who have had a gastric band to reduce the size of their stomach have a higher PWY. Due to this, appetite decreases.

If you are used to eating at a certain time or environment, you will feel hungry when you go to that time or in a similar environment.

Your brain is informed when your stomach is empty via a different hormone system in the stomach.

However, this hormone also gets a learning curve for certain times of the day and hunger according to your habits. So no matter how much you eat at lunch, you'll still feel hungry at dinner time.

Carolien van den Akker, researcher at CenterData and former Maastricht University, said, "If you repeatedly sit on the couch with a piece of chocolate or chips after dinner and watch TV, our bodies get used to sitting on the couch, watching TV, and eating something at the same time." can And that will make you want something to eat when you sit on the sofa.”

"It can also happen when you're satiated: your body's energy levels are also full to the brim."

According to van den Akker, overeating isn't always bad. Rather, uncontrolled eating or binge eating is where a large amount of food is consumed in a short period of time, often leading to feelings of disgust, guilt or shame.

Many people believe they can break the practice of binge eating, but it can be challenging to maintain a diet when there are strong cravings for foods that trigger the binge.

When we start associating good ingredients with a food, especially a food with a high sugar content, at certain times, its aroma, image and properties evoke our memories and we feel strong cravings for it. It not only excites us mentally but also stimulates it physically – like a watering tongue.

You may be familiar with Pavlov's dog experiment - where a bell is rung before the dog is given food. At one point, it is seen that the dog starts drooling when it hears the sound of the bell. Humans are not much different than dogs in this regard.

In another experiment, people were shown simple figures such as circles and squares. When they saw a square they were given a piece of chocolate and because of this every time they saw a square they had a strong desire to get the chocolate.

Like dogs, it is possible to expect food based on some common characteristics.

During the festive holidays we eat a lot of food but feel hungry again.

Van den Akker claims that very little chocolate is needed to trigger this reaction quickly. These goals are simple to form, but they're challenging to break.

Your body remembers that you ate chocolate at some point. This aspiration can become a daily aspiration—even with just four days of regular practice.”

Many times our mindset can cause this condition. People typically report that they have less self-control when they are upset or tired. "In this case the emotion can be directly related to the palatable food, and then the upset can increase the desire for the food," says van den Akker.

In principle, any mood, even a positive attitude, can produce craving if the subject is consistently associated with food.

It has been shown time and time again that we eat more when we are with friends. Even when we control for alcohol, you tend to overeat when you spend more time at the dinner table, socializing, for various reasons. Because then we can't pay attention to how much we play because of the companions around us.

If there is someone around to converse with, people just eat more pasta—even when they are seated in a laboratory.

According to studies, when people dine with others, they eat more than when they eat by themselves.

Using this understanding, one can break the unhealthy eating habit."To help people eat less, we should assist them in creating 'habits' out of their deeply entrenched food cravings.

Here we have to make sure that eating something good once doesn't mean we have to eat it again tomorrow," says van den Akker. This is important because studies have shown that once a good eating habit is broken, a bad eating habit is formed.

Perhaps it's no surprise that I feel hungry again after a large meal with family or friends. If we're hungry again the next day—or even the next day—it's not because our stomachs have expanded, but because we're used to eating more during special occasions.

So if our brain gets cues from food smells, images or sounds the day after a big festive meal, it prepares us for a second round of food.