Confident Eaters

Help! I Messed Up My Hormones Part 3: Ghrelin and GLP-1
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Georgie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Confident Eaters Podcast, where you get proven methods to end overeating, emotional eating, and stressing about food. We are heading for harmony between your body, food and feelings, hosted by me, Georgie Fear, and my team at Confident Eaters.

Welcome back to the Confident Eaters Podcast. We're your hosts, Georgie and Christina here to help you navigate your health and weight loss goals without the confusion or the gimmicks.

Christina: Today we're diving into two key players in hunger and fullness: ghrelin and GLP one. If you've ever felt like you're hungry all the time, or that you finish a meal and still don't feel satisfied, these hormones could be part of the reason.

Georgie: Ghrelin, sometimes called the hunger hormone is produced by cells in your stomach. It spikes just before meals coinciding with hunger, and it falls once food has been consumed. So it makes sense to call it the hunger hormone. Ghrelin doesn't just make you feel hungry. It also plays a major role in food motivation and how rewarding eating feels. When ghrelin levels rise, not only does your stomach start grumbling, but your brain also ramps up the desire to seek out and enjoy food, especially high calorie palatable options. This hormone interacts with the brain's reward system, particularly by increasing dopamine release in areas like the ventral tegmental area or the VTA. This enhances the pleasure and drive associated with eating. Interestingly, studies show that if you block the brain's opioid and endocannabinoid receptors, systems also involved in pleasure and reward, that it reduces both the urge to eat and the dopamine boost normally triggered by ghrelin. This suggests that Ghrelin works in tandem with these reward [00:02:00] pathways, making food appealing and satisfying in addition to making us hungry. So Ghrelin's role influences not just how much we eat, but also how much we want to eat.

Christina: Ghrelin also causes a decline in energy expenditure, meaning your body burns slightly fewer calories when ghrelin is high. This makes sense from a survival standpoint.

When your body senses food is scarce, it turns up hunger and turns down energy use to preserve resources. Unfortunately, this also means that when you're dieting or undereating, ghrelin can rise and make it harder to maintain weight loss, especially if energy expenditure drops along with it. Not all foods suppress ghrelin equally. Meals higher in protein and carbohydrates reduce ghrelin levels more effectively than meals high in fat. That's one reason why protein rich breakfasts like eggs with whole grain toast or a high protein smoothie, are better at controlling appetite than a croissant or just a coffee. In fact, eating a breakfast with at least 30 grams of protein has been shown to lower ghrelin, reduced cravings and curb late night snacking.

Skipping breakfast on the other hand tends to keep ghrelin elevated longer leading to more hunger, increased snacking and higher total calorie intake later in the day.

Georgie: I was working at a weight loss center that, you know, focused on bariatric surgeries as well as some non-surgical methods for medical weight loss when this research came out that eating at breakfast with 30 grams of protein, and I remember like the wide-eyed looks that all the people would give us, and the practitioners were like, can you get 30 grams of protein? They were like. How many eggs is that? It's like, it's like five eggs, but we don't, are probably not the best way to get there. You probably wanna use something that's higher in protein for the calories, but many people think like, oh yeah, if I eat two eggs, that's a high protein breakfast, or like I eat a yogurt, that's gotta be a high protein [00:04:00] breakfast.

Like, no, a high protein breakfast is actually 30 grams of protein. It's a pretty big dose. Ghrelin is also highly sensitive to lifestyle factors. Sleep deprivation and chronic stress raise ghrelin levels, making you feel hungrier, even if your body doesn't actually need more food. This might explain why people who are overtired or stressed tend to crave comfort foods or eat more impulsively. Weight loss itself increases ghrelin, which partly explains why it's harder to maintain weight loss than it was to lose it in the first place. To make things trickier after weight loss, your body may also not suppress ghrelin as well after meals, meaning you feel less full even after eating the same lunch that you used to find satisfying. This impaired Ghrelin suppression is one of the physiological drivers behind weight regain, but it's not just about biology. As I mentioned before, ghrelin impacts our perception of food. In one study, participants were given identical milkshakes labeled either low calorie or high calorie. Surprisingly, the people who thought they were drinking the high calorie shake had a greater drop in ghrelin and reported feeling more satisfied even though both of the shakes were the same. This shows that your expectations and belief about food can also influence your hunger hormones. So yeah, mindset really matters.

Christina: That is so interesting that that made an impact. If you're trying to manage your appetite, there are a few helpful strategies you can implement. First, avoid eating hyper palatable foods on an empty stomach. Things like chips, cookies, or fast food. When ghrelin is high and your defenses are low, it's easier to overeat.

So instead it can help to save those foods for when you're already fed and less likely to binge. Second meal [00:06:00] timing matters. A study published in 2022 showed that people who ate earlier in the day with meals at 8:00 AM 1:00 PM and 5:30 PM had lower ghrelin levels, higher leptin, the hormone that signals fullness and burned more calories than those who ate the same meals, but later in the day, 1:00 PM 5:30 PM and 9:30 PM.

So sticking to an earlier meal schedule may help improve your hormone balance and support weight loss. Lastly, physical activity can reduce ghrelin levels and temporarily suppress hunger. Interestingly, short bursts of intense exercise like running upstairs or doing a few sets of pushups are more effective than longer low intensity sessions when it comes to appetite control.

But more isn't always better. Using exercise to chase away hunger over and over, or delaying meals too long with workouts or caffeine can backfire. If you push off eating for hours, hunger may come roaring back later leading to overeating or intense cravings.

Georgie: Let's flip now to talk about GLP one, which is basically ghrelin's counterpart, though it's a little more complicated than that. GLP one or glucagon-like peptide one is a satiety hormone that tells your brain you're full after a meal. It's produced by the intestines in response to food, especially protein, fiber, and carbohydrate, and it helps slow down how quickly food leaves your stomach. It triggers insulin release and also helps regulate blood sugar. Now we've talked about leptin in a previous episode on help I screwed up my hormones. So we talked about leptin in the context of it being also a satiety hormone. Now these hormones play slightly different roles. Leptin is involved in long-term energy management regulating the amount of body fat that your body has stored, where GLP one is [00:08:00] more of a short-term regulator on the scale of hours or meal to meal. You can think of leptin like your body's accountant. It keeps track of your energy budget, tells your brain whether you're in a surplus or a deficit. GLP one is more like a traffic cop at the dinner table. It works in the moment helping you slow down or stop eating a meal at the right time. There are other hormones that are produced by the intestine that circulate to the brain, that work in concert to form a feeling of satiety. We won't go through all of these because I remember in grad school, hearing about all of them just seemed to be somewhat repetitive. It's like an alphabet soup of hormones that all contribute to feeling full GLP one GIP. C. CK or Cholecystokinin Peptide, YY or PYY and others. So the main point that we wanna emphasize to you is that even though we're talking about GLP one, many of these hormones work together and are regulated similarly.

So it's not like you just have one satiety hormone. You have many. If you've been hearing about medications like Ozempic or wegovy, these are based on GLP one. Specifically, they don't make your body produce more GLP one. Instead, they mimic the hormone by activating its receptor. This is effective because natural GLP one breaks down extremely quickly.

It has a half-life of just two or three minutes. But using a longer acting GLP one analog, these medications keep satiety signals active for hours instead of minutes, which reduces appetite and slows down digestion. You may also have heard of something called dual agonists. These are medications that impact the effects of not only GLP one, but also GIP, a second peptide hormone.

Christina: But you don't need a prescription to support your own GLP one response. Because similar to what we shared about ghrelin meal structure and timing matter. For example, there's [00:10:00] evidence that you need to consume at least 400 calories in a sitting to get a meaningful GLP one release. That means constantly grazing an apple here, a yogurt there, a few chips later, may never fully trigger satiety.

Instead, try to consolidate snacks or mini meals into a more substantial balanced meal. Not only will you feel more satisfied, but you'll also give your body the hormonal cues It needs to stop thinking about food between meals.

Georgie: You can also optimize your GLP one response by changing the order in which you eat your food. I found this really fascinating 'cause I've never really thought about the order in which I eat my food impacting how full I got. But I found a 2015 study conducted in Japan that found when people ate a protein rich food like fish or meat before the carbohydrates in their meal, like the rice, they had higher GLP one levels. They also showed slower gastric emptying and smaller post-meal spikes in blood glucose. This effect was seen in both healthy individuals and people with type two diabetes. So if you're having a typical North American breakfast, let's say eggs and toast, start with your eggs. Similarly, at lunch and dinner, take a few bites of chicken or tofu before digging into the rice or pasta. This simple shift in meal order may help you feel fuller for longer and avoid that post meal crash. Of note in this study, they did have a 15 minute gap between the two different foods, which is somewhat artificial. Like not too many people are gonna stop and take a 15 minute gap between eating their eggs and eating their toast. But research prior to this had done even longer gap, I believe it was maybe 30 or 45 minutes. So they found reducing it to 15 minutes, still had the same effect and was more real world friendly. So take from it what you will, if you wanna give it a try. I don't think it can hurt [00:12:00] to eat your protein rich foods first,

Christina: I think moms of young kids are probably already doing that unintentionally because they aren't sitting down for a meal. They're eating a little bit of eggs and then they gotta do kids stuff on their back and, oh yeah, my toast.

Georgie: Yeah. It's tricky because we also know if you trickle feed your food, like if you eat breakfast over the course of two hours, it's not as satisfying. So, you know, taking all of this information into account, it's like, okay, do I really wanna like eat my protein, wait 15 minutes and eat my carbs, or will that become a two hour break?

Because, you know, folding the laundry then led to doing this, led to doing this, led to doing that.

Christina: Right.

Georgie: Supporting GLP one naturally also ties back to gut health and food quality. Fiber rich foods, especially those that ferment in the gut like beans, oats, and vegetables, help stimulate GLP one production. Sleep, exercise, and stress levels also contribute. Poor sleep and chronic stress can blunt satiety signals including GLP one activity, making it harder to regulate appetite- just like with ghrelin- sleep and stress impact both of these hormones.

Christina: So to recap, ghrelin gets you to the table. It's your hunger signal. GLP one tells you to stop eating. It's your fullness signal. When both are working properly, you can trust your appetite a whole lot more. When they're out of sync, it gets confusing. You may overeat, undereat, or feel like your hunger makes no sense.

Georgie: The great news is these hormones respond really well to basic, consistent lifestyle habits. You don't have to buy any of those GLP one scamming supplements that claim to be doing something. It's just about eating real meals instead of grazing all. Starting your day with a big dose of protein and fiber, getting enough sleep, managing stress, and not pushing your body into a massive calorie deficit or intense over [00:14:00] training. These simple shifts help your appetite work with you, not against you. If you're feeling out of control around food, or if your hunger feels random and overwhelming, it doesn't mean you're broken. It just might mean your hormonal signals are misfiring because of how you're eating, sleeping, or training. The good news, you can recalibrate them. No supplements or extreme plans required.

Christina: Thanks for tuning into the Confident Eaters Podcast on our third installment of help, I messed up my hormones. If you found this helpful, please share it with someone who's navigating their hunger cues or trying to eat more mindfully. And if you have questions or topic ideas, send us a message. We'd love to hear from you.

Georgie: We have a couple more episodes coming in the next month or so, talking more about GLP One Drugs. One will be an interview with a woman named Olivia, who found that starting a GLP one agonist completely stopped her binge eating after decades of struggling with it. And one of my clients, you'll also hear from who started one of those dual agonist medications and it turned out to be incredibly helpful for normalizing her relationship with food and assisting weight loss. These episodes are both coming out on the Breaking Up with Binge Eating podcast. That's the other show that Christina and I host together. So be sure you're subscribed so you can hear those. There's some really great stuff.

Christina: We'll be back in the next few weeks with another deep dive into the science, behind your health goals. So you can feel better in your body and more confident in your choices. Until next time, eat well, stay curious and remember that your hunger isn't the enemy. It's information.