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Hey everybody, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mini Mikkipedia on a Monday. And today I want to chat about why you are starving at night. And this is something I hear a lot. People often report to me, I'm good all day, quotation marks on the good. And then at night I just lose control. And the framing around it is usually the same. Not only do they

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berate themselves for a lack of discipline, or there are some emotional eating patterns of behavior occurring, or they're just thinking about themselves that they've just got really poor habits that they're unable to get out of. They also think that what they do at the end of the day has nothing to do with how the start of the day rolled out. They're like, I've got so much

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good willpower and control and I'm not even thinking about food in the morning, but it all goes downhill for me in the evening. The thing is though, is that if you are consistently hungry at night, I think it's less to do with what you're eating at night. And in fact, your body is responding exactly as it's designed to. And I'm going to chat through why that is. So I'm going to walk you through what's actually going on under the hood from appetite hormones to energy availability to blood glucose.

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to your circadian biology. And importantly, I'm going to chat about what you can do about it. I suspect for most of us listening to this, it will just be a reminder of the things that you know and the patterns of behavior that work for you. And we'll just allow you, I guess, call it permission or any, or call it whatever you like to eat more earlier in the day. And I will chat about that as well.

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So let's first discuss energy availability, which some would argue is a primary driver of hunger. If across the day you've under eaten or you've delayed meals or you've trained hard without refueling adequately, you've created an energy deficit that your body is working to correct and your body keeps score. So physiologically, what happens is as energy availability falls,

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Grelin, which is our primary hunger stimulating hormone, that rises and leptin, which signals satiety, begins to decline. The hypothalamus then increases the drive to eat. And it's not subtle. This is your brain saying, we are behind on energy and you need to fix it. And evening is often when that signal becomes the loudest because you've had hours of this accumulating deficit.

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Even if you're having small amounts of food across the day, your body understands if there's adequate energy available or you're in requirement for more. And there's also a circadian layer to ghrelin secretion that compounds this. Research from

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Brigham and Women's Hospital found that circulating ghrelin is significantly higher in the biological evening than the biological morning. And this is independent of meal timing. So even if your intake was reasonable, your hunger drive is biologically programmed to rise as the day goes on. Another thing I'll add is that if you do find yourself sort of white knuckling hunger, as I chat to a lot of clients about, the other hormones that

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become important here is actually cortisol, unsurprisingly. So if it's not like just coasting through the morning to then find yourself absolutely ravenous at night and it's more about white-knuckling that hunger, then often it's a combination of unstable blood glucose regulation and a stress response that doesn't switch off once it's been activated. And just to sort of throw this in the mix, I had a conversation with a member

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my Monday's matter program and she's like, it doesn't matter what I eat, I actually just feel this intense fatigue if I've been white-knuckling my hunger across the day. So when somebody white-knuckles to the next meal, it usually does mean their blood sugar has already dropped low enough to trigger a rise in cortisol and adrenaline that keeps her functional. And while that gets you through the moment, it does come at a cost. So those stress hormones can blunt appetite signals.

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They can alter digestion and create a delayed crash even after you eat, especially if the next meal is instructed to restore that stability. So if it doesn't have enough protein or enough total calories and micronutrients. And then this is a bit of a tangent, but I do want to cover it.

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On top of that, if the pattern is chronic, your nervous system starts to expect a gap between when it's next going to be fed and it preemptively ramps up a stress response. And this is why not only can we find ourselves starving later on, but why there is fatigue that can linger all day instead of resolving with food. So,

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Timing, composition of food, consistency of intake, all of these things are really important because when you are in that stress-driven state, it isn't just a matter of refueling. You're really trying to down-regulate a system that has been pushed a bit far. I just wanted to highlight that as part of this energy availability piece as well. I zoned in on ghrelin and leptin, but stress hormones are at the back can be playing a role too. Now, of course,

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Protein and satiety hormones, GLP-1, PYY. Protein is one of the strongest regulators of appetite and it works in a large part through two of our gut hormones, which are GLP-1, glucagon like peptide-1, and PYY. Peptide-YY. So both are released from the gut in response to eating and both signal satiety to the brain. The key thing to understand is that the magnitude of that response is heavily influenced by how much protein is in the meal.

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So high protein meals can produce substantially greater GLP-1 and PYY responses than high carbohydrate or high fat meals, even when the calorie content is matched. We've had studies that show this. Crucially, the timing of the protein matters. So research from Hevalaydi's group showed that a high protein breakfast in the range of 35 to 50 grams of protein lead to greater reductions in ghrelin.

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greater increases in PYY and reduced evening snacking compared to a lower protein breakfast or breakfast skipping, even on the same total calories. So here's the practical translation. It's not that low GLP-1 and PYY are floating around in your bloodstream all day causing night hunger. These are postprandial hormones. They're released in response to eating. What low protein meals do is produce a blunted satiety signal per meal

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meaning meals don't hold as well, don't keep you fuller for as long, and you feel hungrier sooner. And if you're more likely to under eat across the day, this will accumulate into that compensatory hunger that you feel at night. Just a caveat here, and I talk a lot about this, but I do want to reiterate, I'm in no way saying that protein increases GLP-1 to the extent that a GLP-1 agonist medication would at all.

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because that is in the realm of thousands of times more or a thousand times more than what food can actually produce from our baseline. However, it does have a market effect on the GLP-1 secretion over and above other types of foods, which is enough, obviously, to promote satiety. It isn't enough if you need a GLP-1 for that uh food noise reduction and the real brain effects.

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that are some of the benefits of that GLP-1 medication. But if we're thinking just about food, protein is where it's at. Now, blood sugar or blood glucose instability. And I mentioned this briefly with that stress response and under eating, but also if your meals are low in protein, a high in refined carbohydrate, or they're poorly structured, so your blood sugar isn't stable, you can get this rapid rise in blood glucose followed by this sharper decline.

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When blood glucose falls quickly, even within the normal range, the brain can interpret this as a fuel emergency and respond with hunger and cravings and cortisol and adrenaline sometimes, often specifically for quick energy foods. So this is sometimes described as reactive hypoglycemia and it's something that which is described as neuroprotective. Your brain is glucose dependent and it's protecting its fuel supply. It doesn't mean your brain can't run on ketones.

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but glucose is a primary source for the fuel and this is one of those red flags. Again, the fix isn't complicated. Meals that include protein, include fiber, enough calories, volume, fat to slow gastric emptying can all blunt the glucose excursion. And this translates to more stable hunger signals and better spacing between meals and a lot less hunger at night. There is a behavioral layer and if you've spent the day actively restricting,

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avoiding foods, making deliberate choices that might make you feel a bit deprived, that cognitive work draws on your capacity for inhibitory control. That capacity isn't infinite. You can't just continue to take from that pull. As the day progresses, the balance shifts between your prefrontal inhibitory systems and your brain's reward circuitry. The research on cognitive fatigue and food choice supports this.

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As the day goes on, becomes harder to sustain goal-orientated behavior in the face of immediate reward signals. Not because you're weak, but literally, this is like a muscle that you continue to use. It just becomes more tired. And it's because of how the brain allocates cognitive resources over time. So combined with the biological hunger drive already building, you end up in a situation where you're hungry,

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and your normal restraint mechanisms are less effective. And you get this convergence of these multiple systems that then make evening appetite and subsequent potential to overeat uh much harder to manage. And let's talk about circadian biology. And I've already mentioned this a little bit in some hormonal responses that occur, but your body, don't want stable hormones all day.

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That's just not how hormones work in the body. They're not metabolically neutral. There are always shifts occurring as part of our circadian rhythm. A few key things shift as the evening approaches. Greelin is higher in the biological evening, as I talked about. Glucose tolerance actually declines. Insulin sensitivity is measurably lower in the evening than the morning. In studies using hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamps,

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have shown approximately a 25 to 34 % impairment in peripheral insulin sensitivity by evening in healthy adults. And this is driven by both reduced beta cell responsiveness and changes in peripheral glucose uptake. I will caveat here just to say that this is a known phenomenon, a biological pattern that does happen. It doesn't mean that you can't eat carbs at night or anything like that, particularly if you are

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trying to manage weight or you've got a lot of other, you you're physically active, you're managing your calories, et cetera, but we are just less insulin sensitive at night. And how much this matters from in terms of health really depends on a host of other factors. It's too simple to say, don't eat carbs at night. And you guys know by now, this isn't what I would tell you anyway. Now food reward signals are also relatively stronger in the evening. So the same food cue that's neutral earlier in the day may feel more compelling in the evening.

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partly because the inhibitory systems keeping that reward response in check are less robust as I discussed. And again, none of this means that you are particularly weak or weaker than anyone else. This is just human physiology. And so it does mean that evening is genuinely a time where appetite regulation is harder and that's not something you can just override with willpower. And that is something I do want to be clear about. Night hunger is almost never primarily a willpower issue or a discipline issue.

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or an emotional issue. Of course, emotions can layer on top. Stress, boredom, and anxiety can all amplify eating in the evening, but the emotional piece is usually sitting on top of a physiological foundation that was already set up by how the day went. So if you address the physiology, the emotional layer often becomes a lot more manageable. Distraction strategies such as drinking water and waiting it out,

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They aren't real solutions if your body is genuinely behind on all of these areas I've discussed. So, nighttime hunger is a result of the convergence of accumulated energy deficit across the day, lowered protein intake leading to blunted satiety per meal, glucose variability from poorly structured meals, declining inhibitory control relative to that reward drive, and circadian increases in ghrelin and appetite.

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None of these operate in isolation. They build on each other. So what to do about it? You guys know it. One, front load your protein. Aiming for that 30 to 40 grams of protein at breakfast and another 30 to 40 grams at lunch. Aim higher if this is an issue that you are dealing with. You've got absolutely nothing to lose from this approach by putting more lean protein in, increasing your protein portions by 25 to 50%. This is where the research is clearest.

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Higher protein earlier in the day uh produces this better GLP-1 and PYY response, better satiety across the day, meaningfully less evening hunger. So your first meal should be high protein. It doesn't mean you have to wake up and immediately eat a huge breakfast or anything like that, but it just means have protein in whatever you do eat and make it substantial. Importantly, second tip, don't save calories.

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This is a hard one to get your head around, but one of the most common and counterproductive patterns I see is deliberately eating less earlier in the day to save space for later. Often people are like, well, I know I'm going to eat, so I may as well not eat too much in the day, so at least I have this sort of offset occurring. But this creates exactly the energy and satiety deficit that leads to compensatory eating at night. Undereating early and overeating late is a predictable consequence.

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So just remember that if you think you need to save calories. Structure your meals. So in addition to the protein, you've got fiber and a bit of fat. This is because this combination slows gastric emptying, blunts glucose excursions, and extends the satiety signal from each meal. It is the most practical tool you've got available. And this is important for athletes and active people. If you've trained hard, walked a lot, like moved all day,

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or had a physically demanding day, your energy needs are higher. A low calorie intake on a high output day will almost always surface as night hunger. Maybe not that night, but subsequent nights. Remember the deficit is accumulative. So do consider the energy balance across the day, even if you're in a calorie deficit. I'm not talking about eating back your calories, but a higher intake on that day is sensible. And plan your evening. So this is not to restrict.

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but to reduce that decision fatigue. Have dinner planned. If you know an evening snack works well for you, make it intentional and include it in your intake rather than treating it as a failure. A planned protein containing snack in the evening is completely legitimate. Think Ninja Creamy. Think Protein Frosty. Think Protein Pudding. Think High Protein Greek Yogurt. Something like that. So these are your practical tools to help

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offset some of that nighttime hunger and not all of them are going to be applicable to every single person, but hopefully you find something in there that sort of resonates with what you recognize as a pattern of behavior and something that you can work on. Trust your body and the signals that it's giving you and lean into some of these practical tools, even if it makes you feel a little bit unsure and uncomfortable, your body will learn and adjust its hunger with the oh

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additional food early in the day and you've just got to trust that that happens. So your constant hunger at night is not a sabotage from your body. It's just a signal that you need to do things differently. So if this resonates with you or anyone, or you're thinking, oh gosh, I need to share this with someone, share it with a friend. That's how we get Micropedia out there and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts out there. Send me a message if you've got any comments, queries, questions over on Instagram, X or threads.

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@mikkiwiliden. You'll also find me on Facebook @mikkiwillidennutrition. to my website mikkiwilliden.com. Scroll down to the bottom, pop your name in the little box on the bottom and jump on my email list. All right guys, you have the best week. See you later.