What Is It Like to Feel Full

GoodRx Health

You feel hungry, you eat, and you're full. It may seem like a simple cycle. But, for many people, it's a lot more complicated than that.

Hunger and satiety (the feeling of fullness) are controlled by a huge range of factors, including hormones, blood sugar levels, eating habits, nutritional needs, and activity levels. Medications, sleep patterns, gut microbiota and enzymes, brain chemistry, and genetics also play a role. Because of the many factors at play, everyone experiences hunger differently.

We spoke with three women about what it's like to feel hungry and full - for them.

The hunger-fullness pendulum with ADHD

Rebecca King is a registered dietitian who specializes in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She has attracted a significant following both on social media and through her intuitive eating coaching program for people seeking nutrition advice.

Rebecca, a 31-year-old nutritionist in Charlotte, North Carolina, lives with ADHD herself and knows firsthand the unique eating challenges that can come with the condition. One of the biggest challenges is related to the body's ability to recognize cues beyond a growling stomach.

"Mindfulness practices can be helpful with some of that," Rebecca says, pointing out that ADHD medications can add to the challenge because many of them suppress appetite as a side effect.

Because the medications can act as appetite suppressants, she adds, you may not feel hungry during the day and forget to eat. But then, when the medication wears off at night, you might overeat. "It's a hunger-fullness pendulum," she says.

Rebecca reminds herself and her clients to eat at regular intervals during the day - ideally, every 3 to 4 hours - and watch for signs of hunger, like low energy, mood changes, difficulty concentrating, or headaches. She says it takes time to figure out what signals your body gives when you're hungry, "hangry," or comfortably full.

"My mood shifts as I notice I'm starting to feel full, and my stomach will usually kind of feel a little warm," she says. "Not stretched too uncomfortably, but slightly stretched and maybe a little bit heavy - that's what comfortable fullness feels like for me."

Recognizing those feelings doesn't always come intuitively, she adds: "It's something that has taken me a couple of years to learn and really tap into - both knowing it and trusting [myself]."

A curbed appetite and 100 lbs of weight loss

In some cases, a lack of appetite is an unwanted side effect. But for people taking weight-loss medications, appetite suppression is one of the benefits.

Jacqueline Smith, who's 36 and lives in Dallas, has lost almost 100 lbs while taking Ozempic (semaglutide), an injectable medication that's approved to treat Type 2 diabetes. Jacqueline took her first shot of Ozempic, which is sometimes prescribed off-label to help people without diabetes lose weight, in May 2023. At the time, she weighed 271 lbs. Right away, she noticed a difference.

"It was immediate. Within hours, my brain was quiet," Jacqueline says. "Before I was taking [Ozempic], I just had so many thoughts of food all the time."

In the past, she says, she was constantly thinking about what she could have for a snack, what she would have for dinner, or whether there was anything good to eat in her fridge.

"Some people who have the disease of obesity, we have 'food noise' that you can't understand unless you have it," Jacqueline says.

Sometimes, health insurance will pay for weight-loss medication. In Jacqueline's case, she had to pay out of pocket. But even with the $1,000-a-month price tag, she says it's worth it.

"This medication is incredibly expensive," she says. "I was, like, 'I'm going to take this so seriously. I am going to do everything that I can to make this work for me.'"

She set a daily calorie goal and bought a food scale to start tracking her intake. (The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that adult women consume between 1,600 to 2,400 calories per day, depending on factors like age and activity level). She also started walking outside every day, despite the Texas summer heat. And eventually she added Pilates, body weight movements, and other exercises to her routine.

Jacqueline runs an Instagram account dedicated to documenting her weight loss. And she sometimes gets comments saying that she could have lost weight by following a similar diet and exercise routine, ​​without the medication.

"But it wasn't possible for me without the shot. I tried so many times before to lose weight," she says. "It was as if there was something off in my brain that Ozempic fixes."

Ozempic didn't just quiet her thoughts of food, Jaqueline notes, it also changed her perspective on hunger and fullness.

"There isn't really a ton of that hunger feeling. I can tell if I have gone too long without eating, because I kind of start getting a little nauseous - like, 'Oh, I need to eat something,'" she says. "But it's such a freeing feeling to not have that insatiable hunger all the time."

And fullness feels much simpler.

"It's a different feeling," she says. "We went to a burger restaurant this weekend. Previously, I would have eaten the entire [burger] and a side. This time, I ate half the burger and put the rest in a box to take home."

She adds, "Feeling satiated is just so much easier to understand and think, 'This is all I want and I don't need any more.'"

Fitness and fullness from a self-proclaimed foodie

What you eat is one part of the hunger-fullness equation. But how much you move or exercise also plays a big role.

Fefa Lazu, a 27-year-old fitness influencer from Florida, helps empower other women who want to get fit. Much of what she shares on social media and through her training program she learned through her own process of trial and error.

"I really have a passion for [helping] people that are going through the same thing that I went through when I first started my fitness journey: being lost, being confused, and being a true beginner," Fefa says.

When Fefa started her fitness journey, she says, she faced a steep learning curve. Now, she lifts weights and approaches nutrition as a way to fuel her workouts. And she has cultivated a following of women who want to know how she does it. But she wasn't always like that.

"I was never the athletic type. And I didn't really know a lot about fitness and health," she says. "Overeating and overweight issues are very common in my family."

She adds, "I used to overindulge in sweets. I'm not talking about eating a couple of cookies; I'm talking about one time I ate like 24 donuts in one sitting. That's when I knew I had to change the way I ate."

But that doesn't mean eating less: Fefa eats around 2,600 to 2,700 calories a day to support her training. She now just makes food choices with an eye toward balance.

"I just have a healthier outlook when it comes to food," she says. "[I think of it as,] 'This is something that's nourishing my body,' rather than, 'This is evil and this is good.' I hate the term 'clean' and 'unclean' food."

Working out as frequently as she does has changed how she experiences hunger and fullness, too.

"When I was unhealthy, being full meant being so stuffed that I could barely move," she says. "For me now, it means that I gave my body enough nutrients. I have energy in my body."

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