When you allow yourself to fast regularly for longer periods, ghrelin, the hormone that makes you feel hungry and leptin, the hormone that tells you when you’re full, both start functioning better. I’ve been intermittent fasting (IF) over 3 years. I usually eat just once a day, a full and healthy meal, and I experience far less hunger than I did when I was eating 3 meals and 2-3 snacks per day. I lost 40 lbs in my first 6 months of IF and have easily maintained that weight loss. I never count calories and no food is off limits.

You’re absolutely right about fasting. The eventual reduction in ghrelin makes episodes of hunger far less frequent and far more tolerable. Eating all day long and freaking out and cramming food in our mouths at the first hint of a tummy rumble is disordered eating. Eating when we’re not hungry is disordered. “Having” to eat every few hours (as adults) is disordered.