The Hunger Code: Understanding Hunger Beyond Willpower
The Fasting Method Podcast
Megan Ramos Nutrition Inc
4.8 • 595 Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A deeper look at hunger — and why overeating is not a willpower problem.
Episode #240
🎙️ What if the real issue isn't overeating — but over-hunger?
In this episode, Megan Ramos and Dr. Terri Lance are joined by Dr. Jason Fung to unpack the ideas behind The Hunger Code and why focusing on calories alone misses the real drivers of eating behaviour. Together, they explore how hunger is regulated by hormones, how emotional and conditioned hunger influence our choices, and why so many people feel "broken" when the problem was never willpower to begin with. This conversation reframes hunger as a biological and behavioural signal — not a personal failure — and explains why working with your body leads to far more sustainable results than fighting it.
👉 What you'll learn:
• Why overeating is better understood as a problem of over-hunger
• How hormones like insulin, GLP-1, and cortisol influence appetite and satiety
• The difference between homeostatic, hedonic, and conditioned hunger
• Why calorie restriction alone increases hunger and backfires long-term
• How ultra-processed foods drive hunger without creating satiety
• The role of mindset, habits, behaviour, and environment in lasting change
⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 — Hunger beyond willpower: setting the framework
04:45 — Why calorie control fails and hunger escalates
08:05 — Overeating as a problem of over-hunger
12:40 — Insulin's role in hunger and satiety
16:20 — Homeostatic vs hedonic vs conditioned hunger
20:00 — Ultra-processed foods and constant appetite stimulation
26:30 — Social modelling, environment, and learned eating patterns
32:10 — Mindset, habits, and behaviour change
38:45 — Why people feel "broken" when biology is the issue
44:10 — Key takeaways from The Hunger Code
48:30 — Final thoughts and closing reflections
📝 Transcript
The transcript for this episode is available on our website:
https://www.thefastingmethod.com/podcasts/
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⚠️ Disclaimer
This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. You should always speak with your physician or other healthcare professional before doing any fasting, changing your diet, taking or adjusting any medication or supplements, or adopting any treatment for a health problem.
The use of any other products or services purchased by you as a result of this podcast does not create a healthcare provider-patient relationship between you and any of the experts affiliated with this podcast.
Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | If you focus on the hunger, if you reduce the hunger, what happens? |
| 0:03.4 | Well, you'll eat fewer calories, yes. |
| 0:05.5 | And therefore, you're going to lose weight. |
| 0:06.8 | But notice that you're now working with your body instead of against your body. |
| 0:15.1 | Hi, everyone. |
| 0:18.1 | It's Megan Ramos here with another episode of the Fast Sane Method podcast. Today, me and my |
| 0:23.4 | amazing co-host, Dr. Terry Lance, are joined by Dr. Jason Fung, and we want to dive into hunger. |
| 0:30.4 | Good morning, Jason. How are you doing today? I'm good. I'm good. Thanks for having me here. |
| 0:35.3 | We're excited. We've got a new book coming out, The Hunger Code, |
| 0:39.1 | by you this year. And a lot of questions are coming in very early asking, what about hunger? |
| 0:45.7 | Are we going to learn from the Hunger Code? And I think it's a really exciting topic. And it's |
| 0:50.4 | great to have Terry here because I think Terry troubleshoots this from every single |
| 0:54.7 | angle and fasting method. So let's dive on in and talk about the hunger code. Yeah, so the hunger |
| 1:02.4 | code is really an extension of the obesity code. The key point in the obesity code was that the |
| 1:09.2 | idea of looking at calories and calories out is really |
| 1:12.8 | quite backwards. People say body fat, which is really just calories stored, equals calories |
| 1:18.7 | and minus calories out. Now, that's always true, but it doesn't really mean what people think it |
| 1:23.4 | means. People think that if you simply reduce your calories, then you're going to be able to lose |
| 1:28.8 | weight. But it actually doesn't mean that because what happens is that your body naturally wants |
| 1:34.8 | to set level of body fat. This is the personal fat threshold or the body set weight. People call it |
| 1:41.5 | different things. And people don't understand this because they hear, |
| 1:45.5 | and people have said this all the time, oh, our bodies are designed to store calories and get |
... |
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