Oct 30, 2026 · 9 min · 5 segments
In this episode, I cover exactly why people often get hungry on a diet and how you can mitigate this from happening. It often comes down to setting up your nutrition and your training in the incorrect…
Chris WrightHost
So firstly, the first reason why guys get very hungry when they're on a calorie deficit is an exercise problem where they are smashing their bodies too much and they're doing the wrong type of exercise which is leading to hunger going through the roof.
Like their body is craving food, the ghrelin hormone is going through the roof which is basically our hunger hormone because they're doing the wrong things with their training.
Like, if you are smashing cardio, hard, heavy, you're doing really high heart rate stuff, like zone four, zone five, which is where your heart rate's really, really high, you're going to get hungry, guys.
Like, even if you just go for a long run, but you're kind of in the zone two position, which is where your heart rate maybe isn't so high, but you've gone on such a long run that your body, again, is just kind of, you know, in this position where it's just craving food.
So the issue is, is that if you are doing heavy amounts of cardio, you're going to get more hungry.
And this is why I recommend to a lot of men that you don't need to be doing much cardio.
Just focus on step count and just do kind of low intensity, steady state cardio, which is like, you know, walking on an incline or doing a little bit of stepper.
As soon as your cardio gets too heavy and it's too intense and it's too long, you're gonna get hungry.
I know when I go for a long run, I come back, I'm starving guys, that I will literally be hungry for the rest of the day.
And even if I eat a large meal, I will still be hungry for the rest of that day.
I've had this before, like I've gone and done like 16, 18 kilometer runs when I've been in Bali on like a long day run club.
So even though I've burnt off a lot of calories, I've effectively eaten them all back probably by the time I've had breakfast.
So the reality is that, yes, it kind of in your head makes sense logically that doing excessive amounts of cardio will help you when it comes to burning more calories.
But at the end of the day, food is still king and you're so much easily going to eat a thousand calories rather than burn a thousand calories.
with your partner, whatever, you know, you have some bagels and some smoked salmon and some avocado, one of those like classic breakfasts, you've basically put a thousand calories back in your body.
So if you've gone and done a 10K run, you've already literally had those calories back and you're probably still hungry afterwards.
So the first way that we really counteract not being super hungry on a diet is do not do lots of intense cardio.
So firstly, the first reason why guys get very hungry when they're on a calorie deficit is an exercise problem where they are smashing their bodies too much and they're doing the wrong type of exercise which is leading to hunger going through the roof.
Like their body is craving food, the ghrelin hormone is going through the roof which is basically our hunger hormone because they're doing the wrong things with their training.
Like, if you are smashing cardio, hard, heavy, you're doing really high heart rate stuff, like zone four, zone five, which is where your heart rate's really, really high, you're going to get hungry, guys.
Like, even if you just go for a long run, but you're kind of in the zone two position, which is where your heart rate maybe isn't so high, but you've gone on such a long run that your body, again, is just kind of, you know, in this position where it's just craving food.
So the issue is, is that if you are doing heavy amounts of cardio, you're going to get more hungry.
And this is why I recommend to a lot of men that you don't need to be doing much cardio.
Just focus on step count and just do kind of low intensity, steady state cardio, which is like, you know, walking on an incline or doing a little bit of stepper.
As soon as your cardio gets too heavy and it's too intense and it's too long, you're gonna get hungry.
I know when I go for a long run, I come back, I'm starving guys, that I will literally be hungry for the rest of the day.
And even if I eat a large meal, I will still be hungry for the rest of that day.
I've had this before, like I've gone and done like 16, 18 kilometer runs when I've been in Bali on like a long day run club.
So even though I've burnt off a lot of calories, I've effectively eaten them all back probably by the time I've had breakfast.
So the reality is that, yes, it kind of in your head makes sense logically that doing excessive amounts of cardio will help you when it comes to burning more calories.
But at the end of the day, food is still king and you're so much easily going to eat a thousand calories rather than burn a thousand calories.
with your partner, whatever, you know, you have some bagels and some smoked salmon and some avocado, one of those like classic breakfasts, you've basically put a thousand calories back in your body.
So if you've gone and done a 10K run, you've already literally had those calories back and you're probably still hungry afterwards.
So the first way that we really counteract not being super hungry on a diet is do not do lots of intense cardio.
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