Feeding the beast!

Hello friendly friends and happy WEEKEND!! Yay!

Now, the topic of today is a serious one.

Super serious, super important and needs to be discussed. It's just too big of a deal not be thought about and put into words for the world to know.

Monumental, even, in it's entirety.

It's my hunger.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only teenage girl in my year who experiences [extreme] hunger. Who experiences the deep, demanding throb of an empty stomach, pounding for food, or the magnificent hallucinations my brain conjures up of beautiful plates and bowls of food.

And that's probably true ;)

Any who, if you're a long time reader of Steph 2 Chef, you would have noticed that I seem to go through phases of being ravenously hungry at every meal, to not even feeling a slight tinge of hunger, even upon waking up (which is INSANE for me!)

Currently? I'M HUNGRY!!

Exhibit A:

 Whipping up MONSTER smoothies that are basically over flowing with creamy deliciousness.

Exhibit B:

 Enjoying snack plates for lunch...

 Yes, snack platessss :)

Exhibit C:
Oats, oats for everyone (but not really, just for me. Because I'm hungry!)

 And you thought this overflowing jar of oats was it? You should have seen the saucepan :)

 More oats...

 Plus more nut butter to ensure the staying power... stays!

 Exhibit D:
Coconut oil for all the veggies!!

 To make a simple pasta dish that much more satisfying.

 There was also some hommus added in afterward!

So you see friends, the hunger is real!

But the thing that confuses me most is why?

I mean, flashback to around 2-3 months ago and I was running for around 1.5-2 hours, logging around 20km each time and doing some other workouts on the side (which was too much for my body btw.) and yet, I didn't actually feel all that hungry.

Now, after reducing my exercise significantly, and doing less cardio each week- I'm starving??

I know enough now to listen to my body and feed it when it tells me it needs food and my body looks exactly the same as it did when I was over training.

Some of my thoughts include:
With the addition of weights into my routine, my muscles need fuel to grow :)
As it is Winter and I FEEL the cold, all that shivering amounts for a loss of energy :)
After putting my body through ridiculous amounts of cardio for quite some time, it's finally de-stressing and is trying to repair itself, requiring fuel to do so.

There are some other, more personal signs, that I may not be eating enough to properly fuel my body so it can properly function, and it seems to be becoming more and more prevalent amongst many bloggers I follow, who have been through the same sorts of things and found that reducing exercise and eating more fixed their problems, so maybe it is just my bodies way of telling me that's what I should do.

Whatever the case may be, the body is hungry, food is amazing, and therefore I shall eat!

Your turn:
Do you ever go through stages in your life where you have uncontrollable hunger and then zero desire to eat?
Has a change in your exercise routine ever affected your diet?
Have you ever had to significantly increase your food intake to ensure your body's functioning properly?

That's it from me today guys. I hope you all have something nice planned for your weekend, and if not, plan something nice! Even if it's just an hour to yourself to do whatever it is you feel like! Bye for now!! :D