Why you’re always hungry and tired: A TCM Perspective

you know I once had a girlfriend in college and any time she was cranky with me it became a long-standing joke and I used to say are you hungry or are you tired because what's going on here a lot of people will come in and say you know I'm often hungry or I'm often tired sometimes it's the two or I'm hungry all the time even though I've been gaining weight I don't really know what's going on or what's wrong with my hormones in this video I thought I would share what is the link between being hungry and being tired all the time because it is something I commonly clinically see and there's a very very good lesson both in medicine and in terms of healing with traditional Chinese medicine that I think will help you quite a lot hey guys I'm Dr Alex hin board licensed acupuncturist and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book master of the day so let's jump in now being hungry and being tired are obviously normal symptoms or experiences of being a human being but if you experiencing them to an extreme degree it's probably not normal now the story of my hangry College girlfriend aside what can we actually do about these and where are they coming from In traditional Chinese medic we need to differentiate between two symptoms people who are always hungry or people who are never hungry because really what this indicates is a lot about the status of certain hunger hormones and those by themselves can indicate all kinds of other pathologies or other physiological issues in the body so someone who is always hungry can be one of two diagnoses from my point of view one is what we call stomach heat stomach heat typically we see in people who either eat a standard American diet so they eat very poorly they have bad breath they have acid reflux or you see good appetite in people who are just naturally bigger people more endomorphs are more mesomorphs they have a good appetite they typically gain weight easier they typically have good digestion overall good sleepers don't get anxious easily compared to the average person and from my point of view people who have a strong body temperature good body temperature run warm this is typically a warmer constitution in traditional Chinese medicine and frankly good appetite good body temperature good sleeper is usually a sign of Better Health to be honest now on the other side is what we call called stomach cold stomach cold is often people who have low appetite more prone to bloating food baby SEO food allergies that kind of thing more on the spectrum is people with my complexion pale complexion thin body type typically lose weight under stress and in general they're people who can easily go throughout the day fasting they don't normally have to constantly be eating food they feel better the less that they eat and they can go long periods without realizing they've eaten or they like snacking like a little bird often these indic other issues as well so in people who have stomach cold we typically see low stomach acid and low pancreatic enzyme production digestive enzymes so these people will often feel better on formulas that I give that increase stomach acid and increase enzyme production so they function like a digestive enzyme now the people with stomach heat they typically need the opposite in a way and we're going to discuss some of these formulas that we can use to treat one or the other now there are lots of other symptoms that go along with always hungry or always tired or never never hungry and I've put together a free root cause quiz according to traditional Chinese medicine this is probably the cause of your symptoms it is a 10 page or so handout I've put together we took a lot of time to put it together you punch in your symptoms in a little checkboxes and it will actually show what organ systems and physiological Pathways your symptoms are most likely coming from to make it even better we actually put together an entire hyperlink system so if you have spleen Chi deficiency symptoms related to the pancreas or the stomach or the gallbladder we've linked to five or 10 other videos we've shot that go into a lot more depth on those symptoms the whole thing's free guys check it out because I really do think it will help you on your own journey of self-healing and that guide is the first link right below or you can see the link on the screen here on my website now let's talk about fatigue and I want to share a story of one of my medical mentors named Dr Lee now Dr Lee was once in the clinic I was on my intern shift with him in the clinic and I was shadowing him and the patient was a larger lady little bit overweight compl of bloating Dr Lee was saying you know this is a very interesting case that you students should pay attention to so that you don't get sidetracked and you do your differential diagnosis right and what Dr Lee said was she's complaining of fatigue and usually when there's fatigue we think we have to strengthen resources recharge her batteries right we call this a deficiency problem but actually this was one of excess and what he called GI stagnation so he demonstrated the abdominal palpation that I do now on my exams and he said you see how we push on her low abdomen and it's painful for her and she wines some people they have so much digestive accumulation AKA crap that you give them a formula that doesn't actually strengthen Resources with jining or astragalus wangi or other herbs that we say strengthen the immune system or the body but you actually give herbs that help increase bowel movements and deal with bloating and they feel better and he said what's fascinating for her is I gave her a formula you would consider a perative like a laxative and he said she said she came in she's like you know what Dr Lee it's so weird the more bowel movements I have the better energy I feel and he said let this be a lesson to not treat everyone who's tired with strengthening tonifying adaptogenic herbs cuz you can make this kind of patient worse fatigue can come in lots of different ways not sleeping well stress hormones digestive problems autoimmune disease hypothyroidism lots of different causes but for a lot of people faulty digestion is the number one place that I start now when it comes to formulas that treat this pattern what does that look like when we talk about hungry and tired both now we are probably talking about blood sugar because if you're experiencing hunger and fatigue there's typically some blood sugar disregulation issues we're talking about digestive issues like involving what are called the spleen and pancreas often the liver and even the stomach and gallbladder for a lot of people lots of people who have issues with blood sugar like people who are diabetic they often have upper GI issues from the terrible diet they had eaten to get diabetes in the first place diabetes enters through the digestive system right type two so you usually see several decades spleen stomach pain pancreas dysfunction and then gallbladder issues and then liver issues and at that point they typically have high A1C high glucose that kind of thing for this kind of thing basically eating a Spartan kind of Mediterranean diet rice animal protein sauteed vegetables and olive oil really as much as you can a stable regular Spartan diet staying away from sugars or even going lower carb is often enough over months to years to functionally reverse this depending on how bad it is if we're talking about stomach heat good appetite maybe a little more acid reflux maybe bad breath even maybe a red face or even acne formulas like bansa Shang and sha chaang are some of the most common clinically used we're talking about over a period of 1 to 6 months and then stop on the stomach cold side formulas like Le jongan regulate the middle pellet or regulate the middle formula or sjena 4 gentleman decoction or Leo Jenza six gentlemen decoction these formulas are quintessential formulas for treating this stomach cold they will improve appetite you'll have less bloating and you'll have less fatigue from the gin renen that is in these formulas hungry and tired probably blood sugar disregulation right hypoglycemia low blood sugar if it's chronic maybe try eating differently supplementing with some of these formulas or checking in with someone to see what has been going on now don't forget guys if you have other symptoms you're wondering about download that quiz right there on the screen it's right below the video it is something that's going to help you quite a lot and I also have one more video on this topic right up here that can help