GLOSSARY

Satiety suppresses eating desire after and between meals.

For practical use, record meal and training timing, sleep and hunger alongside actual intake and performance trends. When a marker changes, first examine measurement conditions and plausible explanations; food decisions should support adequate supply, tolerance and recovery rather than ending the assessment at one molecular signal or assuming a concentration change automatically establishes a useful intervention.

Appetite is desire to eat, distinct from hunger, gastric fullness and actual energy requirements. Satiety concerns suppression between meals, whereas satiation helps end the current meal. A person can feel full while still under-fueled. Recording sensations, actual intake and activity timing together supports planning better than drawing conclusions from one sensation or hormone; subjective scales and food records measure different aspects rather than interchangeable biological quantities.

Eating responds to biological needs and to taste, availability, habit, emotion and reward. Craving a particular food is not a deficiency test for that food's nutrients. Hedonic and homeostatic influences can coexist rather than forming separate behaviors. In sport, restrictive eating, poor sleep or long meal gaps may also affect desire. Assessment should avoid moral labels and consider actual intake patterns rather than assigning every craving to one hormone.