Why do Steroids Increase Your Appetite?

As you probably know, using anabolic steroids can come with a lot of different side-effects. In additional to helping someone bulk up, several unexpected results may occur. These include things like mood swings, possible hair-loss and different effects on the penis. You can read our beginners’ guide to anabolic steroids if you’re curious to know more on the subject. Not surprisingly, anabolic steroids can also have a big effect on a person’s appetite. So in this article we’ll go into detail to explain why steroids make you hungry.

An Quick Overview on How Steroids Work

Anabolic steroids are synthetic compounds that are designed to mirror the effects of natural testosterone production. For guys, your testosterone determines male sex characteristics like hair, muscle mass, and sperm production. Generally, males experience a sudden increase in testosterone once they hit puberty and a gradual slope after middle age. Every man’s body produces testosterone naturally, but anabolic steroids allow for more than the body would produce on its one.

Steroids Boost Your Testosterone which Boost Appetite

As a result, steroids can give some a real boost in increasing their body’s lean muscle mass by increasing the amount of protein in the cells of skeletal muscle. Because of this, muscle cells can grow faster and they can heal more quickly. This quickened recovery time allows people to have longer and more intense workouts and that means that the muscles needs lees time to repair themselves. So in a nutshell, steroids encourage muscle growth and speed up muscle recovery more than natural testosterone production could (1, 2, 3).

As we’ve mention in other articles, using anabolic steroids can come with a whole gamut of side-effects. People using steroids often note a sudden boost in appetite. Apart from this increase in appetite, these can include mood swings, trouble sleeping, acne, and changes in your sex drive.

Why Do Steroids Make You Hungry?

Now that you understand a bit more how anabolic steroids affect the body, it’s time to understand why they make a person hungry. It well documented that steroids can boost a person appetite. In fact, after undergoing certain surgery, some patients are actually prescribed steroids to promote muscle growth and to increase their appetite.

Taking on Muscle makes you hungry

So the question is why do steroids make you hungry? The answer is actually twofold. One has to do with how steroids affect the body and the other is what they encourage.

The first reason for increased appetite on steroids is actually pretty logical. When you work out, your body is using up its resources and being able to work out takes stamina and energy that normally comes from food. So, if you’ve working out a lot (whether you’ve been using anabolic steroids or not), you’re going to experience a spike in hunger no matter what. So, more training means that you need more fuel. As such any change in exercise routine can lead to an increase in appetite, especially one aided by anabolic steroids. This is one part of the reason why using anabolic steroids will probably add to your hunger pretty quickly.

Should I Care that I’m More Hungry on Steroids ?

At first glance, an increased appetite might not look so bad. Logically speaking, if you’re working out more then you’re going to need more fuel. That just how it works, right? That’s true, but it’s not the whole story. A fair bit of a person’s increase in appetite could just be chalked up to more training and putting on more muscle mass. You need energy and fuel to get strong and build that dream-physique. The problem is that anabolic steroids often make users more hungry than they really need to be. That means people on steroids often want to eat a lot more than the food they need to fuel their training. This is one of the places where anyone using steroids really needs to look out. Since you’re training more and putting on a whole lot more muscle, it’s easy to overestimate how much food you actually need to keep up the momentum.

Steroids make you hungrier than you need to be

Which Steroids Will Make You Hungry?

There are so many different kinds of anabolic steroids around today and all of them have different effects on the body. As we’ve mentioned in our beginner’s guide, the strength of steroids varies widely across the field. But there is one easy rule to remember, the more potent the steroid is, the stronger its effects will be. As a result, guys who use Deca Durabolin often report huge spikes in hunger. On the flip-side, you’re less likely to hear the same thing from someone using something less intense like Anavar.

Avoid the Side Effects

Because your body doesn’t metabolize food the same way while on steroids, you have to work a bit harder to avoid the side-effects.  And you really should be looking out for some of these. Taking steroids change your body’s chemistry and often alter the way your body deposits fat (4, 5). We’ve talk about this in our article on how long steroids stay in your system. As a result, overeating while using steroids can actually lead to extra fat deposits in your abdomen. So, even if you’re feeling famished, the most important thing to remember is to not over-eat when you’re on the juice.

There are a lot of ways to avoid the weight-gain trap that the increase in metabolism can create. Our best advise it to start eating more meals with smaller portions that are spaced out across the day. This usually works to stave off the hunger pretty well. You should also avoid eating at night. Chowing down before you sleep lowers your glucose levels and will make you feel a lot more hungry the following morning.

High Fiber Food can help stave off the hunger from steroids

Watching what you eat can also help a lot. Avoid anything too sweet since the sugar will only trigger the appetite further. You should also eat foods with a lot of fiber that that take longer to digest. That means eat complex carbohydrates and making sure avoid refined ones. For example, side step white rice and stick to brice rice instead.

Other Things to Keep in Mind

As with all medications, the side effects that you experience from steroids come in proportion to how much you use. As a result, if you use a low amount of anabolic steroids, you’re going to see less intense side-effects. That means that the less you use, the less you’ll see a spike in your appetite. Of course the inverse is also true. If you’re using stronger steroids like Deca Durabolin, Anadrol and Trenbolone, then you’ll see much stronger side-effects as a result. So, now that you have a better idea of why steroids make you hungry, you can better a better more informed decision about them. Happy lifting!

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