Why You Eat When You’re Not Hungry
7 Dec 2025 · 21 min
In this December 6, 2025 podcast episode, celebrity trainer and author Jorge Cruise explains why people often eat despite not feeling physical hunger. He contrasts physical hunger—driven by electrolyte balance and can be managed with time‑restricted eating, GLP‑1 medications, and proper sodium, magnesium, and potassium—with emotional hunger, which stems from unresolved childhood and mid‑life trauma. Cruise shares personal stories of coming out, family estrangement, divorce, his father’s death, and a period of alcohol misuse, illustrating how stress and low dopamine fuel emotional eating. He cites research on dopamine (e.g., Dr. Anna Lembic’s The Dopamine Nation and Stanford’s Dr. Anne Ess) and argues that traditional shortcuts like sugar, carbs, or alcohol raise dopamine but cause inflammation and weight gain. Instead, he proposes “zero‑hunger approved” dopamine‑spiking activities—exercise, short home workouts, prayer/meditation, music, hiking, community, and other personalized micro‑wins—that satisfy the brain without side effects. Cruise promotes a free December 5/8 event where he will detail these strategies and introduces an AI‑generated song, “Needed This,” created with Suno, as an example of a dopamine‑boosting, zero‑hunger solution. He previews the next episode on restoring lean muscle mass in midlife using brief, effective routines. The episode blends coaching, personal narrative, expert references, and a promotional call‑to‑action.
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I'm Jorge Cruise. I'm a celebrity fitness trainer and New York Times bestselling author. In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Welcome back. It's Saturday, December 6th. If you saw my podcast yesterday, you know this is the second part. Part of this little mini series I'm doing this weekend to kind of give us a little insight, I think, into what I've been up to for the last couple of months. A lot of you've been wondering what I've been doing, and I've been really kind of assessing the last 6 years almost of my life. Because about 6 years ago, as I mentioned yesterday, I wrote a book called Cruise Control, and that book really set the tone for my life because I was writing it just before I turned 50. And I can tell you, I was working in Malibu with people like Steve Harvey and Brooke Jorge Cruise, Jorge Cruise Burke. And a lot of us were in that stage of life where the question started to enter our head, like, how can we extend midlife, right? And what's the best, best tools to increase longevity? And I can tell you, out of all my research and all my science, that's what that book was about. You know, it was my 39th book. I'm working on my 40th. But I can tell you that book, The Cruise Control Diet, was all about time-restricted eating. And we talked about it yesterday, and it's really, without question, probably the most effective strategy to not just drop belly fat and add truly decades to midlife, but to really maximize your wellness and your vitality as you get older. And it works also when you're under midlife, you know, like in your 20s or 30s or 40s, it doesn't matter. Intermittent fasting is really based on this ancestral way of eating, you know, and understanding that our ancestors most likely ate, if they were lucky, one meal a day. Maybe 2, but they did not eat all day and night. And what that plan was all about was eating in an 8-hour time-restricted window. And as we talked about yesterday, the biggest problem about that was physical hunger, because a lot of us, um, if you were to fast for say 16 hours, you may feel hungry, right? So today, 2025, things are different. Most of us think, oh, I gotta get in line to get a GLP-1 medication. Now, if it's something your doctor has asked you to do, then you need to do it. Because if you're at a set weight point that is that high up and you haven't been able to make progress on your own, that medication can be gold. You know, I have a lot of clients that I work with, elite clients that are on GLP-1s, and those medications are tools. They really are. You know, at one point in my career, I just thought of anything that was a medication as unnecessary, but I can tell you, today's world, I understand why a GLP-1 is important. The problem with the GLP-1, it doesn't address the root cause of why you have physical hunger. And we talked about yesterday about how sodium, magnesium, and potassium are really the key electrolytes that turn off physical hunger. And if we can restore that, uh, we can turn off physical hunger. Now today what I want to talk to you about is the other side of the coin— not physical hunger, but what I call emotional hunger. Because this is the part that even a GLP-1 cannot solve, and even Zero Hunger Water can't solve, because it stems and it's rooted in our childhoods. And a lot of the times, you know, remember I've written 39 books and my first book was in 2001, 8 Minutes in the Morning, with the strength training book. But since then I've written books on nutrition, exercise, mindset, and now intermittent fasting, right? And I could tell you out of all the millions of people I, I've worked with through my books, through the online experiences, through television shows, like I used to do all these weight loss challenges with Steve Harvey, even worked with Khloe Kardashian on Revenge Body. And I can tell you the number one thing that that sabotages most of my clients over the last kind of 24 years of writing books has been stress. And usually stress that was unresolved from when they were kids. That's the biggest obstacle to overcome. Now, there can be stresses from midlife too. I'll give you an example of my life because, you know, in midlife, you know, I had some trauma growing up as a kid. I grew up in a Latin American family. And for me, you guys know, I came out at age 39. And back then, you know, I'm 54 now, but back when I was a kid, my grandmother, raised me. And being a gay man, or being gay period, was not something that was even an option. And I was, uh, how should we say, punished and disciplined when I acted different. And so for me, I became kind of blind to it all until 39. I read a book and it changed my thinking about genetics and made me really understand that maybe I wasn't living my best life, you know. And so that overcame a lot of childhood trauma for me. But a couple years later, almost like right around when that book came out, Cruise Control, I was in— I was coming out of a book launch, but my marriage, my second marriage, was also ending, and my father passed away. And it was a tough time because I became estranged with some family members during that process, and it really hurt me. I mean, I had never experienced this kind of pain. And if you guys know what I mean, it's really about understanding that sometimes the greatest pain in our life can also be the greatest source of strength and growth. But back then, that kind of estrangement from my family caused me to go into a little bit of a dark period where for me, and I had never done this, I had never drank alcohol really my entire life. My dad, my mom, they weren't big wine drinkers, none of that. But I thought, what the heck, I need a glass of wine. And I'd go to Costco, my favorite place, and buy the box of wine or the big tequila. Basilic tequila with ice and squeeze of lemon was my favorite drink back in the day. But I started to drink these professionally, if you know what I mean. And I lost myself. I really did. And for me, it took me going through a 12-step program to understand that life is happening for us, not to us. And it resonated to me because I always believed that. I remember when I first met Oprah Winfrey back in 1998, there was a spiritual energy to that experience because I knew she kind of almost— what's the word— challenged me to realize that being on her show was a privilege, and not just a privilege, but it was a way to shift people's thinking. And she challenged me, as my mom did, because that's the reason I met Oprah Winfrey, because my mom had passed when she was 64 in February of the same year, 1998. And then just a couple months later, almost 8 months later in October, I was filming with Oprah in Chicago. And it was like this message from, you know, from the universe through my mom, through Oprah, that I had to go do something with my life and had to kind of find meaning in everything. And for me, luckily, I became this author and my buddy Tony Robbins wrote the introduction of my first book, and I came to become successful, you know, and I wrote book after book after book, and now, you know, I'm working on my 40th book. It's not done yet, but, and it's all about hunger control, but I can tell you that through that process, I got to be a spoiled guy sometimes. And, you know, if you ask my two prior spouses, I was a bit of, I hate to be honest, but of an asshole sometimes to people, because I wanted things my way, done my way, and only my way. And I can tell you, when you're very self-centered like that, and the world doesn't go in your direction, you can become very upset. And when my father passed and I lost the relationship with a couple family members, actually, it really hurt me. And I was so upset. So I started to drink a little bit of alcohol. And knowing that it wasn't something horrible, I wasn't eating sugar, but boy, I leaned into some things that I shouldn't have. And I can tell you, out of that process, I had to rediscover a perspective that I call it now God's, uh, God's perspective or the universe's perspective. But for me, I had to understand that when you go through a trauma, whether it's in childhood or in midlife or anytime in your life, dopamine levels usually go down. And I did not know about dopamine and serotonin as much as I do now. And I can tell you, due to the work of this woman, Dr. Anna Lembic, check this book out from this incredible book called The Dopamine Nation. I recommend it highly to everyone. My goal is to get her on the podcast this coming month. Uh, and Dr. Anne Ess from Stanford, and she works with the addiction program there at Stanford. And I can tell you from her insights and from the podcasts that she's given already— you can Google her as well— she'll tell you that dopamine is the reward process that gets us to do anything, right? And so if you're stuck in life and you feel like you've had trauma and you need to get through the day, there's a reason why we go to sugar, carbs, and even alcohol to make us feel better because it does improve dopamine levels. The only problem is there's side effects, right? Whether it's sugar, uh, whether it's carbohydrates, excessive amounts of them, or even alcohol, they all leave us feeling lesser than the next day. They all make us feel not our best. They're all inflammatory, right? So the key is how do you find a way to raise dopamine without a negative side effect, right? And so what the second part of my coaching program is, and what I think you're gonna love at our event on Monday, December 8th, and it's totally free, you're gonna discover what I call zero hunger approved solutions or wins that are dopamine spiking, kind of like solutions that will give you, I think, something better than any sugar, carbohydrate, or alcohol can give you. And that is a natural way to produce dopamine. Now let me give you an example. For me, without question, every day I go to the gym for about like 2 hours. That for me is a dopamine spike. Now for some people that don't like exercise, it can go the other way, right? So that's why we also give people an 8-minute workout you can do at home so you don't have to go the gym, because all of us are different. For me, I have a little book. It's called the Big Book, but it's small. There's some prayers in here that I'll read. For me, prayers have become a way to connect with the universe, right, with God. And I was raised Catholic, and I'm not saying I'm not Catholic, but I am saying I believe in a higher power. And through my book and through my prayers, that produces a sense of dopamine that relaxes me and makes a sense of calm in my life. And I really need that every single morning. It's what I do usually around 4 in the morning. I'm up 4:30, I'm reading my big book, doing some prayers and meditation. That's a way to do that. And for some people, whether it's not exercise or prayer, it can also be like music or song or, or music through movies, or it can be hiking, or can be connecting with loved ones, whether it's family, grandkids, church and community. Could be going to work where you're surrounded with loved ones that you actually become like your work family, right? Uh, for me, I can tell you music has been a huge inspiration for me. And one of the things I love to do is use music in a way with my clients that can, can really retell a story. So one of the things I'll share with you guys on, on, um, Monday's, uh, seminar is really about understanding how we can utilize all these dopamine-winning strategies without any side effects, whether it's inflammation or belly fat or all all that so we can win and feel great. And more importantly, feel great all day. So emotional eating becomes something of the past because we have all these micro ways and micro wins of dopamine that don't involve sugar, carbs, alcohol, or other substances that traditionally are shortcuts. And obviously they work to get dopamine to go up, but they have those side effects that we don't want. So if that makes sense, I want you to take a look at something that I created that I think you really love. It's kind of a unique thing. I've recommended this to many of my clients. I've done it with some of my sophisticated high net worth clients. I've done it with some of my group clients that are a group of people that we work with online. You'll meet many of them on Monday's event. And what this exercise is, is it uses an AI software, and I'll give you the link in the bio. And what I did, I did this to show clients what you can do. And for me, you know, the story about me losing, without mentioning names, because I want to honor my family, but You know, I became estranged from the family member, and I saw it for a couple years— it took a while— but as something that was being done to me, that kind of punishing me. And that, if you think about, you know, whether someone is out of your life or giving you the silent treatment or ghosting you, and you think of it as a punishment, then you're always going to be the victim, right? And my friend Khalil, uh, from SunLife Organic probably said it the best in our last podcast we did last month, if you saw his interview about him through recovery, because he was very much in place of his life where he needed to stop using certain substances. And for him, at age 33, he had to stop being or seeing himself as a victim, and more importantly, seeing the gift of, of making a decision where he was no longer going to be living in that old story of how he got hurt as a kid. And for me, the story was at 50, my life kind of collapsed, right? I went through a second divorce, my father passed away, I lost my connection with some family members. So I was this, you know, I was playing a violin to say the least. And not knowing that that mindset, as much as it can be a glass half empty, there's also a glass half full. There's always a different perspective. So the example I'm gonna share with you is a song that I've written. Now I can't sing and promise you this is not me singing, but I like to write. You guys know I write books and I love writing things that challenge me. And one of my best, best friends, as you guys know for many years, over 30 years, is Anthony Robbins. And Tony Robbins has an event that I've gone to for 30-some years called UPW. And UPW stands for Unleash the Power Within. And one of the core, core messages of that event is to take an un— kind of unpowering or disempowering belief you may have, like, hey, because this person's no longer in my life, I'm a bad person, or they're punishing me, right? You can take a disempowering belief like that, and then the goal of the event is to turn it into an empowering belief. Now, there's some people that go to this event and they're stumped. They have no clue how to take the opposite because they can't even go there. So for me, it's something I've been working on for 30 years with Tony, and I've been, been pretty good at being able to take disempowering beliefs and make them powerful. And looking at that, you know, if someone draws a boundary, that it can be something— yeah, for sure, it's something that they may need, but it also has something that we can benefit from. And as much as you may love a family member or a loved one, or it could be a work friend, if you've gone through a kind of a breakup and it wasn't, it wasn't intentional and it wasn't mutual, it was just one-sided, and you thought, oh my gosh, you know, what did I do? And then you start kind of hallucinating all these things that you did, you end up becoming depressed. I mean, you will eat a box of cookies and chips and who knows what else, ice cream and a glass of wine and maybe a bottle of wine, right, to kind of numb But you can also see it through what I call God's eyes or the universe's eyes to see what is the good in this. So the song I wrote is called Needed This, and I think the title says it all because I didn't know I needed this, but I did. And you know, for someone who was very self-centered for many years and became unaware of it, I needed this more than ever. And I think it's probably one of the greatest gifts the universe gave me through this family member. And I can tell you, I didn't know that this song for me would be something that I would want to share with anyone. But I think you'll see, because I want to inspire you, I want you to take a look at what I wrote. I mean, that you can do, but, uh, you know, and I always write these in a way that are positive and, right, pull out the positive. But I can't sing, so the software I use, I'll put in the link in bio, it's called Suno. And the song I wrote is called Needed This. And I think you'll see how Needed This, through the power of Suno, which is a Zero Hunger approved kind of like dopamine winning solution. And I'll give you a list of all the other ones as well, which we'll talk on Monday again. And again, the event's December 5th, but let me play it for you now and then we'll end today's podcast and I'll be back tomorrow. We're gonna talk about how to restore lean muscle mass because one of the biggest things out there, it's part of my coaching outside of overcoming physical hunger and emotional hunger is restoring lean muscle because a lot of us in midlife have lost that muscle and there are ways to do it that are easy and effective, like in 8 minutes. So we'll start that tomorrow, but for today, Hey guys, let's end with this song. I hope it's uplifting. I hope you'll love it. Maybe you'll share this podcast and the song with others. It's also now available on Spotify and Apple. You can stream it for free. And the artist I created kind of metaphorically means Victorious Light. And I'll tell you, his name is Victor, which means victory, right? And Sol in Spanish means light or sun. So Victorious Light is the author's name, Victor Sol. It's AI, obviously, but I created him. So, and he's a younger version of me, and I wish I could sing, guys. Again, I can't sing, this software can. Again, the link's in bio. I'm going to play for you right now, guys. Hopefully you'll let me know your comments and thoughts, and I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you tomorrow on Sunday. All right, take care. Peace and purpose, and let's roll the song Needed This. Take good care.
Yeah, you went quiet in the middle of my show. Big night, bright lights, then you chose to go. No speech, no fight, just a closed door vibe. But that silence hit louder than a thousand lines. I kept thinking it was happening to me, playing the victim on a constant repeat. Took some time for the message to land. You were drawing out a boundary in the sand. Everyone else kept telling me you're fine, but you're the only one who drew a real line. I didn't want it, but I needed this, and the universe gave me tough love with a twist. From me, not to me, I can finally see you were the mirror that was saving me. I didn't want it, but I needed this hard way blessing. I hope you You were carrying a message from the divine. Everybody else kept feeding my pride. You were the one who stepped aside. I didn't want it, but I needed this. The universe gave me tough love with a twist. From me, not to me. I can finally see you were the mirror that was saving me. I didn't want it, but I needed This hard way blessing I almost miss. Now my cortisone beats different in my chest. If I lose the drama but I learn the lesson, that's a flex. Lowkey, you were fuego to my ego. Burn my old script, left me with no ever. Me and T said shake it off, they'll be back. But you held your line, never doubled back. It was bigger than a fight. Universal rearranging all my life. Had to drop the story where I played the victim. Had to let it go just so I could live again. I didn't want it, but I needed this. Hard way blessing wrapped up in a twist. If you ever check in and want to reconnect, just know I'm grateful you were strong enough to step in. Yeah, didn't want it, but I need it.
