A topic which often arises when a runner speaks to me about taking time off from training, be that through injury or otherwise is the fear of weight gain.

It tells me that we become over reliant on our activity level being the thing that determines what and how we eat that we forget how to use our appestat. So what exactly is that? Your appestat is the region of your brain that regulates the desire for and intake of food.

Before we had clocks or had created the notion of breakfast, lunch and dinner we relied on our appestat to decide when we ate. The simple signal would be your stomach rumbling and the urge to eat.

For many of you reading this, it may be the first time you have even heard of appestat.