The Uninvited Guests in My Body: A Guide to Hormonal Mutiny (With Snacks)

How I finally met the real bosses

Throughout my life, I have been in constant battle with certain characters who, by no will of mine, live inside me. Most of the time, the outcome of those battles has been Hortensia zero, uninvited guests one—or sometimes even ten. It was not until I reached my sixtieth birthday that I finally had enough time, enough silence, and enough resources to investigate who they were, why they behaved as they did, and how they were quietly determining my health, my future, and in many ways, my entire life.

I realized, with some irritation, that I was not entirely the owner of my own body. They ruled. They decided what I would eat, how I would feel, whether I would feel satisfied or hungry, calm or desperate, and sometimes whether I was in immediate danger of collapsing from a blood sugar disaster. They were there before my conscious decisions arrived, already voting, already arguing, already pulling strings behind the curtain.

The first and loudest of them was The Hungry Child. This one never whispered. It screamed: “Feed me! Feed me now!” I could feel that scream exactly where one would expect—in the center of myself, in the stomach, like an alarm bell demanding immediate obedience. Reason had little power against it. It did not negotiate. It did not care what I had eaten yesterday or what my plans were for tomorrow. It wanted food now, and preferably something quick, sweet, and satisfying.

Sometimes, however, another figure would appear, much calmer and infinitely more civilized: The Serious Accountant. She would adjust her glasses, look over invisible ledgers, and say softly, “We have reserves. Sit down. Stop buying groceries.” How did she know? Because she had access to the pantry—the fat tissues, the stored energy, the reserves already accumulated. She understood balance. She knew there was enough. Unfortunately, she spoke too softly, and in a household full of screaming, wisdom is often ignored.

Then came the most dangerous one, in my opinion: The Delivery Manager, also known as The Station Master. He was never subtle. He shouted, “Open the doors! Supplies are arriving and we need to stack them in!” In a lower and more urgent voice, he whispered, “Incoming fuel.” His job was serious because he dealt with blood sugar, with glucose, with survival itself. Sometimes he saved the day; other times, by pushing too much or too little, he became the architect of disaster. He could exhaust me, rescue me, or kill me, often in the same week.

And then there was the true villain of the story: the smooth-talking devil, the drug dealer, the seducer—The Casino Promoter. This one did not care what the Accountant said or what the Station Master was trying to repair. He stood under bright lights like a carnival announcer and shouted, “Ice cream! Chocolate! Celebration! Life is short—enjoy!” He was the voice of advertisements, of reward, of false comfort. He leaned close and whispered the most dangerous sentence in the world: “You deserve it. You have gone through so much.” He did not feed hunger; he fed temptation.

Finally, there were the Grandmothers. These were the serious, experienced women of the household, the ones who actually knew what should be done but were too often overruled by the noisy fools. They would say, firmly but without drama, “Enough. Put the fork down. Close that refrigerator door.” Their wisdom was simple, ancient, and almost always correct. Unfortunately, like most good advice, it was easy to forget five minutes later.

At some point I had to ask myself: who are these people? Was I becoming ridiculous, imagining little creatures inside my body giving orders like some internal parliament of chaos? The answer, of course, was no. They were real, only they were not creatures—they were hormones.

The Hungry Child was Ghrelin, the hormone that signals hunger and says, very clearly, “Eat.” The Casino Promoter was Dopamine, which does not care about hunger at all but cares deeply about pleasure, anticipation, and reward. It does not ask whether you need the ice cream; it simply insists that ice cream is the meaning of life.

The Delivery Manager, the Station Master, was Insulin, forever trying to control the traffic of glucose, moving sugar out of the bloodstream and into the cells where it can be used or stored. He is essential, overworked, and frequently blamed for crimes committed by others.

The Serious Accountant was Leptin, the hormone of stored energy, the quiet voice saying, “You do not need more food. There is enough.” She is often correct and almost always ignored, especially in a world built to sell hunger.

And then there were the Grandmothers, not one but several wise women working together. GLP-1, or Glucagon-Like Peptide-1, helps increase insulin release, slows stomach emptying, and promotes satiety. CCK, Cholecystokinin, responds especially to fats and proteins and sends a strong signal of fullness while helping digestion. PYY, Peptide YY, arrives after meals to reduce appetite and prolong the feeling that, for once, enough is enough. Together they are the council of common sense.

So now you know who my uninvited guests are. The truth is, we cannot live without them. They are not enemies; they are part of the machinery of life itself, guiding our physiology, regulating energy, and helping the body survive. The problem is not that they exist. The problem is that we have stopped listening to the right voices.

Modern life amplifies the wrong ones. We listen to advertisements, to boredom, to stress, to reward, to the endless seduction of the Casino Promoter. We stop listening to the Accountant, to the Grandmothers, to the quiet internal signals that were designed to keep us alive. Then we wonder why we become obese, diabetic, exhausted, hypertensive, hypercholesterolemic, and permanently at war with our own reflection.

The solution is neither glamorous nor modern. It is embarrassingly simple. Pay more attention to what your body says and less attention to what your senses are trying to seduce you into doing. Hunger is not always hunger. Craving is not need. Satisfaction is not found at the bottom of an ice cream container. Sometimes health begins with something as small and as difficult as listening when the Grandmothers say, very clearly, “Enough.”