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Ishaan comments on Open Thread, Aug. 8 - Aug 14. 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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You're missing the fact that tightly controlled feedback mechanisms govern appetite. That's what allows maintaining weight in the real world. Magically add 20lbs (or an apple a day) to a healthy person and they'll feel correspondingly less hungry.
Actually, it's mostly going to be the metabolism of the tissue (extra fat tissue needs flood flow, temperature regulation, energy for cellular processes etc too), and that can be significant, although not as much as hunger regulation.
I am not sure this is true in contemporary West. I suspect that a lot of overeating happens because of social cues ("I'm at a dinner party so I should eat even though I'm not hungry") and for purely psychological reasons -- from boredom and activity displacement ("I'd like to procrastinate a bit, let me go and have a snack") to hedonics ("Sugar boosts make me feel better, yay sugar!"). None of that is actually hunger.
Perhaps that's also a reason, but the role of insulin / leptin resistance in causing hunger pangs (contractions of the stomach) in situations when additional food is not actually required is pretty well established.
Oh, feelings of hunger certainly exist (though I'm not sure what does "additional food is not actually required" mean).
Perhaps it would be useful to draw a distinction between people who are trying to lose weight and who are not. The former are likely to get to the point of actually being hungry and so being driven by hunger. The latter, I think, rarely get hungry and tend to overeat for non-hunger reasons.