There is a ton of variation to what people experience as hunger. Sometimes your body needs more water, and that can be interpreted as hunger. That happens to me quite frequently if I don't have my water bottle with me. I feel hungry and realize I haven't been drinking. During each phase, it most often turned out that I needed to drink more...even if I was on pace to meet 64 oz. I tend to drink closer to 100oz, but I know not everyone can stomach that (pun intended...lol).
There is also "head" or "bored" hunger that can come up. This also happened to me. There have been times when I knew I had eaten enough, and I knew if I ate any more I'd be overful and probably uncomfortable, but the hunger was still present. Your body after surgery is having all sorts of hormones being reset, your microbiome gets a reboot, and you are doing a lot of healing and tissue repair. All of this can send multiple signals to your brain and other parts of your body that can get interpreted as hunger.
Generally, if I feel hungry and know it hasn't been long enough for me to have a snack or another meal, I sip on water for at least 30 minutes. Then I find something distracting to do, then after an hour, if I'm still hungry, it's probably time for a snack or a meal, but even if it isn't I'll then have something to eat because at that point I think my body probably needs it. This has been working for me quite well, but everyone is different, of course.
Hunger will be a part of almost everyone's journey. There are some who wish they would get hungry, but most people have to redevelop their relationship with hunger, satiation and fullness.
