My understanding of in-game energy/stamina

[CamelTow]

So basically I'm just double checking to see if I understand these mechanics, as well as a question or two.
Your stamina reflects your ability to sprint and preform actions such as swing an ax and conduct combat, as you do these things, as well as naturally over time, your stamina drains. When this stamina gets drained to a certain point, you must rest, eat food, or drink (soda) to replenish it in order to prevent the above-mentioned tasks from being slower or impossible. Well, the food and drink part is easy enough; sleeping - even without factoring the save bug - is a little more complicated of a process.

All About Sleep Or at least how I understand it so far...
Once you have a shelter set up, you have the ability to hit "z" to take a snooze, advance the clock, and save your game. At first, I though the sleep duration was random, it seemed very sporadic to say the least. One time I would sleep at night and when I opened my eyes, the sun was up high in the sky, the bad guys were gone, and my energy was filled to the brim... life was good. Other times, however, I would sleep, wake up, and it was still night, my energy was still flashing red, and I had a 3/4 naked man all up in my business... life, well there wasn't much life after that as I was rather caught off guard.

Does this story have a point?
Alright, alright, I'm getting there, sheesh.
From what I've observed the "full night's rest" situation occurs when you have minimal energy left (just before you can't run or swing your ax more than once) and you sound like a panting dog to do anything.
If your stamina is above this level but blinking red, you will have your energy restored to the highest point at which that bar begins to flash red. This will only forward the in-game time by a few hours.
If you are above this, your energy will remain unaffected. Again, time in-game is only minimally changed.
In all instances, the game is saved.

So is this a guide, or...?
Well, I guess, kinda. I also wanted to post this because I like to have people correct me, tell me I'm wrong, left something out, or to have people get off topic and hijack my post so they can whine about all the bugs in an alpha-release game. I have some questions myself that I wanted to see if the community had answers to.

What's up, Doc?
The thing that I currently wonder about the most with this mechanic is how hunger and an effect on energy. In real life, we get energy from the food that we eat and digest. So no food in the stomach means no energy. Is this the setup in the game? Does an empty belly mean my energy meter goes down faster than normal? Are there other consequences to having my food or energy levels low or empty?

Let me know what you think
-CamelTow
It's what you get when your camel breaks down.