Appetite and Hunger Control

Do you feel that you have difficulty controlling your appetite? Are you always hungry? Or are you a “stress eater”? Getting control of the amount of food you eat can be the most challenging aspect of weight loss. First of all, you need to understand your feelings of hunger and why you overeat. Once you determine your appetite triggers, then you are in better shape to devise a strategy to deal with them.

The drive to eat – what we call hunger or appetite – is actually quite complicated. The body has a number of systems that interact together to make sure you get enough to eat. After all, the drive to eat is one of the most primitive instincts built into our genetics. This basic urge has allowed mankind to survive throughout history.

Your stomach, your brain and nervous system, and your hormones (chemical messengers that move throughout the body) all work together. This complicated interaction serves to control satiety and to tell you when you are full. Hormones and other chemical signals trigger appetite, hunger, and food-seeking behavior. But sometimes these systems go haywire. They can drive you to eat when you don’t really need to.

In order to get control of your appetite, you need to understand your hunger and why you may overeat. We will tell you about the major factors affecting your appetite, and give you some strategies and helpful hints. If you adopt these recommendations, you can get control of your appetite and lose the weight.

Hormonal influences

Hormonal hunger is a common trigger for overeating. It may make us think we need more food even though we have just eaten a large meal.

Hormonal hunger can be devastating to our waistlines. And as our waistlines expand, our hormonal hunger gets worse! That’s because it is associated with high insulin levels. A vicious cycle develops. Hormonal hunger, triggered by our fat cells and fluctuating blood sugar levels, increases insulin secretion, which leads to more fat. We have to break this cycle in order to get control of our appetites. Luckily, by eating the right kinds of foods, at the right times, and avoiding the wrong kinds of foods, we can do this. Exercise is also very helpful in the quest to control hormonal hunger. Read How To Tame Insulin to Lose Weight.

Hormones and neurotransmitters in the brain act together to affect our mood and behavior. Sometimes we overeat due to stress. Food can be calming, even addictive. Read How to Control Stress to Fight Fat.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter involved in regulation of mood, sleep, and appetite. Certain foods affect serotonin levels and may be calming. We often use carbohydrate foods to soothe our nerves if we feel stressed out or to lift our mood if we are depressed.

High sugar foods have even been found to stimulate areas of the brain that feed addictive behavior. These are the same areas of the brain that are influenced by drugs of abuse, like cocaine. No wonder we have such a hard time avoiding sugary snacks!

Hunger is a Basic Drive

Ignoring basic drives like sleep, thirst, and even sex can lead to overeating. We are not always aware of these basic urges and their influences on behavior. But these natural urges are firmly embedded in our brains. Hormones affect our behavior and ensure our survival by making sure we drink, eat, get enough rest and restorative sleep, and procreate.

When we are thirsty, we need to drink – water, that is. Many of us do not drink enough, and are not aware of our thirst until we are parched. We may be confusing our thirst with hunger.

Sleep deprivation leads to weight gain. Hormonal influences are to blame. Read more about sleep and its connection to weight loss. Losing weight may be as simple as getting enough sleep every night!

Even the sex drive, if not met, may lead to unconscious overeating. Something in our brain tells us we are not satisfied. However, we are certainly not advocating inappropriate or promiscuous sexual relations!

Environmental triggers

When you see an array of appetizing dishes at a buffet, are you driven to eat even when you are not hungry? When a co-worker brings in doughnuts, do you have trouble saying no, even when you just ate breakfast? When you see an advertisement on TV showing a picture of a burger and fries, does your mouth water? Do you jump up and run to the kitchen, or to the closest drive-in?

It is no accident that fast food establishments run radio and TV commercials at meal times. They may trigger you to suddenly decide that you “just gotta have” pizza for dinner, and you start dialing. Your mouth may begin watering just like Pavlov’s dog at the sound of a recognizable theme song for a fast food chain.

You need to identify the triggers in your life that lead to eating the wrong foods or at the wrong times. Then devise a plan to avoid them.

Here are some ideas. During food commercials, look away or change the channel. Avoid hunger by eating small frequent meals and snacks. And carry a healthy treat in your pocket or purse that you can pull out when you are feeling hungry.

You may want to approach this problem by actually making a list of your usual triggers, and then brainstorming strategies. Write them down and keep your list hand.

You may benefit from making affirmation statements that you can repeat to yourself or visualize. This may be a powerful technique to get you through difficult situations. Here are some suggestions of positive self-talk: “I eat only healthy foods.” “I love veggies.” “I am not hungry so I am waiting until mealtime to eat.”

Habit and choices

Habit and cultural influences are one of the most common reasons that lead us to eat too much. It seems as if there is always a family get-together, a celebration or holiday, a vacation, a party, or a football game. Food is often the center of our social gatherings. And we look upon food as something that must taste good and that must provide pleasure and satisfaction to everyone.

Feeding your family nourishing foods in out hectic society can be challenging. We often resort to convenience and processed foods. We love to dine out for dinner and hit the drive-in for lunch. We think of food as a form of entertainment rather than as a source of fuel for our bodies. Yet we are now realizing that this type of eating is making us fat. Something needs to change!

Emotional overeating

Some individuals are driven to eat for hidden emotional reasons. Despite their best attempts to lose weight, they may have difficulty controlling their appetites, especially when feeling stressed. We may not always be aware of our underlying emotions and triggers that cause us to eat more than we should.

If you think that your emotions are driving you to overeat, then you may need specialized help. You may find benefit from a weight loss program that is directed toward emotional overeating. We have some suggestions you should strongly consider. Of course, if you feel that that you have a serious psychiatric problem, then you need to see your doctor right away.

Here are some of the best programs available for a nominal amount of money.

1. The Key to Successful Weight Loss at www.conquerovereating.com – This strategy teaches you to use the Emotional Freedom Technique, a form of “psychological acupuncture” that involves positive affirmations along with a specific tapping technique. Devised by a therapist adept at EFT, the program is on a CD that combines an ebook along with an interactive computer program. It is designed especially for those who experience compulsions to eat because of negative emotions. (Unfortunately we do not always recognize that our overeating is emotionally driven.) The program can help you erase food cravings and support weight loss when you fully participate.
2. Overeaters Anonymous – www.oa.org. This is a support group organization that utilizes a 12-step program to deal with food addiction behaviors. They suggest using a qualified health professional to provide a plan of eating as well.
3. The Personality Type Diet – Offered by www.diet.com and its Medical Director, Dr. Robert Kushner, this is one of the most affordable programs on the net. It uses a lengthy questionnaire designed to understand your specific personality and lifestyle choices. The program provides personalized nutritional and fitness guidelines, recipes and meals, and exercise advice. Dr. Kushner provides a weekly motivation message and he can provide private consultation via email for specialized help. You can also buy his book, Dr. Krushner’s Personality Type Diet.
4. Online Diet Programs - The best programs provide education and counseling regarding eating behaviors and they way you handle your emotions. For the many of us, these online programs are quite effective and affordable.

Eat Only When You are Hungry

The trick we need to remember is to eat only when we are truly hungry. To do this we need to learn to understand ourselves and what makes us tick. We need to recognize the triggers that lead us to overeat. Then we can plan strategies to control our appetite and lose weight.

How to eat to control appetite

Yes, indeed. The type of food you eat can affect your appetite. Eat the right foods and you can sail through the day without giving into cravings or overeating. But eat the wrong foods, and you may find yourself hungry, cranky, and tired. You may find yourself eating that doughnut that you swore you would avoid. Or you may pig out at dinner, or give in to the munchies while watching TV in the evening.

The food that we do eat needs to satisfy the basic hunger drive. How does the brain know when we are satisfied? Hormones are the messengers that connect our brain and digestive tract, our fat cells, and muscle cells. They travel through the bloodstream to all of the cells of the body. The types of food we eat affect hormone levels, which in turn affect our brain chemistry, our feelings, and our behavior.

The right food choices allow you to achieve your ideal body weight.

To control your hunger, eat foods that provide bulk or protein. Bulk is provided by either high fiber or high water content. These provide positive feedback control to tell your brain and stomach that you are full.

Eat the right fats (omega-3 fat-burning fats) which turn on the fat-burning switch. However, we need to avoid a high fat diet in general, since new research indicates that fats do not satisfy the appetite as well as carbohydrates do.

Pick foods that are high in the Satiety Index, a measurement of appetite satisfaction.

Lower carbohydrate diets offer a huge benefit when trying to control appetite. Most dieters who have followed low carbohydrate diets have been amazed how easy it is for them to eat less. Many cravings are eliminated after several days of avoiding starchy carbohydrates. The insulin-lowering effects of the low-carbohydrate diet can be answer to a prayer for those who have struggled to stick with a conventional lower calorie diet.

The wrong foods make you hungry.

Avoid high glycemic foods in general, which contain a lot of sugars or starches. These raise your blood sugar and your insulin levels. When you eat these foods, you will likely be hungry again in an hour or two and have more trouble controlling your appetite for the rest of the day.

Avoid processed foods with manufactured fats, non-food ingredients, flavor enhancers, artificial sweeteners, stabilizers, and colors. Some of these seem to activate our appetite centers in the brain and cause us to overeat. MSG is a flavor enhancer found in many processed foods which is thought to be an “excitotoxin” to the brain. Unfortunately, MSG is not always listed as an individual ingredient on food labels. Staying away from processed foods as much as possible is the safest way to avoid these unnatural chemicals.

Controlling portion size is an effective way to lose weight. Eating small portions more frequently is more effective for weight loss than eating the same amount of calories but at having only a few large meals. You may be pleasantly surprised that your appetite is satisfied with smaller portions. And when you eat less, your insulin levels normalize, and your appetite is easier to control. Here are some helpful tricks to reduce portion sizes:

• Use smaller plates and bowls, and avoid returning for second helpings.
• You may benefit from actually measuring out your portion sizes. Use measuring cups or even a scale for accuracy. Over time, you will develop the ability to estimate portion sizes more accurately and will not need to measure.
• If you are tempted to overeat at mealtime, keep leftover food out of sight. Instead of placing serving bowls on the dinner table where they can trigger you to indulge in second portions, leave the extra food back on the stove or store in the fridge.
• It may take you 20 – 30 minutes to realize that you are satisfied after a meal. So eat slowly, eat one helping only, and wait. Tell yourself that if you are truly hungry after waiting for 30 minutes, then you can consider a small, satisfying snack.
• Start your meal with soup or salad to fill you up. You will be less likely to overeat at your meal. Make sure that the soup is a clear broth-based soup. Cream soups are often high in calories.
• Eat slowly and enjoy every bite. Pay more attention to your food than to the TV or other distractions.
• Eat a high protein snack 30 – 60 before the meal. Suggestions include - a few raw nuts, a boiled egg, low-fat cottage cheese, or shrimp cocktail.
• Fill up on bulky foods – raw vegetables with hummus dip, salads, popcorn, apple slices.
• Eat at home. Typical restaurant servings may include enough calories for 3 or 4 people! Restaurant foods also often contain large amounts of fat, which add taste and calories, but may stimulate the appetite. You are much more likely to eat too much when you eat out. When you decide to dine out, share your plate with someone else. Or ask the waiter to put half of it in a “to go” bag, even before you are served.

Supplements to Control Appetite

Diet pills are all the rage. “Hope in a bottle.” Unfortunately, some of you who seek these out may have unrealistic expectations.

Some supplements may be helpful in the battle of the bulge. There are research studies that provide evidence of this. But we want to discourage the reliance on a “magic bullet” approach to weight loss. And we must tell you that no weight loss over-the-counter supplements are approved by the FDA. No one is allowed to claim that you can lose weight by taking these.

Consider the information available on these supplements which may have an effect on appetite.

• Hoodia gordonii – The secret of African Bushman has been exposed to the world. Now everyone is clamoring for this “new” appetite suppressant.
• 5HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan) helps the brain make serotonin, the neurotransmitter most commonly associated with appetite.
• Pine nut oil (pinolenic acid) – An oil extracted from the Korean pine nut can send the “I’m full” signal to the brain. Preliminary research suggests an appetite-suppressant affect on both rats and people.
• Glucomannan is a fiber from the Asian konjac plant. When water is added to glucomannan, it swells many times its size and may create a sense of stomach fullness.
• Garcinia cambogia is an Indian fruit which contains hydroxycitric acid (HCA). Various mechanisms of action have been proposed, from affecting appetite to effects on metabolism. HCA may block fat absorption from the digestive tract as well as prevent carbohydrates from being stored as fat.

Combination Pills to Suppress Appetite

There seem to be hundreds of combination pills available for weight loss. Since many of these supplements have only small effects by themselves, combining several of them into one pill does make sense. That way, you may get more bang for your buck.

How do you evaluate them? Do they work? Which are the best?

Many contain a number of ingredients which may show evidence of some benefit in research studies. However, the overwhelming majority of combination pills have not been tested. Many combo pills are marketed without listing the actual amounts of the key ingredients. They may say they contain Hoodia, but don’t really tell you how much Hoodia. Some may only contain a trace but not enough to make any difference to your appetite. Be careful of falling for these marketing ploys.

We recommend that you choose only those supplements that:

• List each ingredient
• List the amount (mg.) of each ingredient
• Use ingredients that are backed up by research
• Use a dose of the active ingredient that is similar to the dose shown effective by research
• Are available through a trusted source
• Contain standardized extracts of herbs

Some combination pills that contain ingredients with documented benefits:

• NSI’s Actislim contains pine nut oil in combination with Green Tea Extract and HCA, the active ingredient in Garcinia cambogia
• NSI’s Hoodia Glucomannan Complex combines Hoodia with glucomannan

The Basics