Five strategies to reduce apetite
There is a reality about weight loss that people need to be aware of.
Losing weight requires you to feel hungry from time to time. There is no
way to lose weight without feeling some degree of hunger. Believe me, I
have exhaustively explored this issue. I have tried appetite
suppressants. I have tried food combinations. I have tried meal-timing
strategies. I have tried just about everything natural under the sun to
eliminate those hunger pangs and food cravings that you get when you are
attempting to lose weight and there is nothing that completely eliminates those cravings. Hoodia gordonii helps, as I've stated in previous articles, but it by no means turns off your hunger like a light switch.
There are many strategies that help reduce hunger: avoiding refined carbohydrates, getting plenty of natural sunlight on your skin, drinking large amounts of water on a regular basis, and getting plenty of fiber in your diet. But there is nothing that absolutely eliminates hunger. The bottom line is that if you are going to lose weight,
you are going to experience hunger at one time or another. This is
especially true if you, like me, engage in strength training. Nothing
gets your appetite whipped into a fury like the leg press.
The key in all this is realizing there's nothing wrong with experiencing
hunger from time to time. It's a normal human response to a decrease in
your consumption of calories.
The problem that most people encounter when they feel hungry is they
feel it's some sort of emergency. It feels like they are dying or
wasting away when, in fact, the body is just signaling that it doesn't have enough calories to add new fat to the fat stores
it's already carrying around. The first feelings of hunger are really
more of a false alarm than anything to be concerned about. At least from
a logical point of view. (But when you feel like you're starving, logic
goes out the window, right?)
A person who is aiming for a low percentage of body fat learns to manage their hunger so that it becomes something they can live with. In my own experience with losing weight -- and remember, I dropped 50 pounds of body fat using absolutely no drugs or pharmaceuticals of any kind -- I found that there are several "lifesaving" foods
and beverages you can turn to when you are feeling intense hunger pains
but you don't want to consume foods that add significant calories to
your daily intake.
These foods and drinks are what I call emergency appetite control foods. What these foods and beverages have in common is that they make your stomach
feel like it's full of calorie-rich foods. But in reality, you are
filling your stomach with foods that contain almost no calories or
carbohydrates. This way, even though your stomach is full, you are not
adding calories to your intake. But your body is temporarily fooled into
thinking you've just woofed down a triple-plate buffet.
In other words, if you eat two cups of cashews versus two cups of cabbage, your body can't really tell the difference for the first few minutes. Your stomach will turn off the hunger signals thinking you have eaten a large quantity of food regardless of whether you are eating
cabbage or cashews, but in fact the cabbage may only contain 20
calories while the cashews contain as much as 900 or even 1000 calories.
Two cups of cashews provides probably half the calories you need for
the entire day, whereas two cups of cabbage provides virtually no
calories whatsoever. You burn off the cabbage just digesting it. (Raw
cabbage is, in fact, an outright cure for ulcers. But that's another
article...)
Emergency appetite control food #1
Fresh drinking water. That's right: water is a powerful appetite suppressant
and if you drink an 8-ounce glass of water when you first start feeling
hungry, you will find that it suppresses your appetite in nearly every
case. If you just drink a full glass of water and have the discipline to
wait 10 minutes, you will find that your appetite is either completely
gone or dramatically reduced.
Your next choice, if water does not do the trick for you, is to purchase a 32-ounce quart of natural, organic vegetable broth. You can get organic vegetable broth from health food stores, or even many of the finer grocery stores that have a natural health section. The key is to get organic vegetable broth that does not contain excitotoxins. These are ingredients that cause neurological disorders because they overexcite and harm nerve cells. Those ingredients are MSG, yeast extract, autolyzed yeast extract, hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, and other similar ingredients. Warning: watch out for broth products made by Kitchen Basics. They claim their products don't contain MSG
or yeast extract, but when I tried their product, I experienced a
massive "MSG headache" that tells me it contains free glutamic acid that
isn't listed on the label.
You can also choose organic chicken
broth if you prefer the flavor of chicken. Once you have that, simply
empty the entire quart into a very large bowl, heat it up and eat it
like soup. You will probably be unable to get through the entire bowl
without feeling full. And how many calories have you consumed? Not 900
like you get in two cups of cashews or 1200 like in a big Mac, not even
300 calories like you get from a typical protein
bar, instead you get 20 calories only. That's right: you can feel full
on 20 calories by drinking an entire quart of organic vegetable broth.
Emergency appetite control food #2
The next best strategy is to turn to green vegetables such as lettuce, cabbage, bokchoy, and other leafy vegetables. They have so few calories that in my own diet, I don't even count them. That's right: I allow myself to eat an unlimited quantity of any green leafy vegetables without even recording the number of calories I have consumed. In my book, they are "free" foods.
It takes just as many calories for your body to digest them as you get
out of the foods themselves. And yet at the same time, they fill your
stomach and make you feel full, turning off the hunger signals in your brain. You may have also heard these called "negative calorie foods."
You can consume these green leafy vegetables in a couple of ways. Most
people don't like to eat them plain. Instead, you can fill up a very
large bowl (I am talking about something the size of a family dinner salad bowl) with lettuce and salad greens, then add only 100 calories worth of salad dressing.
You will want to find some of the lower calorie salad dressings out
there, and of course you want to avoid MSG, high-fructose corn syrup,
and other ingredients in salad dressings. There are many very good salad
dressings that only have 25 calories per tablespoon. Using those
dressings, you can put four tablespoons of salad dressing on your salad
and start munching away. In a few minutes, you will feel quite full and
yet will have only consumed 100 calories that count. Remember the
calories for the green leafy vegetables are free. You only count the
calories of the salad dressing itself. This is an excellent way to fill
your stomach and turn off your hunger signals while only giving yourself
100 calories.
Another strategy that uses green leafy vegetables is to stir fry them in
a pan with no oils whatsoever. Just use water and flavoring such as onions, garlic and soy sauce. Simply stir fry all the green vegetables you want, add the spices and eat it. I do not count the calories in onions or garlic either, nor do I count the calories in soy
sauce since none of these spices have very high calorie density. As a
result, that entire meal goes in your stomach and counts for zero
calories. Once again, it's a great way to curb you appetite without
consuming large quantities of calorie rich food.
Emergency appetite control food #3
This is one of my favorites: I call it my "instant banana pudding" recipe, but of course, it's nothing at all like store-bought pudding. You'll need a blender for this one.
Add a quart of soy milk to the blender, then a couple of scoops of unsweetened banana-flavored simply natural spirutein soy protein powder.
Add stevia powder as the sweetener. I also toss in some supergreens
powders, but you may want to avoid that at first, since it's an acquired
taste (and it turns your banana pudding green).
If you were to blend this up, you'd have a banana-flavored soy protein
shake. But we're not done yet: while the blender is running, put in
about 1/2 tablespoon of guar gum powder, plus another 1/2 tablespoon of
xanthan gum powder. These are thickeners. Within seconds, your blender
will start whining and the whole mixture will attain the consistency of
pudding. Now just pour it into a bowl and eat it like banana pudding!
The mixture has near-zero carbs, no sugars,
and is high in soy protein. Plus, it tastes great and fills you up
fast. This is my favorite choice for a late-night appetite emergency.
You can get guar gum and xanthan gum at a health food store, or order online at a vitamin supplier.
Emergency appetite control food #4:
The last food is pickles. That's right, pickles. But I am not talking
about the pickles you find at a regular grocery store. Nearly all
pickles you find in grocery stores contain artificial food coloring.
They have a yellowish tint to them that has been added through the use
of chemical colors.
This is not a natural ingredient and so it is something you want to
avoid purchasing. Instead, you want to buy completely natural pickles that are made without artificial colors
or flavors and that have an extremely low calorie count as well. An
entire jar of pickles may give you only 50 calories or so and yet they
can be quite satisfying and take up a considerable amount of space in
your stomach, thereby turning off your appetite cravings.
Just don't buy pickles containing any added sugars or artificial colors. Some pickles are, believe it or not, loaded with sugar. They're more like candied cucumbers than pickles. Read the ingredients labels to be sure what you're getting.
By the way, while you're eating pickles, it's an excellent time to take some calcium and mineral supplements, too. The acidity of the pickles will accelerate the absorption of calcium.
Emergency appetite control food #5:
Here's an easy one: apples. Yep, apples. Eat the largest apple
you can find. Sure, you'll get some calories and some carbs, but the
apple will fill you up for quite a while, and that will stop you from
eating far more calorie-dense foods.
Let me explain why this is such an effective strategy. If you're crazy
hungry, it's very easy to reach for some processed foods (bag of chips,
for example) and start munching away until you've consumed 1000 calories
or more. And that's about half the total calories you need for the
entire day!
But I dare you to try to eat 1000 calories worth of apples. It's
impossible. You'll fill up even before reaching 400 calories, probably.
Apples are great appetite suppressing foods because the bulky fiber
fills up your stomach and turns off your appetite control hormones
before you overeat. Plus, apples contain various phytonutrients,
vitamins and minerals. They're even a decent source of folic acid.
How to further suppress your appetite:
One more supplementary strategy to all of this is that you can multiply
the appetite suppressing effects of all foods by swallowing a couple of
fiber tablets before you begin eating. Fiber tablets or capsules would
include psyllium husk, glucomannan, oat bran fiber, apple pectin fiber,
or other natural fibers. You can find fiber supplements at any health
food store. Be careful to watch the dosage of the fiber and drink plenty
of water as you take these pills because without adequate water, they
can gum up in your digestive tract and in extreme cases, they can block your digestive tract. So, you want to drink plenty of water with them.
By consuming both the fiber and the water before you start eating,
you've already significantly turned off your appetite. Then by consuming
these extremely low caloric density foods and beverages, you will
further suppress your appetite. You can get an entire meal into your
stomach for 100 calories or less and you can trick your brain into
thinking you consumed an all-you-can-eat buffet.
But there's a catch to all this: in about an hour or so, your body will
figure out that there isn't much energy in the food you've consumed.
Your hunger will begin to return, but at least you delayed the onset of
that hunger by an hour or more. If you combine this with physical
exercise, you can delay it even further because the very act of
exercising releases stored body fat and converts it back into blood sugar, which raises your blood sugar level and suppresses your appetite cravings.
You can also extend the effect of this by taking appetite suppressant
supplements. Hoodia gordonii is one I've reviewed quite extensively, and
it is currently increasing in popularity. My own experience is that hoodia tincture can help, but even hoodia doesn't shut off appetite completely.
Also, you don't want to starve yourself by eating these 100-calorie meals
all day long. Remember, starvation is the fastest way to train your
body to hold on to body fat. These are just items to get you past a
difficult time when your appetite is unbearably intense.
Each day, you still need to get nutrition into your body in the form of
whole foods and whole food supplements. The kind of meals I consume are
soups made with quinoa, salads with low-calorie dressing, raw fruits and
nuts, or avocado shakes made by blending avocado with soy milk and stevia. Of course, I also consume my superfood shakes on a regular basis. They are made from superfoods green powders such as Berry Green or The Ultimate Meal.
Overall, keep in mind that weight loss
takes effort. You will experience moments of intense hunger, and these
low-calorie, filling foods are one excellent way to get through a
difficult time without packing on the pounds.
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