Hunger Fullness and Weight Loss

Long Gaps Between Meals

The feeling of hunger that is subsequently followed by eating small meals and feeling relatively full appears to be the best and simple daily strategy to ward off the extra flab. This eating pattern helps maintaining a consistency in the blood sugars level. The energy levels remain high and the body’s metabolism (basal metabolic rate) remains in a heightened state. Most importantly, this prevents us from binging on high caloric snacks.

Weight control not just depends upon how much we eat, when we eat but also what we eat. As a practice ideally, we must eat every three hours and consume small portions throughout the day. Also it is very essential to keep a gap of at least two hours between dinner and sleep.

Hunger makes one pounce on any kind of food that we can reach upon. Although junk food subsides our hunger but satisfaction lacks and we tend to overeat. Eating every three hours never makes us feel extremely hungry, therefore we never overeat the following meal. Jorge Cruise, a renowned fitness trainer who created and popularized the 3 – Hour diet states by not eating every 3 hours one would turn on their body’s starvation protection mechanism (SPM). When this happens the body conserves fat and burns muscles, thus slowing the metabolism.

Crossing the Fullness Threshold

It is always said that one should only eat till the point when we start feeling almost full, but still a room left for one little snack. Overeating is eating more than the body’s ability to digest at any point of time. There exists a very thin line between eating the right amount and overeating. And once we cross that line, our senses go numb and we tend to eat 5 to 6 times more than our capacity.

Concentration and alertness while eating are a prerequisite to avoid crossing the overeating threshold. Learning to eat to a point where we feel good and satisfied is essential. The act of food consumption should be a sweet and pleasant experience, where our body feels light and fresh post meal.

Not all of us are aware about the fact that our brain takes time to signal us the point of fullness. By the time we get the signal, we have usually overeaten and are left with a bloated tummy. Try and make it a habit to eat till stomach is three quarters full.

Emotional Eating

Eating while socializing, watching television or as a way to overcome boredom or depression can make us overeat easily. Emotional eating is eating without hunger. All extra food going in the stomach each day without that extra bit of exercise makes the body pile up in the form of fat and excess weight.

Consumption of refined foods

Carbohydrate rich (low glycemic index foods) meals produce steady, lower levels of insulin being released into the blood stream which reduces the level of fat storage in the fat cells.

Whole grains, lentils, fruits and vegetables due to their high fibre content decrease our appetite and the urge to eat high caloric foods. They prevent sudden surges in blood sugar and render a long standing feeling of fullness.

On the contrary, simple carbohydrate foods like sweets, chocolates, biscuits, cookies, refined foods, provide only temporary satisfaction. They activate the pleasure centers in the brain by triggering the release of serotonin and beta-endorphins which gives us temporary pleasure and we tend to overdo on them. But very soon we become hungry again.

Easy Dietary Do’s to Overcome Overeating

Serve smaller portions at a time
Make high fibre whole grain foods (wheat, oats, broken wheat, and millets), seeds, nuts, fruits, salads, curd over chips, fried foods, white flour based foods, biscuits your choice of in-between foods.
Pulses, sprouts, curds, eggs should be taken in between meals.
Eat slowly and deliberately.
Avoid picking food from the plate while still in the mouth.
Keep a diet diary maintain a daily food record.

We must develop a clear understanding of our personal eating cycle and our balanced consumption needs. Balance, variety and moderation will help one get into shape stay increase the age of youthfulness and longevity.

Eating with a sense of feeding the body with nutritious wholesome food will prohibit us from overeating and would help us make wiser food choices.

Ways to Deal with Hunger

One should eat more lean proteins. Higher protein intake in the diet like (low-fat fish, chicken, sprouts) helps blunt hunger
One should eat lot of fruits. Going by the body physiology, when liver glycogen gets emptied, a signal is sent to the brain from the liver which stimulates hunger. Replenishing liver glycogen helps in making people feel full. Fruit has a component called fructose works to refill liver glycogen. Hence its important to include whole fruits in the daily diet. Remember, not the fruit juice, but the whole fruit intake is must.
One should eat lot of fiberous diet. Fiber can help with hunger in at least two ways. The physical stretching of the stomach walls is one of the signals about how much food should be eaten. Fiberous food also slows gastric emptying, So one should eat lot of vegetables, and salads. Mummy is always right when she forces us to munch cucumber instead of chocolates.
Its important to have moderate amount of fat in daily diet. Most of us have often experienced the aphoric feeling of food sticking our ribs. That’s mainly due to the fat intake in the diet which to a certain extent is very important as it delays gastric emptying and therefore cuts down frequent hunger pangs.
Daily exercising is strictly must to be in shape. You cannot have the pleasure of munching on loads of unbalanced diet without physical workouts and still dream of that hourly carved figure.
Fasting once a week is a very good method of relaxing stomach muscles. Eating small meals throughout the day mainly comprising of fibrous products helps controlling hunger urge and relaxes stomach muscles. Also it allows the body to absorb the fat deposits.
Drinking more and more water is probably the most simplest way to stop hunger and lose weight.

Do eat slowly as the same allows our brain to catch the fullness signals from our stomach.