Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. It is time for the weekly episode. Before I get into that, just reminder, continue to leave reviews, continue to share this with people, continue to Get this information out to the people who can use it the most. I appreciate you in doing that.
Speaker: The only way that podcast grow is through people sharing it. If you find this information valuable to you, then there's probably other people out there who you could probably use this information as well. And you sharing it with them just helps to grow the show, but also just helps to get more people the information and practical advice that they actually need, which has always been the entire goal of this show and will continue to be the goal of this show. So I appreciate your part in helping me doing that.
Speaker: The topic for this week, why you always feel hungry and how you can actually fix that. The reason hunger is such an important thing that you need to understand and learn how to manage is because if you can't manage hunger, you're always going to struggle to lose fat, to keep that fat off, or even just to maintain a healthy weight.
Speaker: I looked it up before this podcast, how many people in the world are either overweight or obese, 2.5 billion people, which is absolutely insane. And when you boil down obesity, when you boil down people struggling with their weight, there's lots of different factors that come into it. But there's one simple thing that if you can learn how to do this,
Speaker: you will be in a better spot than most people. you can learn how to actually manage hunger, how to work with your body rather than trying to fight against it, understand some of these methods that you can use, understand how to build meals that are actually going to keep you full and satiated, understand some of the lifestyle factors that actually affect your hunger more than you probably realize, this stuff starts to become easier.
Speaker: But when you can't do those things, you're always going to struggle with gaining weight, you're going to struggle with... energy you're going to struggle with that metabolism starting to down regulate if you're doing things that are not really helping you to manage that hunger if you're approaching this in the wrong way you're always going to struggle with those things so i wanted to do this podcast because i think most people really understand you know how to lose weight they understand that they shouldn't be overeating they understand some of those basics but they don't understand some of the methods that they can use to actually help themselves out when it comes to losing fat when it comes to keeping it off when it comes to actually managing their hunger you need to understand some of these things so that you can be successful long term. So in this podcast, we'll get into a little bit about why hunger actually happens, a better way to think about hunger, because hunger isn't necessarily a bad thing, which I think people oftentimes think that it is. It's not. We'll talk a little bit about that and then ultimately give you a bunch of different strategies that you can use to manage hunger so you can lose fat, so you can keep it off, so you can prevent that unwanted weight gain in the future.
Speaker: Kicking this thing off, why hunger actually happens. So our body sends us signals when we need energy. The problem with this now is that energy, AKA food, calories is everywhere. We no longer have to go out and hunt our own food. And so,
Speaker: Finding food, getting enough calories is not a problem that it used to be, but our brain still functions on that same way that it used to thousands of years ago when calories and food wasn't always available.
Speaker: So now we get those signals and we get hunger and we're eating things that are high in calories we're eating things that are highly processed and it's just very easy to overeat and when food is all around when there's things that taste super good when there's highly palatable foods it's just very easy to overeat and when you overeat you eventually start to gain weight you start to have issues with your health you start to get too much body fat all those different things so understanding that It's a little bit different now. So you have to learn to manage these things. And I think there's some very practical things that you can start to do to help yourself out. But just understanding that basic part of this is that even when you have hunger, it doesn't necessarily mean that hunger is a bad thing. And I think that people often think that if they have any kind of hunger, like it's a bad thing. But
Speaker: As you start to try things like fat loss, as you start to focus more on your health, as you start to make better food choices, you start to realize that having a little bit of hunger is actually not a bad thing.
Speaker: When it comes to hunger, you need to understand that there's differences between hunger and there's differences between cravings. I think a lot of times people will interchange these things and say things like I'm hungry when actually they're just feeling a craving. Craving is more of like a mental thing. So you're thinking about food Maybe there's something sweet or savory or there's a dessert or some sort of favorite food that you haven't had in a while and you have this craving for those things.
Speaker: That is different than physical hunger. When you have hunger, like physical hunger, you have those sensations like your stomach feels empty or maybe your stomach is growling, maybe you're low energy. And so I think it really comes down to understanding the difference between these things and also just understanding what your goals are. I think there's nothing wrong with satisfying those cravings sometimes, but if you do have maybe some fat loss goals or maybe you're just having some intense cravings all the time, you don't necessarily have to give into those cravings.
Speaker: There will be times where you absolutely want to, like you want to have the dessert, you want to have the favorite food, you want to have that. craving that you've been thinking about for a while. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I think if you're always giving in to these cravings with just the food environment that we're in now, where there's crazy amounts of food, there's super tasty stuff, you have all these very high calorie, highly palatable things, if you're always constantly giving in to different cravings, you're going to struggle with being able to lose weight, and you're going to struggle with being able to keep weight off, and not have unwanted weight gain. So I think it's important to really understand the difference between those two things. Hunger and cravings are two different things.
Speaker: With that being said, an easy way to tell the difference between these two things so that you're not constantly feeling like you need to be eating If you are actually hungry, there's a couple of different things that you can do to help you tell the difference between that. So one of them is called the apple test.
Speaker: If you're actually hungry, just think to yourself in this moment, like say, i really want some food. Maybe you have some sort of craving or whatever. And you just ask yourself, am I hungry enough right now to eat an apple? If the answer is no, you're probably just having a craving and you're not really actually all that hungry.
Speaker: But if you are, if you ask yourself, would I eat an apple right now? Am I hungry enough to eat an apple? That's probably a good sign that you're actually feeling what is hunger. The other one is just use a 10 minute test. So if you have some sort of craving or you feel like you're hungry, just give it 10 minutes. If 10 minutes passes and you still really feel like you want that thing, then maybe that is some hunger or maybe it is even a craving and you give yourself 10, 15 minutes that passes and you still really want to have that thing. then you can have that thing. But I think a lot of times people are just so quick to grab something when they feel just the slightest bit of a craving or maybe even the slightest bit of just a hunger. But you learn throughout dieting, throughout really trying to manage hunger, throughout trying some of these things that you don't always need to have food
Speaker: immediately the moment that you feel a little bit of hunger. So using the Apple test or just giving yourself a little bit of time can be a super easy way to start to distinguish between those two things. Am I actually hungry? Should I give my body some food, some energy here? Or is this just a craving, something that I don't really need to give into right now?
Speaker: When it comes to your body and managing hunger, your body will start to send signals to you when you are hungry. And this is controlled by ghrelin, which is known as the hunger hormone. So there's different times where your hunger is going to increase. So anytime that you're in a fat loss phase, when you're giving your body less energy, less calories,
Speaker: Sometimes that hunger is going to start to increase, which is normal because your body is not getting the energy that it needs. So it sends that signal to you. Hey, give me some more food. I need some more energy. We don't want to be getting too low in food because again, that is the way that our brain is wired from thousands of years ago.
Speaker: Your body wants to make sure that you're getting enough energy, you're getting enough fuel so that it can do all the things it needs to do and ultimately so that it can survive. But again, now we live in a time when that's not really an issue. So understanding that hunger is probably going ramp up a little bit when you're in a fat loss phase, perfectly normal, perfectly natural. The other thing that you need to understand when it comes to hunger is that it differs between people. So different people have differences in their hunger and satiety hormones like ghrelin and leptin. So some people have higher signals with those things, which means that they get hungrier. or they don't stay full and satisfied as long, which kind of sucks because that makes it easier to be, to eat more and to potentially gain weight.
Speaker: There's differences in things like food noise, which is basically how much you think about food. There's differences in cravings. There's differences in just how somebody responds to food. So certain people respond differently to food. And you can see this through different studies, like people's brains light up in different ways when they're exposed to food, which again, if you're a person who responds really highly to food like you really like food you really love food that sort of thing then that can make it easier to overeat so understanding some of these things can help you if that is you genetics obviously play a role like they do in everything else even things like dieting things like weight loss things like stress things like your food environment your habits all those things play a role so
Speaker: As these things start to happen throughout your life, this can make managing hunger a little bit more difficult. But I think, again, if you can understand some of these things and you can better prepare for these things, you can manage these things a little bit better. I think a prime example of this when it comes to why or sometimes when hunger is ramping up is like if you lose a significant amount of weight, that hunger and your satiety signaling can increase and then decrease with satiety. So basically, as you start to lose a good amount of weight, your hunger could go up and then your satiety, how full and satiated you feel after meals can go down, which is your body giving you signals that since you just lost a bunch of weight, we need to get some energy back on, which again can make it easier to overeat.
Speaker: When you understand those things, you can plan for those things a little bit better and understand some strategies that you can use. And again, which is why using the right methods, but also when it comes to fat loss, doing it in the right way so you can sort of prevent some of those things becomes so important.
Speaker: When you think about managing hunger, I think one of the simplest things that you can think about is these GLP ones that are super popular now and probably more effective than anything we've had when it comes to losing weight. They work so well because they help to regulate your appetite. They help to curb your appetite so you don't feel like you need to eat. You don't have as much hunger sensations. And when you don't have those things, it makes it easier for people to overeat less. And now i'm not saying that you should go hop on a GLP-1 or that there's no side effects with these things or that we know exactly what these things are going do long term. But when you look at those things, that seems to be why they work so well is because they curb people's appetites.
Speaker: But there's lots of things that you can do when it comes to lifestyle factors, when it comes to building your meals, when it comes to certain fat loss strategies that can help you to manage hunger, which is why I'm going to get into those things right here.
Speaker: So when we talk about these things, there are some lifestyle factors that make a pretty big difference. And I start with these because these are the most important. You want to get these things right first before you try to go try any of the particular fat loss strategies or any other things, because if you're not getting these things right, these are always going to make it more difficult to manage hunger and to not overeat.
Speaker: So starting at the top, sleep, which is probably not a surprise to most people. But if you think about two people, one person's getting four or five hours of sleep a night. The other one's getting seven to eight hours a night. Which one do you think is going to have less hunger?
Speaker: I think we all kind of know because intuitively we've all been there. Like if you've gone through a period of time where you've been just getting really crappy sleep, you start to notice things like you have more cravings. You start to notice that maybe you feel hungrier, maybe not as satisfied. You start to notice other things like you're more stressed and your ability to regulate your emotions can be affected by this, which we know when stress or emotions start to come into the picture, a lot of people use food to regulate themselves or turn to food and have like that comfort food or different things like that. And so we all know, like if you're not getting good sleep, it's typically making fat loss and just managing hunger harder. There was a study a long time ago that I came across that made me think about sleep completely differently because when I was 22, that was when I started this whole weight loss thing. And I didn't really have the greatest sleep schedule, but again, I was 22, so I could kind of get away with those things. But this study came across and it said that people who slept less on average, they lost the same amount of weight as people who were sleeping a little bit more. But the thing was they were losing more of that weight from muscle mass versus fat.
Speaker: which obviously we know muscle is really important as you start to lose weight. So I think it just really, really drives home the point that sleep is important. Like you want to shoot for that six and a half, seven, maybe eight hours of sleep because you're going to give yourself a better chance at being able to manage hunger a little better, lose fat, all those different things. And it's important for a lot of other reasons too. We all know sleep is important, but it's just as important when it comes to managing hunger.
Speaker: Second on this list, managing stress. Stress eating is a very real thing. If you have that increase in cortisol over a long period of time, this can also start to affect appetite. Not everybody who gets stressed turns to food because some people are the opposite where they get stressed out and they kind of lose their appetite. But I think for a lot of people, stress becomes that comfort thing, that comfort food. though So like they're super stressed out. So they want to turn to food. They had a hard day at work.
Speaker: you had something hard go on in your life, you're going through a breakup, you had a family issue, whatever the case may be, food is often one of those things that people turn to when they are stressed. And you do this for a long period of time. And now that turns into a habit where you're using food to regulate yourself to make you feel comfortable to handle stress. And that can lead to weight gain over time. So practical thing for this is just to learn better ways to actually manage your stress. So whether that be Movement, whether that be whatever, it doesn't really matter. Just find different ways that you can manage stress. But I think movement or exercise is a really common one because when you are feeling those things, you probably want something to do. So having something other than food can be really useful.
Speaker: Third on this list is just to hydrate. Oftentimes you'll hear people say that you're not actually hungry, you're just thirsty. And I think that is kind of overblown a little bit. I think we can tell the difference between when we're thirsty and when we're hungry. And I think that's even something that I've said in the past, but as I've looked at these things more and as I've just talked to people and just my own experience, I don't think that's quite as big of a thing as people make it out to be. But I think just from a simple practical standpoint, if you are more hydrated, you feel better. And when you feel better, you're typically going to make better choices and different things like that. Plus, liquids can help quite a bit with just feeling more full and more satiated. So staying hydrated is a super simple thing that you can do to help yourself out with this.
Speaker: Don't make your calorie deficit too aggressive. So this is specific to losing fat or losing weight. But if you go into a big calorie deficit, if you are go from eating 2500 calories to trying to eat 1200 calories, that's a huge hit to your body and your body does not really like that. You typically want to take more of a moderate approach. So something like 20 to 30% less with a deficit is pretty solid for most people.
Speaker: There's some caveats with this. Like if you've had some experience with dieting in the past and you know how to manage hunger and you have all these skills, then you can be a little bit more aggressive with this. But I think for most people, it makes sense to do this in a more moderate way because that's ultimately going to be more sustainable and it's not going to lead to these huge increases in hunger and being able to not manage your hunger and those sorts of things last on this list is to consider a diet break or a maintenance period so if hunger continually gets worse over time diet breaks can be a huge help and this is something that i didn't really understand when i was originally losing that 75 pounds that i wanted to get off i just went straight through i didn't really take breaks i just kept going until i hit my goal
Speaker: now i'm a little bit more educated on these things i worked with a lot of people and i understand that trying to be in a diet for six months at a time for a year at a time for 15 months at a time straight is very difficult for a lot of people so it makes sense sometimes if you need to just take diet breaks take a maintenance period where you eat a little bit more you can manage that hunger you can make this a little bit more sustainable and there's two real thought process behind this so you have some people that want to just go hard go really fast deal with the hunger and get to their goal rather than trying to prolong this over time and take diet breaks because if you're taking diet breaks
Speaker: Ultimately, it's probably going to take a little bit longer. But in my experience, I found that people actually taking diet breaks have more sustainability when it comes to actually keeping the weight off long term. So if you go really hard, if you get the weight off, but then you have such a rebound effect that you're so hungry and you're just having all these struggles with being able to not control your eating once you lose that weight, that weight's going to come right back.
Speaker: In my experience, especially if your goal is to keep that weight off, then using some diet breaks, using some maintenance periods seems to be a lot better of a choice than trying to just go super hard and super aggressive and then struggling to actually keep that weight off.
Speaker: So those are some big rocks that you want to focus on to really think about how to manage hunger a little bit better. When we think about your actual food, like how do you build meals that are going to help keep you full and satiated and help to manage hunger? These are some things that you can start doing today. Like these this is the super practical part of this episode. These are some things that if you do these things it will help you to reduce your hunger and make dieting and make maintaining weight much easier the first one on this list won't be a surprise to anybody you've probably heard this before but a high protein diet higher protein equals more fullness more satiety so build all your meals around protein you want to have some sort of protein at each of your meals it's very very hard to overeat protein plus it's just really full and satiating like if you try to eat a lot of protein you're not going to find yourself overeating on these sorts of things.
Speaker: Protein snacks in between meals can be really helpful too. So like if you have your three meals a day and you're having a good source of protein, but you're still finding yourself getting a little bit hungry, you can always have some sort of high protein snack in between those meals. So like a protein bar, some cottage cheese, some Greek yogurt, some beef jerky, any of that stuff is really good because again, you're not going to find yourself overeating on these things. They're lowering calories. Plus it's going to help with just feeling more full, more satiated. So your practical tip with this is just to try to get at least 0.7 grams per pound of body weight.
Speaker: And that's going to help with keeping you more full, more satiated, managing hunger, that sort of thing. But you can also go more. So like a lot of times you'll hear people say one gram per pound of body weight, especially if you're trying to lose fat. If you find yourself being super hungry, then upping your protein is a really good thing to try. So don't be afraid to experiment with that, add a little bit more protein. And you'll probably notice that you manage hunger a little bit better that way.
Speaker: Second thing with building meals, high fiber diet. So higher fiber equals, again, more fullness, more satiety. You want to try to include some sort of fiber in most of your meals. Simple way to do that is to try to get a fruit, a veggie, or some sort of like whole grain, things that are higher in fiber to help you with just being more full, more satiated.
Speaker: Again, this is another thing that you can do between meals too. So my typical recommendation when it comes to snacking is some sort of protein or some sort of fruit. If you like vegetables, you can also throw that in. But if you're getting high protein or high fiber or both, again, you're going to give yourself the best shot at managing that hunger and not feeling so empty and depleted all the time. So a good practical thing to focus on for high fiber is to try to get at a minimum 25 grams of fiber per day and then working up from there if you can get at least 25 grams of fiber you're going to be in good shape i forget the exact statistic but i want to say it's something around like 90 or higher people don't get enough fiber so again trying to just add more fruits more vegetables more whole grains things that are going to help you get more fiber can be super useful
Speaker: Another one that's probably pretty obvious, but many people don't actually do it, is to focus more on whole foods versus highly processed foods. There was another study that I came across that has always stuck with me as well. And basically they took two groups. They had one that was eating a highly processed food diet, one that was eating a whole foods diet. The people who were eating the highly processed foods diet, they were able to eat as much as they wanted. And same thing with the whole foods diet. And then they compared how many calories these people were eating. The people eating highly processed food diet ate on average 500 calories more than the whole foods diet, which if you think about 500 calories per day, and you do that across the course of a week, that could be a pound that you're gaining every single week because you're eating highly processed foods all the time.
Speaker: I'm not against highly processed foods or eating processed foods from time to time. If you're doing those things in moderation, I do it. I just don't make it a habit of doing that too much because I just know they're super easy to overeat. There's not a ton of fiber. The calorie density in processed foods is lower, which just means that you have to eat a lot of those to actually feel full and satiated. They're just very, very easy to overeat. So my practical rule that I always use and that I recommend to clients is to use the eighty twenty rule 80% of the time you're eating your whole foods, your lean proteins, your fruits, your vegetables, all those things. And then 20% of the time, if you want to have some of that other stuff, some processed things, have some of that stuff in moderation, then you can do those things.
Speaker: Next on this list, high volume foods. This was a huge one for me. And when I say high volume foods, what I mean is just foods that you can eat large quantities of for lower calories. So if you think about, let's say fruit juice versus like a bowl of fruit, if you drink some fruit juice it's not very filling it's not really satiating but if you eat a bowl of fruit that is much more satiating so you want to think about what are types of foods that i can eat that are actually going to leave me feeling full and satiated so high volume foods things like salads soups potatoes oats lean proteins greek yogurt all those different things are really really filling and really satiating. So you want to try to eat more of those things and eat less of the things that aren't really as high in volume.
Speaker: This was a huge thing for me because I can eat a ton. So if you are somebody who is trying to lose a lot of weight, or somebody who can just eat a lot of food, like you're a volume eater, this is going to be massive for you. So like for me, at every single meal, I'm eating a big amount of protein. And i'm also eating either a big amount of fruit and a big amount of vegetables at pretty much every meal because I know that's going to help me feel full and satiated over time. If I try to eat just tiny little portions, it just doesn't work. And this is something I tried to do when I was originally losing my weight, I was just focused strictly on calories, and not really focused on like the quality of those calories and what was made up of those calories. So as long as I was hitting my calorie goal, then I was okay with it, which that is true. Like if you hit your calorie goal, you're still going to lose weight, but it's also much harder if you're eating tiny little portions and you're not really having fiber, you're not having protein, you're not having high volume foods. It just makes this more difficult over the longterm. So high volume foods is really helpful.
Speaker: Next on this list is slowing down when you eat. Full transparency, I don't do this, but it takes a while for your fullness and satiety signals to catch up. So if you eat a little bit slower, like you put your fork down in between bites, you're talking with people as you're eating, you're just eating a little bit slower, you actually give your body a chance to send those satiety and fullness signals so that you can actually feel when you are full. Because if you're eating super fast, you could eat tons and tons of food and then you get done eating and you realize like, dang, I just ate way too many calories. So if you can slow down your eating, it helps with that.
Speaker: Since I don't really do this, one thing that I always do is I just pre-portion my food out. So and I know exactly how many calories I'm getting with each meal. And I only put that amount of calories in my bowl or on my plate. And I know because going to eat that entire portion of food. Like I don't really ever leave food on my plate. So I know that if I was to try to just use this as like, going to eat slower and then just stop eating when I full, I would overeat at every single meal, I can eat so much food that it's just ridiculous. So for me, i use this instead, I just count my calories. And then I just use portion sizes and different things like that. And then I have I know exactly what I'm getting. But this is helpful with some people with just eating slower and starting to learn to listen to their body have a little bit more awareness around food and around the signals that their body is sending them so it can help with that.
Speaker: Next on this list, outside of food is just structuring your eating around your hunger. So what I mean by this is just making your diet fit to you as a person. So different people do better with different styles of eating. I think a lot of times when it comes to like dieting and just like diet culture, people will throw these like arbitrary rules out there and be like, oh, you should never eat breakfast or eat. you should eat in this certain window or you should eat six small meals a day or two large meals a day so much of that stuff just comes down to you as a person and what you actually find helpful because different eating times different eating routines different eating schedules those things can be work really well for some people and then work terribly for other people so some things to think about having a regular eating and consistent meal pattern this across the board seems to be pretty helpful for most people so eating at a similar time And then your body can start to adjust. If you've ever done like like intermittent fasting or maybe you've gone through a period of time where like you weren't really eating breakfast or anything like that, you'll notice that your body starts to adjust. Like you start to have less hunger and your body will start to just regulate a little bit. So you can play around with your meal pattern. If you're somebody who only wants to eat
Speaker: one to two really huge meals every day and that works really well for you then you can do that if you're somebody who wants to eat six small meals a day then you can do that for me personally i like eating three bigger meals and then i'll have two to three snacks every single day in between those meals and that has been really helpful for me but play around with that have some sort of eating consistent meal pattern Again, don't be so fast to just jump into something and be like, oh, I need to intermittent fast because that's what people say is best for fat loss or that's what's best for this or that. like Find what consistent meal pattern is going to work for you and play around with different styles until you really land on one that works well for you. Second thing you can do with this is just to adjust your meal size based on when you're hungry. to So some people tend to be more hungry in the morning. some more at night, some more in the middle of the day. And so you can put your bigger meals around those things to help with managing your hunger.
Speaker: If you're somebody who gets the munchies at night, then maybe you want to save some extra calories for dinner and have a bigger dinner so that you're not feeling like you need to eat a ton after you have your dinner. if you're somebody who wakes up in the morning and you're super hungry, but you're not really as hungry later in the day, then maybe you want to have a bigger breakfast.
Speaker: That's something that you can do just to play around with to, again, just manage your hunger a little bit better. And the last thing that I wanted to touch on with this is just to control your food environment. This is more of a behavioral thing than it is a nutritional thing. But some simple tips when it comes to this is you want to make sure that you're setting up yourself in your food environment to make managing hunger a little bit better and to just make the healthy choice, easy choice. So avoiding or even just like limiting some of those trigger foods. I think we all kind of have trigger foods. Like if we have certain things, we know that it's really hard for us to stop. or we don't do well with moderation with certain things. So those are probably things that you want to eat less of, or maybe even avoid for a certain period of time. Like if you're in a fat loss phase, then maybe you want to avoid some of these foods and not have these things as readily available because you know that you're just going to tend to overeat. This is for me, like, this is like chips. Like if I have chips in my house,
Speaker: I'm going to crush so many calories when it comes to those chips because it's just too easy to overeat those things. So I don't really buy those things anymore. Like I'll still have those things if I go to a social event or if I go out to eat and there's like chips and salsa or like something like that, I'll absolutely have that stuff because I still enjoy it, but I just don't buy them.
Speaker: So by not buying those things, I'm not struggling with trying to moderate those things or have those things in my house and always have to use willpower against those things so try to avoid some of those things or at the very least just limit some of those things keep highly palatable foods less accessible. So in your house, it probably makes sense to keep less of that stuff that's really easy to overeat out of your house and keep more of the stuff that makes it easier to manage hunger, to lose fat, to make healthy choices in your house. Or at the very least, keep those things out of sight. So keep them in the cupboard, keep less of those things, that sort of thing. It just puts a little bit of friction in between you and those things that are probably not helping your goals all that much and makes it
Speaker: easier to make that healthy decision. Again, any time that you can make it easier to make the healthier decision, it's going to help in the long term. So again, that you're not just relying strictly on willpower because you can do it for a while, but it just makes sense. If you want this to be a long-term thing, if you want this to be sustainable, why wouldn't you help yourself out so that you don't have to rely on willpower? Because it's not a great strategy to just continually rely on willpower for a long period of time.
Speaker: And the last one with this is just to have a plan. Meal prepping, having some sort of plan with your meals, with your snacks is a really, really easy thing you can do. And I've just seen it time and time again for people that I work with who have a plan or who meal prep. They just do so much better than people who try to wing it on the fly. Because as I said, in the environment that we're in now,
Speaker: with just how many options there are with convenience stores, with fast food, with restaurants, with all these different things. It's just so easy to overeat. So have a plan going into your day. I'm gonna have this for my three meals. I'm gonna have these for my snacks or better yet, if you can just meal prep,
Speaker: and make those healthy things way ahead of time. Like if you make the choice to meal prep once throughout the week, you now just saved yourself having to make dozens of other healthy choices throughout the week because your food is already done. It's already prepared. You already know what you're gonna have. You know, the macros that you're hitting. So you meal prep on a Sunday and now you just made all your lunches. Let's say you just made multiple healthy decisions by making that one single healthy decision on that one day. So meal prepping, or at the very least having some sort of plan can be super helpful when it comes to being able to just set yourself up.
Speaker: So this last thing that I'll touch on, this is more specific to fat loss. So like some hunger tools that you can use. And these are just little things that I've found to work really well over the years and just working with clients with myself, zero calorie drinks, especially things that have carbonation can help feeling more full and more satiated.
Speaker: Macro friendly swaps. So finding foods that you really like, but finding lower calorie versions of those things can be super helpful. So you don't really feel like you're restricting yourself too much. You're able to have pizza or tacos or ice cream or different things like that. Still enjoy your diet, but you're having lower calorie versions of those things. That can help with the cravings that can help with managing hunger a little bit to chewing gum, super simple, but a lot of times people aren't necessarily eating because they're hungry. They're eating because they're bored or because they're stressed because they want something to do. So chewing gum can be a good alternative versus like eating a bunch of calories that you don't actually need.
Speaker: using caffeine strategically so caffeine is a little bit of an appetite suppressant so in the mornings or maybe even through like afternoon around those times if you're feeling little bit hungry you can use like some coffee or something that has caffeine in it strategically to help manage that hunger a little bit and then the last one is just to find things to do to keep yourself busy so move exercise that sort of thing because again if you're finding yourself like boredom eating or you having these strong cravings or you feel like you're hungry all the time then having other things to do can just help to get your mind off those things again you don't necessarily want to just ignore feeling hungry or cravings or different things like that because that's probably not going to be a great long-term strategy but a lot of times if you're having a little bit of hunger Maybe you're in a fat loss phase and that's to be expected or you're having a bunch of cravings. Finding something productive that you can do, like moving, like exercise, like some sort of hobby, like working, whatever can help to just keep you on track with these things. I think all in all, just like to round this thing out and just to bring this thing home is like you're going to need to use a little bit of discipline and a little bit of willpower and things like that with hunger. But it's not a great long term strategy.
Speaker: Rather than doing that all the time, you want to build your diet in a way, you want to build your environment in a way, build up the habits in a way that you don't necessarily feel like you're fighting against hunger or fighting against your body all the time.
Speaker: Three practical things just to think of, get the basics right. You want to get your sleep right, find meal timing that works for you, manage your stress, eat lots of protein, lots of fiber. Those sorts of things are going to help a ton.
Speaker: second thing i would say is just know yourself what structure works best for you are there certain foods that you should avoid certain foods that you want to eat more of are you a volume eater do you want to eat two times a day or six times a day like learn what really works well for you because once you figure that out it makes this process so much easier and the last thing i would say too is just this is a lot of information like trial and error is going to be part of this process you're not just going to figure it out right away you're gonna have to try some different things and figure out what works with you start to try some different methods. And then over time, you start to find things that work really well. And then this stuff doesn't feel so hard.
Speaker: With that being said, as always, I appreciate you listening to this podcast. If you want some help with these things, again, I know this is a lot of information, but I always try to give you as much practical stuff as possible. So you can use this stuff and start to implement this stuff. But if you do want some help with this stuff, that's exactly what I do with one-on-one coaching. So you can always check out the link. in the show notes for that.
Speaker: But as always, I appreciate you listening and we will see you week.
