5 Ways To Manage Hunger
When trying to lose weight, body fat or tone up you may struggle with feeling hungry!
This can be detrimental to sticking to your calorie targets… As we may end up over-eating to try and satisfy our hunger.
Or it’s going to take an insane amount of willpower to just get through your day.
This can leave you tired, irritable and more distracted.
Which can have a knock on effect to your work life and your home life.
Today I’m going to cover 5 considerations to help you cope with feeling hungry.
#1 Are your calories too low?
One of the first things to check with feelings of hunger is that you may just not be eating enough calories full-stop.
It’s common for people to drop their calories too low initially.
Wanting to see a big change can cause us to feel over-enthusiastic and restrict our calorie intake too much.
This often leads to a person being unable to maintain their deficit “long-term”
Which is when we see this process of yo-yo dieting.
Massively restrict calories —-> Burnout ——> Over eat ——> Repeat
Setting calorie intake at the right level is very important to getting quality results.
You could use an online calorie calculator to give you a starting point.
Although depending on the calculator you use … or how you fill it out. These calorie estimations can be very misleading.
Therefore I suggest you work with a coach to help you establish what a good starting point would be
Remember:
Just because your calories may be slightly higher than you think they should be… doesn’t mean that you’re not in a calorie deficit.
Check out my podcast on (How much should I be eating?)
#2 Can you increase your food volume? Not Calories
There is a difference between volume of food on the plate and the amount of calories on the plate.
I like to illustrate this with a shopping bag.
Imagine I gave you a shopping bag and £100.
If you went to Versace… that £100 isn’t going to leave your bag very full at all.
But if you went to Primark, you’d most likely be able to fill the bag completely!
Each bag still has a value of £100… But one has more clothes in than the other.
It’s the same with food…
For example, you could eat an enormous bowl of lean meat and vegetables or have one single crispy creme.
They could have the exact same amount of calories.
But eating the higher volume of food is going to leave you feeling more full.
#3 Are you eating enough protein / Fibre?
As well as the calorie content of the food and the volume of food.
… The type of food we eat also make a difference to our feelings of hunger.
Certain foods are more satiating than others.
If you look up a ‘satiety index’ you can see different visual graphics of how certain foods are ranked in terms of how full they make you feel.
But generally, foods high in Protein & Fibre are towards the top.
Such as fish, meat, potatoes and fruit.
Towards the bottom of the satiety scale are foods that we find easier to over-eat.
These tend to be foods higher in carbs, fats or both.
Like pizza, bread and donuts.
So, when planning your meals, try to base them around a lean protein and include some vegetables too.
#4 Are you having enough water?
I had a client on our nutrition programme at FS46 who was struggling with hunger.
We decided to increase her water intake in order to help… and it did!
Increasing water is often my first practical tip for subduing hunger, because its probably the EASIEST.
There are no major adjustments needed to how you shop / cook / prepare or eat.
Simply increase your water intake.
A Pro-tip is to Drink a glass of water before and during your meal. This will help you to feel more full and encourage you to slow down whilst eating, your body then has time to better register your feelings of fullness and this reduces the likelihood you’ll overeat.
#5 Can you adjust your meal timings?
When we eat can also impact our hunger levels.
You may find that there are certain parts of the day where you feel most hungry.
For example,
I had a client who found themselves really hungry in the mid afternoon when they were most bored and tired at their desk.
This is typically when they’d find themselves reaching for the office biscuits and chocolates.
As we said on point #3 … these foods are the easiest to over consume and therefore she’d often go over her calorie targets for the day.
Creating some awareness of this habit was the first thing that needed to happen.
She then came up with a plan to have some other tasty snacks prepared at her desk ready for the afternoon slump, that she could reach for, enjoy, satisfy her hunger and her boredom and still stick to her calorie targets!
Many people see food as a barrier to their progress.
But here, my client was able to use food as the solution.
I recently learnt another meaning of the phase “fight fire, with fire”.
When there are uncontrollable forest fires…
Firefighters will go ahead of the fires path and light a small controlled fire to burn up some of the trees.
When the fire gets there, it has no fuel and the fire dies out.
We can use the same principle with food.
By having a planned and controlled amount of food at the right position in our day.
It may prevent an uncontrollable ‘wild fire’ of calories!
In Summary
Managing our feelings of hunger when trying to lose weight, lose fat or tone up is important.
Failure to do so can make us feel, tired, unhappy and irritable during everyday life.
Or worse… it often leads to future overconsumption, yo-yo dieting and eventually giving up on our efforts all together.
There are 5 ways we can consider to help us cope with feeling hungry.
Increase our calorie intake
Increase our food volume
Eat more Protein / Fibre
Drink more water
Eat at strategic times during the day
Use 1 or a combination of all of these strategies and you’ll better manage your hunger.
You’ll then be able to stick to your deficit.
And you’ll become leaner, healthier and ultimately happier as a result!