Reducing your appetite is very easy! Find out what foods, herbs and medications will help you with this. And get 8 effective techniques to combat bouts of evening eating.
Author: Kristina Lobanovskaya, doctor, practicing nutritionist Article updated: 11/09/2020
Ask a Question
Eating habits are the basic factor on which the slim figure of a healthy person depends. What are eating habits? This is what a person eats, how often he eats, and also how much food he feels full of. It is important to take into account psychological attachments. For example, if in a stressful situation a person reaches for sweets, this will most likely provoke the appearance of extra pounds over time.
The “lever” for controlling eating behavior is appetite. Moderate appetite is an indicator of health. And unbridled appetite most often pushes a person into breakdowns, which entail painful reproaches of conscience for eating more than normal.
What causes constant hunger?
The hypothalamus is the so-called culprit of our appetite and hunger. It is this part of the brain that is responsible for the emergence of appetite and regulates the need for nutrition. Hunger occurs when blood glucose levels drop; After eating, the glucose level returns to normal and the hypothalamus confirms that we are full.
For reference: appetite is a reflex that especially helped our distant ancestors, who strove to eat as much as possible in one sitting, preferably even to overeat. Excess food “went” into fat deposits, and when hard times came and it was not possible to eat for a long time, it was successfully used up.
Now this previously useful reflex has been transformed into the so-called feeling of false hunger and has become one of the reasons for psychological dependence on food and, as a result, overeating and metabolic disorders.
In this article we will not talk about how to “stop eating”, but about how to deceive that very feeling of false hunger. To do this, let’s find out how a healthy appetite differs from food addiction.
| Indicators | Physiological need for food | Increased appetite or imaginary feeling of hunger |
| What do you want to eat? | High-calorie food without special taste preferences | Something specific: sweet or salty, smoked or fried - cake, cake, etc. |
| When and how do you want to eat? | The desire to eat increases, the feeling of hunger is accompanied by rumbling in the stomach, weakness or darkening of the eyes. | The desire to have a snack is sudden and can overtake you right at the counter or near a cafe; increases due to stress or is associated with the expectation of receiving pleasant sensations |
| Portion size | Enough to guarantee you will be full and replenish your energy reserves. | Virtually uncontrolled, food is swallowed automatically, by inertia |
| Pleasure from eating | Stop eating immediately after feeling full | When you eat food automatically, you often fail to concentrate on its taste. |
| Feelings after eating food | After eating, you feel pleasure from satisfying one of your natural needs, without feeling guilty for what you have done | After eating, sometimes there is a feeling of guilt for showing weakness, indulging in a sudden desire to eat. |
Conclusion: our appetite often deceives us. In many cases, “hunger urges” are caused by an unstable emotional state, and not at all by the need to replenish energy resources.
Read more about the causes and ways to combat “brutal appetite” in the interesting video below.
Psychology of overeating
If you do not thoroughly understand the psychological reasons for overeating, then a series of diets followed by the return of kilograms will last a lifetime. So, if you are tormented by uncontrollable attacks of hunger, and after eating you often experience heaviness in your stomach and fatigue, you should clearly identify the reasons that make you overeat.
Unconscious habit from childhood
Paradoxically, adults often instill bad habits in children while caring for them. For example, when parents force a child to eat strictly according to a schedule and definitely eat the entire portion - “in order to grow up healthy.” Thus, the child loses a sense of control over natural appetite. The result of such overprotection is a person with excess weight and accompanying problems.
Food compensates for the lack of attention and love
This reason may be a continuation of the first. After all, if a teenager is inclined to be overweight, he, as a rule, acquires complexes. Even if you still manage to overcome extra pounds with age, it is much more difficult to cope with self-doubt, fear of public speaking, and feelings of anxiety when communicating with strangers. Being overweight provokes isolation and a desire to isolate yourself from the outside world. Thus, lack of attention, communication, impossibility of self-realization - all this is replaced by food, which temporarily blocks all other needs.
Acts as a sedative
If nervous tension makes you want to eat chocolate, this is a sure sign that your eating habits are leading to weight gain. Food should not be an antidepressant, and short-term pleasure is not worth the painful struggle with its consequences. If you want to reduce your appetite, start by understanding that food will not solve your problems, but if treated incorrectly, it can aggravate them.
Eating in a hurry
The process of eating food requires concentration and responsibility. That is, when starting a meal, you must understand how much and what you need. Snacking on the go, when you don’t have time to eat a full meal and eat more than required, is a direct road to extra pounds. In addition, “piecemeal” threatens disruptions in the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract.
How to satisfy hunger without food: the most effective ways
In order to deceive hunger and not leave it a single chance to seduce ourselves, we will use the most effective methods that are available to each of us. Choose according to your taste and capabilities:
- Drinking therapy (water, coffee, tea, cocktails to reduce appetite).
- Suppressing appetite using drugs from the pharmacy.
- Sport as a weapon in the fight against hunger.
- Breathing exercises for false appetite.
- Aromatherapy is an excellent help in the fight against hunger.
- Handy and home remedies that “drive away” appetite.
We will talk about each of these magical methods in more detail below.
Recommendations
To lose weight with herbs that reduce appetite, you need to use them correctly. If you choose a ready-made pharmacy collection, just follow the instructions on the package. If you prepare the herbal collection yourself, you need to take into account the advice of experts:
- Choose a plant that has a beneficial effect on the entire body. Be sure to take contraindications into account.
- Do not use exotic species. It is recommended to use local herbs specific to the region where you live.
- Before using herbal remedies, be sure to consult a doctor.
- Use herbs individually or make herbs from them. All components must be taken in equal parts, after thoroughly grinding.
- Be sure to monitor your drinking regime. You are supposed to drink 2 liters of fluid per day.
Therapy lasts 2 weeks. The maximum period is a month. Then you need to take a break for 2 weeks and repeat the course. The treatment continues in this way until the desired result is achieved.
Water for weight loss: how to drink water so you don’t want to eat?
Everyone knows a simple and effective rule: you need to drink a lot of clean water - from 1.5 to 2.5 liters per day . But how many people follow it? Often we simply brush aside this postulate and simply force ourselves not to eat. And in vain, because water helps very well in getting rid of false feelings of hunger, the main thing is to know how to drink it correctly.
- Drinking a glass of slightly warm water immediately after sleep will make the body wake up and invigorate, and start the metabolism.
- Often our body experiences thirst, which we mistake for hunger and eat instead of drinking clean water. If you feel a sudden attack of hunger, drink a glass of regular water - without gas or sugar.
- Make it a rule to drink a glass of water 30 minutes before meals and 40-60 minutes after meals - this way you will not eat too much and are guaranteed to improve your metabolism.
Scientific fact : nutritionists have noticed that cool melt water can satisfy even a severe attack of hunger. The same effect will come from drinking a little salted clean water.
How to Dull While Dieting
How to stop hunger? The answers are simple: you need to make friends with your body or deceive it
