Published: 1 year ago
How to stop overeating - without feeling hungry
***The art of “No, thank you, I’m full.”
We won’t do it by following restrictions or calculating calories. Instead we’ll “hack” our bodies so that they won’t give us signals that we’re hungry when we’re actually not!
Let’s be honest – we all love to eat yummy food. If eating didn’t make us gain weight, we would be calm and happy to indulge ourselves with 3 chocolate muffins instead of just 1… because we’d still look great!
The problem is not that we love eating but that we love eating too much and too often. Our job is stressful, we’re constantly running to do this and that, we barely have the time to go to the hairdresser or visit a yoga class, we’re mad at Bae because he arranged to play football with the boys on Sunday although he knew that we wanted to go have lunch with Mom and then look for a new dress at the mall…
So what can we do? Well, we can have a snack – to ease up the tension and forget about our disappointment. Of course, that would be something made of sugar or/and flour.
Why do we eat more than we “should”?
Psychologists call this “emotional eating”. And they have a point – oftentimes we eat not because we’re hungry but because our nervousness feels like hunger. Our hasty lives and hectic days make us even more nervous and exhausted, so we end up with a spoon in one hand and a jar of Nutella in the other. The result? A dress that’s one size bigger than planned. Grrrrrrr. For real.
The good news is that we can unlearn eating out of stress, boredom, and anger at Bae. We won’t do it by following restrictions or by calculating calories with an app or without one. Instead, we’ll “hack” our bodies so that they don’t give us signals that we’re hungry when we’re actually not!
The benefits of this technique are not only less appetite and a more slender physique, but also a healthier lifestyle and useful habits for life.
So here are 9 simple and easy rules that will help us reduce our “emotional eating” without depriving ourselves of food or feeling hungry and annoyed.
1. More fiber, less hunger.
According to plenty of studies throughout the years, fibers naturally reduce appetite. Because they increase their size in the stomach, fibers create a feeling of satiety even if we haven’t eaten too much already. How can we get more of these magical and helpful fibers? Eat more fruit, vegetables, beans, and wholegrain. We can always order a double vegetable side, start our meal with a light salad (instead of mashed potatoes), or simply prepare lentils once or twice a week. By creating this habit, not only will we feel more healthy, but we’ll also rarely feel any hunger.
2. Soups make us feel full and suppress our appetite.
Starting our meal with a bowl of hot vegetable soup is a great way to get warm in the cold winter months and also eat twice as few calories from our main course. Soups fill up our stomach so that we would naturally want to eat less of our main course – always packed with far more calories than a simple soup.
Moreover, it’s important to remember that we should always order or prepare plain soups with cut vegetables instead of cream soups which contain butter, potatoes, sometimes milk, and whatnot. And yes, they’re tasty. We can all agree on that. Unfortunately, by having such cream soups, it’s likely that your calorie intake may increase. So, better stick to minestrone, nettle soup, celery soup, and other vegetable soups without added cream. It’s safest this way.
3. Satiate hunger with a cup of tea first.
In countries with ancient traditions, such as China, not only is drinking tea a healthy habit, but it is also a recipe for beauty, longevity, and a lean figure, that doesn’t change with time.
Some teas made with special ingredients, especially Asian and Ayurveda herbs, are a proven method for boosting up the metabolism. The regular consumption of such herbal blends can lead to a natural and sustainable weight loss. Why? Because they help our bodies burn fat deposits, as our appetite decreases without deliberate restrictions. Moreover, our metabolism starts working full speed, and the herbs alkalize the body and supply it with healthy vitamins and powerful antioxidants.
4. Long live grapefruits.
This sour-bitter-sweet fruit has a magical action when it comes to breaking down body fat – especially when eaten on an empty stomach or as a breakfast. For optimal results, we should eat the whole fruit and not just drink its juice so that we can benefit from all the pulp and fiber in it. Additionally, grapefruits boost the metabolism and help us digest food faster, thus turning calories into energy, instead of storing them as fat.
5. Fats are not always the enemy.
While carbohydrates artificially increase insulin levels in the blood which leads to a higher appetite and weight gain, natural fats help us break down body fat. It sounds like a paradox but it’s true.
A slice of matured cheese or a boiled egg when we’re feeling munchy can help us keep our figure lean better than a biscuit or 2-3 candies. Hence, don’t avoid the shelves with fatty cheese in the supermarket but leave back the packages of corn flakes, the bread, and those biscuits that go so well with your morning coffee. Soon enough the effect from that new choice will be visible.
6. Raw nuts are too good to miss.
Nuts make us feel full and are super healthy – when consumed raw! Usually, to get the maximum benefits from eating raw nuts, we have to first soak them in water for several hours. If we do so in the evening, by the morning they will be ready to go into a smoothie or into a bowl of yogurt and honey (and a pinch of cinnamon!).
Another great feature of raw nuts is that they make a wonderful snack – to satiate that desire for food that comes around 11 am just before lunch, at 4 pm, and at 10 in the evening when we’re watching Netflix. Instead of snacking on crisps, candies, half sandwiches, and so on, we can simply eat 7-8 raw nuts (cashews, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, hazelnuts).
This way we’ll be getting a healthy dose of proteins and essential fatty acids which speed up fat burning, improve sleep and the work of our nervous system, reduce stress, strengthen our nails and hair, and rejuvenate the skin.
7. Slow eating works wonders.
It takes our brain at least 20 minutes to understand that the stomach is full and to send a signal to our body that we’ve had enough food and can stop eating. In this case, if we eat slowly and chew carefully (and not get stuffed like a turkey, as our grandma used to say!), our brain will know that we’re full, long before we’ve eaten way too much.
Not only does slow eating help full with less food. but it also teaches us to enjoy food, to feel its taste, and to savor the experience for longer.
8. Let’s have a healthy snack 30 mins before lunch/dinner.
According to recent research with 40 female participants, those who ate an apple or some yogurt or a vegetable half an hour before lunch and dinner actually got full with less food compared to those who sat on the table too hungry and respectively ate more food.
As we saw from the previous advice, our brain needs 20 minutes to “realize” there is food in the stomach and to decrease the sensation of hunger. So it’s only logical to eat something small and healthy before having our main dish – so that we eat less when the meal comes. It’s hard to overeat with your stomach already half-full so let’s use this little trick in our favor.
9. Lastly - movement is king, you know that.
Working out is proven to be healthy – for the heart, for the lungs, for our good mood, for the high dopamine levels, for tight thighs, for a flat belly. There’s no reason to shy away from physical exercise because the benefits of it are so many that no amount of business or laziness can’t justify our avoidance. However.
When we hear the word “exercise”, most of us fear that we will have to spend 3-4 hours to get to the gym, to put on our work out clothes, to have a workout, to take a shower, to put our makeup back on, and to drive ourselves home or to the office… This doesn’t sound quite inspiring. That’s what makes it so hard for most of us – our lives are busy enough to make room for long sessions of training.
Nevertheless, we can always do some exercise at home or in our neighborhood. How? Instead of using the car, we will go to the supermarket on foot. Or we can even choose to walk to a market that’s further away, instead of heading to the closest place. Without knowing it, we will have walked for 30 minutes. Enough.
We can get even more creative and go up and down the staircase in our building several times – this is a great exercise for heart health, fit calves, and toned thighs. We can play our favorite music and dance solo in the living room or invite our amazed better half for a dance – he will most likely refuse to do it but we’ll make him! We can do yoga or callanetics or just do some stretches watching Youtube videos while the children are playing around us and we can simultaneously watch what they’re doing and take care of ourselves, too!
So that’s that. We tried to make this easy and as pleasant as possible. We hope we gave you some motivation
Good luck!