If you want to lose weight – and, be serious, who doesn't? – there are two major areas you need to focus on: exercise and diet. Stay active on a consistent basis, eat right, and watch the weight drop off. That's the idea. When it comes to eating, the most important factor is what you eat and when. Starving yourself for days at a time isn't a great strategy, but a workable corollary in the diet part of the plan is eating less, and that includes curbing your appetite. Easier said than done, right? Well, yeah. Even if we are eating the right foods, such as those that contain a premium amount of protein and healthy fats, eating too much of a good thing can also work against you. Think about it this way: you want to not only eat the right healthy foods, you want to avoid overeating. That's where curbing your appetite comes into play.
What About Weight-Loss Diets?
The number of weight-loss diets out there in today's world are almost too many to count, and one sad truth is that while many of them can work in the short term, few are workable for the long term. Yo-yo dieting is an ever-present threat. Per healthline.com, weight-loss diets often lead to increased appetite and severe hunger, and such cravings typically doom any efforts to stick with the weight-loss diets. That can mean trying to lose weight and keep it off only to have it turn out to be a lost cause (and by ‘lost,' we don't mean lost weight).10 Natural Ways to Help You Curb Your Appetite
First piece of advice – consider consulting with your physician or a registered nutritionist or dietician to discuss any of these before you dive in headfirst. Better safe than sorry.- Eat more protein. Yup, it's still a great strategy. You can add healthy fats to this equation, as healthful fats and protein can team well to make you feel full longer, steering you away from those unhealthy between-meal snacks. High-protein foods include lean meats, eggs, beans, and peas.
- Drink more water prior to meals. Per medicalnewstoday.com, a study of 50 overweight females found that drinking 1.5 liters of water each day for eight weeks reduced weight as well as appetite, leading to greater fat loss.
- Eat breakfast. Every day; don't skip. As shape.com puts it, Getting your metabolism moving earlier will help keep you full longer.
- Work out. Exercise. Stay active. Keep moving. Per shape.com, exercise – heavy workouts in particular – can actually decrease your appetite.
- Choose fiber-rich foods. Ingesting foods that contain an abundance of fiber can stretch your stomach, curb its rate of emptying out foods, and enhance the release of fullness hormones, as described by healthline.com, citing NIH and sciencedirect.com.
- Drink coffee. This holds true for both caffeinated coffee and decaf coffee. The key ingredient here is peptide YY (PYY), a hormone produced in the gut that promotes a sensation of fullness. Research has shown that coffee boosts the release of PYY.
- Dark chocolate. OK, arm-twisting time, right? Not exactly. The bitterness of dark chocolate is believed to aid in the reduction of appetite and diminished cravings for sweets, per healthline.com.
- Omega-3 fats. First, you need to get over the assumption that all fat is bad for you. It's not. Not even close. Sugars and sweets? Yeah, cut way back (except on dark chocolate) on that. Omega-3's, like those contained in fish and algae oils, have been shown able to ramp up levels of leptin, known as a fullness hormone.
- Ginger. Yes, eat some. Per medicalnewstoday.com, consuming even a small amount of ginger powder can suppress appetite and increase fullness, perhaps due to how it can apparently stimulate the digestive system.
- Reduce stress. This is a choice that you can make, regardless life's circumstances. Per medicalnewstoday.com, research has linked stress to a bolstered desire to not only eat but engage in binge eating, and with it eating non-nutritious food. Getting enough sleep can help in this regard.