Why am I hungry all the time: The problems that are hurting your weight loss diet

Simon Long

Simon Long

Simon is a highly experienced personal trainer and behavioural psychology expert
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You’re on a weight loss diet. And your finding that all the time you are so hungry. But isn’t that the name of the game? Are you not meant to feel starving if you’re eating to lose weight? Hell no!! It’s a vile way to live your life, And if you’re hungry all the time guess what? You’ll have quit before you can say ‘yo yo diet’.

I’ve spoken in the past about how to conquer cravings. But this time we are going to talk about why your craving food. There are plenty of tip and tricks to avoid the spiral of failure. Let me break down some of my favorite.

You constantly feel starving because your dehydrated

If you haven’t been drinking enough the body gets confused. There is a region in your brain called the hypothalamus. This detects their isn’t enough fluid in your system. But it gets its wired crossed. So you get a signal that you need to eat. But you don’t.

Another issue is the movement of nutrients in your body. Water is needed to move and use nutrients in every cell you’ve got. If its low then you go into a temporary nutrient deficiency and so the brain throws up a flashing neon sign that says ‘WE NEED MORE FOOD’. But you don’t. You just need water to make the most of the food you’ve already got.

This is nice and easy to solve. Drink regularly through the day. Start with a glass when you wake up. Hunger pangs coming on? Haven’t drunk much that day? Try having a glass of water and wait for 20 minutes. You may find your hunger subsides.

You want to eat more because you’re not sleeping enough

If you are sleep deprived you will feel hungry a lot more often. It’s a combination of two hormones working against you. Leptin, which makes you feel full, drops to near non-existent levels. Meanwhile ghrelin, which makes you feel hungry, spikes. This ends up with you wanting to eat more and not feeling as full when you do. Bad times!

So follow the age old advice. Get around 8 hours of solid sleep every night. That Netflix series will still be there tomorrow! Get to bed. And make sure you have as little ambient light in the room as possible to allow the deepest possible sleep.

You eat too many of the wrong type of carbs and it leaves you hungry

When you eat carbs insulin is released in your body. This pulls the carbs (now glucose) out of your blood and into your cells. Heavily processed and sugary carbs (I’m looking at the cookies, white bread, crisps etc) are broken down very quickly. Because of this insulin is released in huge amounts over a short period of time. And so the blood stream is rapidly cleared of carbs.

The issue with this is that now the blood has too little carbs in it. There needs to always be some carbs in there. So your body releases other hormones, including glucagon and ghrelin, which tell you that you need to eat. And so you feel hungry again. Even though you only ate maybe an hour or so ago.

The solution is a simple one. Pretty much all of the solutions to these issues are simple. Cut out simple and refined carbohydrates. Eat more carbs that are high in fibre. These include vegetables, fruit, beans, wholegrain, wholemeal and bran based cereals.

You’re hungry because your stressed

Stress is a real bane of any weight loss diet. It will kill your motivation faster than [insert favourite snack] and the new series of [insert favourite show].

The problem with stress is that it makes your body produce large amounts of cortisol and adrenaline. These are both hormones (Yep. More hormones!) that make your body think it has some kind of attack to deal with. It doesn’t know the difference between a lion running at you and a pile of work being dropped on your desk. All your body thinks is that it may needs energy to deal with this attack.

Stress management is a whole topic in itself. The best tips I can give here are to remove stressful situations from your life and to practice mindfulness meditation. These are the two tricks I use. Now I’m a regular budda!

You have hunger pangs because your diet is low in protein and fats

I know. I know. Your thinking ‘’Simons telling us to eat more fats…. Has he lost his mind!’’ But no. My sanity, so far, remains. Fats, and protein, are only bad when you chose the bad sources. Stick to the right ones and they will be your golden ticket to losing weight.

They work very differently in your stomach when compared to carbs. They are a lot slower to break down because of these differences. Meaning they sit in your stomach for longer. And so it takes longer for you to get hungry again.

But you have to choose the correct sources. If they are high in saturated fats, or god forbid trans fats, they will derail your progress faster than a leaf on a train track (I know this won’t derail a train. But there was a big hoo haa about it when I was growing up. And it always made me laugh). So be looking towards lean meats, poultry, fish, nuts, olives and avocadoes.

 

So there you go! 5 tricks to stop yourself feeling hungry. Combine them with my tips on avoiding cravings. And voila! You are well on your way to making your weight loss diet far easier. No longer will you have to feel constantly hungry and be craving food. Winner!

I upload articles like this every couple of days. As well as videos every single day. So you can always be learning more ways to make your weight loss journey easier. Just jump onto my Facebook and hit the like button. Bada bing bada boom! Free tips and tricks for you every day!

Don’t forget that I upload articles every couple of days and videos every day. To get all these completely free tips just jump onto my Facebook and Youtube channels and click subscribe.

I shall see you next time. Best wishes to you and yours.

Simon =]

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