Is it a significant problem for you to control your appetite? Could it be because there’s nothing better than a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes, noodles, rolls, and macaroni and cheese? While these may be comfort foods, they are not foods that you can eat every day and maintain a healthy weight.
Everyone has cravings that will dictate what they eat daily, but how does someone get their urges under control to eat nutritious foods rather than those laden with carbs and sugars? How can you push yourself away from the table and say it’s enough before you reach for seconds or even thirds?
Many people don’t have a good relationship with food. You must understand that the hunger pangs you feel are a survival mechanism. Appetite is a different thing as it’s cravings and a desire to eat foods that you want. However, it would be best if you learned how to control your appetite to be healthy.
Twelve Simple Ways to Control Your Appetite
If you are one of the millions of people around this country that have problems exhibiting self-control when it comes to food, then you shouldn’t beat yourself up too badly. It’s nearly impossible to be perfect all the time, but here are some easy tricks that will help you eat less and control your appetite.
1. Try Yoga
Yoga is good for you in many ways. First, it can help with your digestion, and second, it can put you in a frame of mind where you want to take care of your body more. Yoga gives you self-discipline, which is at the core of many appetite problems.
During the exercises, you will learn to breathe in positive and expel all negativity around you.
2. Drink Water
When you drink water, you’re expanding your stomach to allow less room for food. You should drink enough based on your weight to sustain your body, which most people are lacking. Sorry but Flavored waters don’t count. You need fresh H20 that has nothing in it but perhaps a bit of lemon.
3. Fill Up on Fiber
Your body needs fiber to aid in digestion and to fill you up. It’s easy to control your appetite when your belly is full. Fiber-filled foods include grains, nuts, legumes, as well as fruits, and vegetables. Even if you practice Keto or other low carb eating plans, make sure you get in plenty of fiber.
4. Eat Slower to Control Your Appetite
Why is it that some people think it’s a race when they sit down to dinner to see who can finish first? There must be a happy medium in the speed at which you eat. To eat less, try chewing each bite ten times.
This little trick will make you feel fuller faster, and it will stop the signal to the brain that tells you that you’re hungry.
5. Replace Poor Habits with Good Ones
It’s not easy to turn over a new leaf. When you want to replace poor habits with good ones, you need to give yourself a pep talk and choose foods you like. It’s impossible to think that you’re going to replace that delicious pizza with a bowl of turnips, but you can find small adjustments that can make skipping that Italian pie easier.
There are healthier versions of pizza, like the veggie style, that are better for you, and you won’t feel like you’re missing out.
6. Don’t Fill up On Sugary Drinks
While 100 percent juice is good for you, it must be consumed in moderation. You can quickly drink your allotment of calories in a few hours by drinking soda, fruit juice, and other sugary drinks. Energy drinks are one of the worst culprits because they have coffee or another base that is not usually bad, but the additives make it terribly unhealthy.
Unfortunately, these drinks use caffeine and sugar to give users a buzz, and the sugar content may surprise you. An eight-ounce of a popular energy drink has a whopping 124 grams of sugar and 330 milligrams of caffeine. The recommended amount of sugar on a 2,500-calorie diet is no more than 62 grams.
Now you see how easy it is to get a teeth-rotting amount of sugar with just one drink, so you must be careful when filling up on anything other than water. The average can of cola style soda has about 39 grams of sugar. While it’s better than an energy drink, one will nearly put you at your limit for sugar intake for the day.
7. Have A Cup Of Joe
There’s nothing better on a cold day than a piping hot cup of coffee. If you use spices like cinnamon and vanilla instead of cream and sugar, coffee can be quite helpful. Like soup, coffee warms the stomach to give you a feeling of fullness.
Plus, coffee can help suppress your appetite, and the antioxidants in the beans are good for your body. It can help to give your metabolism a healthy boost as well as make you feel fuller faster. Some people find that drinking coffee with a meal allows them to consume less and still feel satisfied.
Be careful about the additives. There are plenty of sugar-free options to help flavor your java if you can’t take it black. You may find that by adding more coffee to your day that you’re eating less and not as hungry.
8. Use An 8” Plate
Do you subconsciously feel that you must fill your dinner plate at every sitting? The standard plate size should be no more than ten inches, but many manufacturing companies have extended the size and will go up to an incredible 14” plate. You don’t need that much food!
If you put the appropriate portions of food on that 14” plate, you will consume 3-4 times more than you need. The bigger saucer, the more you feel compelled to fill it up. Now, if you switch to a small eight-inch plate, then you will think that you’re still getting a good portion, but you will eat significantly less.
There are many little tricks that you can utilize, as the smaller plate tip, that will help to curb your appetite. Once you adapt to these new ways of life, your stomach will begin to shrink. When you gorge on a plate of food at every meal, your stomach will grow to meet the demands.
9. Get Rid of Junk Food in Your Home
If you want to suppress your appetite, you need to watch what you bring into your home. When you’re making your grocery list, make sure it doesn’t have sugary things that can tempt you later. If you have a pantry filled with potato chips, snack cakes, and pies, get rid of them.
The more you eat these sugary snacks, the more your body will crave them. If you want to get your appetite under control, you need to eat the right things and not tempt your body. Once you have a laden diet laden with sugars, you will find it difficult to break this habit.
10. Distract Yourself to Control Your Appetite
Do you tend to be an emotional eater? Many people use food to soothe their emotions. Why is it that nothing makes you feel as good as a chocolate bar when life is going awry? Instead of reaching for that chocolate bar, why not try journaling instead.
When you distract yourself from thinking about food, you can develop new habits to replace the old unhealthy ones. If you absolutely cannot live without chocolate, then switch to a dark variety instead.
11. Eat on A Schedule
Did you know that you can put yourself on a food schedule? Instead of eating around the clock whenever you feel hungry, you can control your appetite by putting yourself into a routine. Babies quickly learn the importance of a schedule, and you can accomplish the same thing by giving yourself a food routine.
Try having breakfast at 7 am, lunch at 11:30 am, and dinner sharply at 6 pm. You can also incorporate your snack times into this arrangement. When you have your body on an eating schedule, then it will become expectant on nourishment at those times, and it should reduce your cravings.
12. Practice Mindfulness
Don’t let the mistakes of yesterday’s food diary dictate what happens today. Make a mental note of what you’ve eaten today and consider each bite you put into your mouth. Mindfulness is simply being present in the moment and being aware of everything around you.
You have the power to control the thoughts coming into your head, which can control your appetite. Other options include using an online app that you can enter the foods you eat to ensure you stay within your calorie allotment for the day.
The Takeaway on Ways to Control Your Appetite
Weight loss and being healthy all stems from the ability to control your appetite. There are so many tempting foods out there that can lead you astray, so you must develop the proper mindset to control what you put in your mouth.
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