Weight Loss, Dieting & Obesity

Natural Appetite Suppressants. Control Your Appetite and Food Cravings.



Twelve Simple Ways to Control Your Appetite Naturally, (without harmful, addictive pharmaceutical appetite suppressant drugs):

There are many natural methods for controlling your appetite. The following twelve have been chosen for being effective, low cost and easy for everyone to implement. Implement as many of them as you can simultaneously, within the realms of your circumstances, for maximum results.

1: Exercise. Contrary to popular opinion, you do not "work up an appetite" through exercise. Exercise is a proven appetite suppressant. It stimulates brain chemicals known as endorphins. These are your body's natural pain killers that give you a mood boost and reduce your appetite. (The corollary is that people who lack these endorphins due to insufficient exercise tend to boost their mood via "comfort food" instead.)

2: Drink more water, regularly. The human body craves hydration long before it craves food. Modern society and product marketing has 'educated' people into confusing thirst with hunger. Drinking water at regular intervals throughout the day will help to keep your appetite in check.

3: Avoid artificial sweeteners. Despite the well publicised fact of artificial sweeteners having no calories, they are the enemy of the dieter. Many studies in both human and animals have proven conclusively that these chemical sweeteners stimulate the appetite. Avoid them like the plague. Particularly do not drink diet sodas. Just drink water.

4: Spice & season your food. A recently published study demonstrated that sprinkling common spices and seasonings such as herbs like oregano and others reduces the human appetite. The reasoning appears to be that the blander the food, the more a person tends to eat to feel satisfied. Herbal seasonings have next to no calories and enhance the flavour of your food, leading to earlier satiety.

5: Don't miss breakfast. Skipping this most important meal of the day not only slows your metabolism, it results in snacking and binge eating later in the day.

6: Avoid sugars and starches. Eat proteins and non-starchy fibers. Other than the obvious calorie implications of sugars, sugars and starches are short-chain carbohydrates that are very rapidly converted into blood glucose, then very rapidly stored in muscle and fat tissue. This leads to rapid spikes and troughs, highs and lows, in your daily blood sugar levels and thus the urge to eat to treat those low points. Protein foods and high fiber non-starchy vegetables (particularly spinach and cruciferous vegetables) are more nutritious and take longer to fully digest - preventing those blood sugar spikes and troughs.

7: Eat slowly. After your first bite of food at a meal, it takes around twenty (20) minutes for the signal of satiety from your stomach to reach your brain. Make a habit of taking a bite, then putting down your cutlery while you thoroughly chew your food. Do not pick up your utensils again until you have completely chewed and swallowed what is in your mouth. Developing this habit gives your brain time to recognise what you have already consumed before you shover too much into your mouth. Eating slowly means that you will feel fuller on a lower food intake.

8: Develop healthy sleep patterns. Lack of sleep or disrupted sleeping patterns disturb several hormonal functions within your body, at least two of which lead to loss of appetite control. Additionally, most people tend to compensate for their feeling of a lack of energy caused by lack of sleep by overeating or drinking calories. A steady eight-plus hours of sleep per night will assist in controlling those hormonal appetite cravings during the day. (Learn more about sleep and weight loss here.)

9: Avoid Certain Medications. Be sure to read the instruction and all information available about any medications (prescribed or over-the-counter) you take. Medications for many different conditions often are known to cause weight gain or stimulate appetite. Others create "dry mouth" which also pushes us to either drink or eat more often than we otherwise would. If any of your medications affect your appetite or thirst, discuss with your doctor and pharmacist whether there are any alternative medications that may be better suited to your need to control your appetite.

10: Relaxation & Meditation. We've all heard of (and even fallen for) so-called "comfort food". It is food we seek to help us relax or deal with stresses and pressures. Very often, reaching for comfort food is an instinct that we don't even realise that we are following. Basically, when you were a baby, your mother comforted you with food. When you cried, you were fed. As you grew as a child, you were encouraged and rewarded with food. As adults, we come to associate food with love and comfort. Frankly, as adults, it is time for us to grow up and find non-caloric ways to meet these needs. Learn one or more of the many relaxation and mediatation techniques available. It may be pray. It may be yoga. It may be deep breathing exercises. It may be solitude with quiet contemplation. It may even be a sensory deprivation tank. Whatever one/s you chose, just learn to incorporate regular relaxation and meditation sessions into your day every day. They will reduce your stress hormones such as cortisol - a powerful hormone which is known to stimulate appetite and provoke abdominal fat deposits.

11: Hypnosis. Hypnosis for weight loss takes many approaches. For maximum results, more than one "topic" generally needs to be addressed. Combining hypnosis for appetite control with hypnosis for stress management and, if relevant to yourself even hypnosis to conquer food addictions are some of the angles that can be taken to help you gain control. If you have philosophical doubts about hypnosis, other alternatives such as Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), or even visiting a registered clinical psychologist for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy are similarly suited to assist you control your appetite and food cravings.

12: Never eat alone. As much as most overweight people may be reluctant to admit this even privately to themselves, we tend to eat more when we are alone. If we are being watched by others, we tend to behave ourselves and exercise better restraint. Make a point of only eating when other people are with you. If this isn't possible (you may live alone, for example), set yourself some other forms of disciplines. No eating in front of the television. Only eat while sitting at the table. No eating in your car. You get the picture. Now set your own rules and stick to them.

Post Script: Even more insight and support to assist you control your food cravings can be found in the eBook "Craving Secrets", by Diana Walker.