Why is it you fancy a pudding even when you are full after your main course? It’s all about appetite as opposed to hunger. And the key to taking charge of your food consumption and mastering your cravings is knowing the difference between the two.
[subhead] Hunger
This is our basic, very physical need for food. It happens around three to four hours after eating our last meal once our stomachs have emptied.
The strong muscular walls of the stomach begin to contract and grind, sending messages through nerves and hormones to our brains, telling us that it is time to eat again. Meanwhile, dipping levels of sugar in our blood send similar signals to ‘I’m hungry’ areas in our brains.
Once we have started eating, if we listen to our bodies, more messages are sent so that we know when we have had enough and it’s time to stop.
[subhead] Appetite
This is all about our desire for food triggered by anything from the thought, smell and sight of it. We can have an appetite for something even when physically full – hence desiring the pudding after a main course.
The list of things that stimulate, tempt and perpetuate our appetite are highly personal and almost endless, and it’s easy to see how we can mix them up with genuine cues of physical hunger.
[subhead] Telling them apart
This is important when trying to control when and how much you eat. Start practicing on yourself to separate out feelings of hunger from appetite. For instance, make yourself wait for a good four hours after eating, so that you really know how it feels for your stomach to grumble and rumble with true hunger.
Next, make a mental note (or even jot down) the things that, during this time, made you feel tempted to eat. Try to pin point what it was that bought them to mind and stimulated this desire.
Observe how long the desire to eat them carried on for, and how many minutes it took for this wave of temptation to pass. It is often just a few minutes. Repeat this between breakfast and lunch, and lunch and dinner, and then tot up what you have saved yourself from eating over the day just by riding out the waves of appetite.
[subhead] Beware of variety
Another big trigger for the temptation to eat more is variety. Tests have shown that when you give people one flavour of yoghurt, offering them the same flavour will not be tempting. Offer them a different flavour, however, and suddenly, they can find room for it.
Forewarned is forearmed, and often just having this kind of knowledge is sufficient to help you gain some control over your appetite.
[subhead] Foods that help you feel full
You can also get a lot of help by choosing the kinds of foods that are known to be particularly physically satiating.
Protein: Foods rich in protein, such as lean red meat, chicken, eggs and fish, help to switch off hunger signals in our brains particularly quickly. Researchers are not quite sure why, but having some protein at every meal and eating it first seems to help you to naturally blunt your appetite.
Low GI carbohydrates: Slowly digested carbohydrate foods – such as porridge, sugar free muesli, rye, granary and pitta bread, tortilla wraps, sweet potatoes, pasta and most vegetables and fruits – play a similar role by slowly and steadily releasing sugar into our blood for several hours after eating. This not only helps to keep you full, but does not trigger a knee-jerk desire to grab sugar-rich foods, which quickly digested food foods, like sugary cereals, white bread, cakes and biscuits, are notorious for doing.
Soup and salad: It also appears from research that simply eating a small salad or soup before tucking into your main course can help to take the edge of hunger and, in turn, help you control your appetite while eating.
[subhead] A helping hand
There are also a number of ‘special’ innovative natural ingredients that can help to take the edge of your appetite. Eating snacks with these in between meals can help to stave off cravings and help you last until meal time without eating again.
Zotrim: A supplement called Zotrim (Boots, £21.95 for 180 tablets), is a combination of guarana, damiana and yerba mate herbal extractsm which have been shown in clinical trials to slow down the rate at which your stomach empties. This means that when you take them at meal times, the feeling of satiation is extended and the desire to eat between meals is less.
PinnoThin: This contains a natural extract of pine nut oil, shown in studies to trigger the release of CCK, an ‘I’m full’ hormone in our intestines, which again appears to help to keep you feeling fuller for longer after eating. Ador chocolate contains PinnoThin.
Fabuless: This is an emulsion of oat oil and palm oil, which has been shown in research to tell your body that you have eaten more fat than you actually have. This informs your brain that you are feeling full and sustains this feeling of satiation for hours after eating. Ador oat bars contain Fabuless.
[subhead] Cravings
In addition to hunger and appetite, many of us experience cravings, a powerful longing for one particular type of food. Often explained anecdotally as being nature’s way of telling you that you need a certain nutrient, there is little scientific rational to back this idea.
In practice, cravings are usually emotionally based or simply down to habit and psychologists believe it takes around six weeks of deliberately changing your behavior to break a habit. That is a month and a half of consciously saying ‘no’ to a craving for chocolate before the desire will pass.
No one said it is easy, but it is possible to control desires, temptation, appetite and cravings if you know the ropes, and any styles of eating, supplements or foods with natural ingredients that make you feel fuller for longer and help to curb these feelings have got to be worth a try.
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