Hunger Management 101.

How I Outsmart My Always Hungry Brain.

I’ve finished “The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat” book and today I’m sharing with you 6 rules to learn to stick with your diet, outsmarting your own brain, that always wants to eat more.

The brain’s main purpose is to make sure we survive. And till very recent human history on an evolutionary scale, surviving meant having enough food, enough nutrition to support ourselves and procreate. Brain is very demanding. It eats up 25% of our daily energy reserves. It’s wired to make you look for food and nutrients all the time. It’s wired to make you want to eat, eat and eat, even when there is no such need today. Because, who knows what might happen tomorrow. You know, that the stores are not going anywhere, and you’ll be able to get food tomorrow just like you did today, any time of the day. You don’t even have to move anymore, just tell you google assistant or another type of AI technology to order you whatever your heart desires, and you’ll get all the foods you want, need and crave.

You know that consciously, but most of your decisions come from the vast subconscious, that is driven by your instincts and automatic behaviors, that’s how you end up eating more, plus you might not be aware, that you also trigger your brain to be hungry and always want more.

How?

Read on.

How to trick your brain into being less hungry?

How to stop self-sabotaging hunger-triggering actions?

How to finally stop over-eating and thinking about food all day long?

Try these techniques, that the author of “The Hungry Brain” recommends.

I use them all the time.

It’s Hunger management 101.

Essential skills for fit, slim and healthy survival in 21st century of food abundance.

ONE: Manage your food environment.

Make it difficult and inconvenient for you to snack and eat foods, that you know are too tempting for you. Don’t have snacks in your house, don’t have ice-cream in your fridge, don’t have a bag of your favorite nuts conveniently located anywhere to grab a handful (more like the whole bag) anytime you want. Studies show, that when people have snacks conveniently located close to them, ready to be eaten without too much work, people ALWAYS end up eating more.

Make getting food and snacks more challenging! Work for it like your ancestors did!

Another important trick — stop watching and looking at food ads, stop reading restaurants reviews, stop talking about your favorite snacks and recipes — that all makes your brain hungry!

Out of sight, Out of mind.

TWO: Manage your satiety.

To feel full and nourished, to feel less hungry, to avoid eating too much and go for the seconds and thirds, eat high volume (low calories per bite), high fiber and high protein foods. That’s proven to be most satiating food. Naturally rich in water, in fiber and protein.

Eat foods that taste OK, foods that you like moderately — enjoyable but not too much. Why? Because food, that gives you too much pleasure sets your brain up for cravings, for wanting more, not because you physically need more, but because your brain will always crave more of highly pleasurable behavior, whether it’s eating or something else.

THREE: Avoid highly rewarding foods.

If you want to stay hunger free as much as possible and learn healthy-eating behavior, you got to quit eating highly processed foods rich in fat, processed carbs and starch, processed sugar, full of flavor enhancers and other artificial additives. It’s not so much about calories in those foods, that sets you up for weight loss and overeating disaster, it’s how they affect your behavior! You just won’t stop eating and craving more food!

FOUR: Manage your sleep.

More and more conducted studies show, that not sleeping enough, not sleeping well enough sets you up for weight loss, weight maintenance failure in two ways: you end up eating on average 300 calories more per day, and your body will hold more fat tissue, making weight loss that much harder.

Sleep yourself to slim.

FIVE: Manage stress.

Studies show, that when we feel stressed and we feel like we have no control over some stressful situation, we start overeating for not really understood yet reasons. Our best tool to avoid stress related overeating: meditation and mindfulness, making an action plan and acting on it to take control of the stressful situation, and stop worrying about things, that we do not control.

SIX: Move.

Even though losing weight, trying to burn more calories by exercising, is not a great idea, movement itself changes our metabolism and our “fat” set point to a leaner state, meaning movement makes our hormones support our weight loss/weight management efforts — we don’t get as hungry (if we don’t over-train), and our body is comfortable with less fat. Plus all the sweating, pumping makes our metabolism more efficient, our brain stress resistant, we sleep better and tend to make better lifestyle choices.

Conclusion.

It’s not all about Calories In = Calories Out.

That matters too, but what matters more, is what can help you to stick to your energy balance, to your sane and slimming meal plan for as long as needed. We all know we shouldn’t overeat all the time, we should eat healthy foods, not too much, but do we all have a six pack? Even though we know that food is the only thing in our way?

Use these tools. Manage your hunger. It’s an essential life skill in the world of food-is-everywhere.