8 Tips To Battle Hunger: Part Two

In my previous blog post I went over the first 4 of 8 science back tips from the folks at MASS on how to battle hunger. In this blog post we will go over the final 4. If you did not read the first 4 I suggest you go back and do that now as I will reference some of them in this post.

My goal with these two posts is to translate why the science backed tips actually work and how to put them into practice in real life. Science is useful in informing us that something may or may not work, but does so in a very controlled and measured manner. Life is not controlled or measured so on the surface these tips might not make sense or seem hard to implement, you might not know where to begin. That is the added benefit of what I am providing in these posts.

Ok so let’s dive into the final four tips.

5. Eat Slowly

This tip comes from the study titled Slowing Down: Behavior and Psychological Effects of Reducing Eating Rate.

In this study researchers randomly assigned participants into a slow eating group and a normal eating group. Both groups consumed the same 600 calorie meal, but the normal eating group consumed it in 6 minutes and the slow eating group consumed it in 24 minutes. Researchers then had participants rate their level of hunger, measured hormones related to hunger, and measured their consumption of a snack 2 hours post meal.

They found that the slow eating group felt more full, had lower levels of hunger related hormones and consumed less calories in the snack 2 hours post meal.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6357517/

The main reason for this has to do with time….we need to give our bodies time to catch up and realize how much food we have actually eaten. This actually related to one of the previous tips, eat foods that require more chewing. One of the main benefits of that tip is that the more chewing you have to do the slower you eat the food, the more time your body has to realize how much you have eaten. In addition the final tip we will cover also relates to this tip as well, so we will cover that in more detail below.

Here are a couple of strategies that I do to help me eat more slowly.

Eat With Other People – When you eat with others you are likely to have conversations (as long as you follow some of the tips in the rest of this post). The conversation will slow down the pace at which you eat.

Put your fork down between bites – This is a little hack that can also work. By placing your fork down it stops you from shoveling down food. Many people keep their fork in their hand and load up the fork with next bite of food while they are currently chewing what they put in their mouth. Put your fork down, chew what you just put in your mouth and then pick it back up when you are ready for your next bite.

Don’t pre-cut all your meat – This might have been just a habit of mine, I am not sure if anyone else does it 😉 For some reason as a kid I would always cut up all my meat before I eat my meal. This just ended up allowing me to eat my food faster. Similar to the suggestion to put your fork down between bites, if you cut your meat as you eat it you slow down the rate at which you eat.

6. Eat Plenty Of Protein

This tip comes from a study titled Dietary Protein, weight loss, and weight maintenance. If you have been reading my content for any period of time you know I am a huge advocate of consuming enough protein. I have written several posts on this topic so if you want to go down the weeds on the topic I suggest you check out the following posts:

How To Include More Protein In Your Diet

Protein Deep Dive

At a high level though, I suggest you try to eat about 1g of protein per pound of body weight everyday (or 2.2g per KG if using the metric system). This is likely more than you truly need but I suggest this for a variety of reasons.

1. Its easy to remember and doesn’t require a bunch of math
2. Its only slightly more than what you would need, and there is no harm to eating more than you need (as long as you are healthy)
3. Most people undershoot, so I would rather set the goal high and undershoot that goal by a little but that still places you in an OK spot due to #2.

If you are not going to measure your protein intake down to the gram, my rough rule of thumb is that you should eat 4-6 oz of protein 4-5 times a day and you will likely hit your target.

As for why protein helps manage hunger, there are a number of reasons.

1. If the protein source is in its whole natural form (ie not a protein powder or liquid of some kind), it hits many of the tips we have already spoke about. It requires more chewing, it’s not hyperpalatable, most will have a lower energy density (and if not it’s still likely ok), and if you don’t pre-cut it, it will help you eat slowly.
2. It will take longer to digest and require more energy to do so.
3. Many whole food forms of protein also come along with a number of important micronutrients. The protein and the micronutrients go a long way to satisfying many of your body’s needs. Some people believe that one reason many people are continuously hungry is because their bodies are low in these micronutrients and so the body is just trying to get them to eat to fill those needs, even if that means overconsuming from a calorie point of view. Whole food protein sources go a long way to preventing this from happening.

7. Eat Plenty of Fiber

This tip comes from a study titled Health benefits of dietary fiber. First let’s step back and talk about what dietary fiber is. Dietary fiber comes from plant foods. It is considered a carbohydrate but unlike other carbohydrates you cannot absorb it. It actually passes through your digestive tract and you excrete it in your stool. However just because your body excretes it and can’t absorb it doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial. There have been many studies linking fiber intake to improvements in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, digestive problems and weight loss.

That said, just because fiber is good for some people doesn’t not mean it’s good for everyone. Particularly some people with digestive issues have a tough time with higher fiber intakes and they do much better with lower fiber intakes. If you fall into this category then you should probably ignore this tip.

In general though it is recommended that adults consume 14g of fiber for every 1000 calories they eat. Given the “average” caloric intake for women that’s generally around 28g of fiber per day and for men it’s around 38g of fiber per day.

Do most people come close to that number?

Nope, most people consume half of the recommended intake.

But why does fiber help with hunger?

Foods which have fiber in them take longer to digest and the fiber from the foods then slows the time all the food takes to move through your digestive tract. The slower the digestive process, the longer you feel full.

As far as eating more fiber I suggest you start with whole foods and that means eating more fruits and vegetables. You might be expecting me to now list out the highest fiber fruits and vegetables.

Well I am not going to do that.

Why?

Most people don’t even need to go down that path, any shift in their diet to whole natural fruits and vegetables is going to be a win, whether they contain more or less fiber. If you really want to know which fruits and vegetables give you the most bang for your buck in terms of fiber you can easily Google that yourself.

I would also recommend you don’t start with a fiber supplement. Personally I have found fiber supplements give me digestive issues, while I can consume the same amount of fiber from whole fruits and vegetables and be just fine. Again that is just a personal anecdote but regardless the whole food fibers come with a bunch of other benefits as well (think all the micronutrients your body needs).

If you are consuming half a plate full of fruits and veggies three times a day you are likely doing pretty good in the fiber department. Of course if you increase your fiber intake and get any kind of digestive issues, back down a bit and see if you can find a spot where your digestion is OK. Continue at that level of intake for several weeks, then try to increase it again and see if you can tolerate more. Sometimes you just need to give your body some time to adjust.

8. Eat Mindfully And Avoid Distractions

This tip comes from a study titled Effects of distraction on the development of satiety.

This study was quite interesting in its design in that it was simple, straightforward and nicely illustrates the point. The participants were brought into the laboratory and asked to rate their hunger, fullness, and desire to eat. Researchers then instructed the participants to eat 5 Jaffa Cakes (a chocolate covered sponge cake) once every minute for 5 minutes. They split the participants up into two groups a distracted group and a non-distracted group. The non-distracted group consumed the cakes in silence doing nothing during the 5 minutes. The distracted group consumed the cakes while playing the video game Pong.

After consuming the cakes the participants were asked to rate their fullness, hunger, and desire to eat levels again.

The researchers found that the non-distracted group were more full, less hungry, and had less desire to eat.

What does distracted eating do to affect our hunger and fullness?

Well it seems obvious right? We are not present. We are not paying attention to the food we are eating nor the feelings we have when we consume the food. We don’t realize we are full because our attention is elsewhere…whether it’s the work we are doing, the social media feed we are scrolling, the email we are reading, the show we are watching, the roadway we are trying to navigate.

In short there is nothing magic about this tip. The idea is to put down the phone, close the laptop, turn off the TV when it’s time to eat and focus on the food. You will be more in tune with the signals your body is sending you.

And that is it, 8 tips to help you feel more full and better manage hunger. Again I want to emphasize that hunger should not be ignored in all cases but if you find yourself struggling to deal with hunger sometimes try employing some of these tips to help you work through it without suffering along the way. There is nothing in these 8 tips that is revolutionary, but they all work when put into practice. The best part is that you not only have the tips but practical steps you can take to implement them. If you want more real world advice on how to navigate the overwhelming world of health use the form below to sign up for my newsletter. I aim to provide free real world advice on a weekly basis through the content I put out and the best way to keep up with the content is via the newsletter!