I often find myself over eating on a daily basis. I’ll be sitting in the dinning hall after a full meal and get that second bowl of pasta just because I feel like it. I find myself eating when i’m full or when i’m just plain bored. How do I know when i’m really full? Dr Rick Kausman, an Australian healthy weight management pioneer, believes that 40-80% of the time we are eating when we are not hungry. This is the key element to people being over their ideal healthy weight. People need to be more aware with what hunger is, and learn to satisfy it correctly.
We have two hormones in our body that account for hunger. Leptin is a hormone that decreases your appetite, while Ghrelin increases appetite,and also plays a role in body weight. Ghrenlin is the hormone which sends signals to your brain telling you, you are hungry. Research has suggested that Ghrenlin plays a large role in determining how quickly hunger comes after we eat. This is where issue come about; the body is known to play tricks on us. Sometimes we can not fully rely on such hormones to tell us we are hungry. For example, with emotional eating and binge eating. Some people also confuse hunger with thirst. According to an Article on WebMD, we can rein our hunger by eating less high-fat foods. Mary Dallman, from University of California at San Francisco, believes that fatty foods interfere with our Ghrelin and Leptin hormones. Eating fatty foods leads to weight gain and storing fat.
A recent phenomenon as proposed eating 5 or 6 smaller meals a day. This theory is built to increase your metabolism and burn fat efficiently. A nutritious meal or snack every 3 hours will keep our blood levels stable, and give our body the necessary nutrients to control our hunger. Another important tip is to eat protein in nearly every meal. Protein has been proven to boost your metabolism the most. It is also essential to building muscle; the more muscle your body has, the easy you will be able to break down fat.
It’s important to listen to your body, but also be smart. If you’re craving certain unhealthy foods, you might be low on certain nutrients that is causing that crave. Stay healthy and active!
I often 4 meals a days. But sometimes if I miss the breakfast, I will be very hungry and eat a lot during lunch. A problem I notice is that if I eat too much at lunch, I will be very sleepy in the afternoon and can’t do well in class. I think it is very important to control the amount you eat every meal to keep healthy. More doesn’t mean good. Good topic choice, I learn many useful information, thanks for sharing.
I found this post very interesting, and quite relevant to the life that I live. I tend to have three big meals a day; breakfast, lunch, and dinner with some snacks in between. But, majority of the time these snacks will be unhealthy, and then I will crave the unhealthy food at the dining hall. I think it is interesting that a lack of certain nutrients will make you crave some unhealthy foods. This is probably why when I snack on popcorn and other unhealthy foods, all I want in the dining hall is the ice cream. This blog gave great tips, and eating 5-6 smaller meals a day seems like the way to go.
Being on campus, constantly surround by food, I find myself eating when I’m not even hungry. One tool that I use now to help manage my eating is the 20 min rule. When eating, it takes your brain around 20 minutes to register that your are full. A tip to avoid over eating pass your hunger is to drink a glass of water about 10 minutes before you eat. This way, instead of taking the usual 20 minutes for your brain to register, it would now take 10. Also, taking breaks in between plates and eating slow could manage your eating. This way you will feel fuller and would have eaten less! Source: http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/stomach-full-stop-eating-3080.html
It is really important to stay nourished and not overeat or starve yourself. Everything in moderation. Mixed nuts, apples, and nature valley bars are some good choices for between classes. Healthy snacks that are under 150 calories can help you stay energized and rejuvinated throughout the long lectures. Drinking lots of water of course too. Here are some snack options for between classes: http://www.hercampus.com/health/food-nutrition/healthy-snacks-take-you-class
I eat all the time just for the heck of it! I often find that its because I am bored, or like you mentioned because we fell like it. I couldn’t believe that 40-80% of the time we eat when we aren’t even hungry! I have heard of the theory of eating 5 to 6 times a day before. It sounds accurate to me, and I have heard many similar stories before involving weight lost. You are actually supposed to have snacks throughout the day when trying to lose weight instead of having big meals. This could potentially stop people from over eating.
i definitely have seen this happen to me many times. whether I’m hungry or not sometimes my body just craves a certain meal. furthermore, making this worse is sometimes i don’t know what it is that i want, and i continue to eat until i find out what it is. Eating in smaller portions is definitely a good way to stop it, great tips in this post.
I agree with this post because it makes sense that 40-805 of the time we are eating when we aren’t hungry because eating has become a way of socializing. Very rarely do I go to the commons by myself when I’m hungry and sit there and eat, instead I will take it back to my room. On the other hand, even if I’m not very hungry, if my friend asks me to go to dinner, I will go and eat for the social experience. I think this contributes to the bigger problem of eating when we aren’t hungry.
I really like your point about listening to your body. I often find that I crave foods of the same color. For example, sometimes, I crave oranges and carrots. This probably means that I am lacking certain nutrients common to both foods. Your point about eating many small meals per day is really interesting as well. It makes sense that eating throughout the day is better for you than shocking your metabolism with large, heavy meals.
I’m definitely a victim of this phenomenon. I find myself eating at random times, and craving unhealthy food quite often, so your blog post hit close to home for me. It could be hard to do, especially in college, so I found this list of tips that gives advice on how to be healthier in college. I’m sure we could all learn a thing or two from it!
This is interesting because I am typically hungry all the time and spend a lot of the time in the eating. I try to eat healthier food, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. I found it interesting when they suggested 5-6 meals because that is a lot and I wouldn’t think that researchers would have suggested that because it is typically suggested that one have three meals a day with breakfast being the most important. I get hungry all the time sometimes even in class and I hate it when my stomach grumbles, it is so embarrassing. If someone is hungry they just need to make sure that they are eating something healthy and making sure that they work off those calories and carbs at the gym or any other sort of exercise.