Millions of dieters around the world struggle with hunger every day. But what if there was a way to understand your appetite and create a plan that fits your lifestyle? To do this, we must understand what makes us hungry, and the answer is ghrelin – ghrelin is the hunger hormone. When your body secretes ghrelin, you feel hungry.
Remember: “If your stomach’s growlin’ – then your ghrelin swellin’.”
Many things can affect when you feel hungry, such as work schedules, family time, habits, attitude, and personal biorhythms. The good news is that the body does not secrete ghrelin constantly; it releases ghrelin for a short time and then stops. Generally, this happens about three times a day. If you can make it through one of these 15 to 25-minute periods, you will no longer feel hungry for the next few hours.
Our ghrelin usually peaks in the morning, then around noon, and again at dinner time. The peaks in our ghrelin levels often coincide with the times we typically eat our three meals, our work schedule, and other outside factors.
Another hormone, leptin, tells us when we are full or satisfied. At least it did when we were kids. Then, society taught us to ignore leptin’s messages and eat. Think about babies; when a one-year-old is full, there is no way you will get them to eat another bite! Their leptin is telling them they have had enough, and that’s it. As we grew, we unlearned how to recognize the signals from leptin, and it is tough to relearn to recognize these messages as adults. It can be done, but you really have to work at it.
Quick Review
– What makes you hungry? The hunger hormone ghrelin.
– Our bodies release ghrelin on a regular basis – about three times per day.
– How do you know when to stop eating? The hormone leptin tells us when we are full.
– However, many have learned to ignore the leptin signals.
–We must pay attention to our bodies and relearn the leptin signal to stop eating.
Regular Features
This Week’s Diet and Lifestyle Q&A – Question Yes or No: Fasting works because you eat fewer calories.
(Answer below.)
Food for Thought – Bone broth. Using commercial bone broth in cubes or powders is fine if you have no other alternatives. Remember that these concoctions have huge amounts of salt and other chemical preservatives that are not as healthy as homemade. If you have an Instapot, crockpot, or pan for the stove, then you have the tools to make tasty, nourishing broth. Once you have tried it, I seriously doubt that you will ever go back. Note: Yes, I keep some commercial broth in my cupboard for emergency use but rarely use it.
Trouble Shooting – If you have been intermittent fasting for several weeks and still have excessive hunger, then it is time to evaluate. Fasting should be clean or pure; if you use diet soda or artificially flavored water to get through your fast, you sabotage your efforts. The chemical sweeteners in diet drinks can trigger insulin releases and stimulate ghrelin, the hunger hormone. Put that stuff in the garbage and go to black coffee, tea with no cream or sugar, unflavored club soda, or good old water.
Be safe and be happy.
Jim
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This Week’s Diet and Lifestyle Answer
Question: Yes or No: Fasting works because you eat fewer calories.
Answer: If this were true, then the advice to “eat less, exercise more would work, but it does not. Fasting works because you reduce your fat-storage time and increase your fat-burning time (by reducing your insulin levels.) You only store fat when high insulin levels are circulating in the blood.
