How to Suppress Your Appetite Naturally?

Overeating and eating the wrong food are the main reasons of weight gain. Many people struggle with nutrition because they do not understand the holistic nature of the concept. They generally do not have the desire or discipline to eat healthy food. As a result they end up eating unhealthy food and establishing unhealthy habits. Many of these unhealthy habits include emotional eating and food cravings.

A lot of people adopt dieting as a way to weight loss. But eventually their fitness plan goes for a toss as the food cravings and the hunger pangs set in. It is very difficult to control our hunger because of various appetizing delicacies around us. But if you somehow magically take the hunger pangs and food cravings out of the equation, wouldn't dieting be so much simpler? That is where 'Appetite suppression' comes into picture.

Appetite is both a mental and physical phenomenon. One of the simplest ways of controlling your body fat is to curb your appetite. By eliminating hunger and the desire around food, your daily calorie intake will drop below your maintenance level. This allows you to drop those excess pounds or maintain your existing weight.

There are many strategies that help reduce hunger. Following are some things you can do to decrease your appetite naturally:

1. Get rid of junk food: The easiest thing to do when you get hunger pangs is to reach for a bag of chips. Sometimes you might just get a food craving because your fridge is full of chocolate and ice creams. So do your body a favor and get rid all those snacks, candies, donuts and other bad foods that's making you gain weight.

2. Start your day with fiber and protein: Fiber when mixed with water forms a bulk in your stomach that makes you feel less hungry. It also kills all your sugar cravings. Protein, on the other hand, is a slow digesting food which keeps you going for a longer period of time. Also, studies have shown that when protein is eaten at breakfast, it keeps you satisfied longer than when eaten at other meal times. Thus, the best way to start your day is to start it with oatmeal and some milk.

3. Drink lots of water: Water is calorie free and is an easy way to suppress your appetite. Drinking water throughout the day and anytime you start to feel hungry deceives the brain into thinking the stomach is full. A recent study on people following a low calorie diet found that people who drank 2 cups of water prior to their meals lost about 7 kg in 12 weeks as compared to 5 kg weight loss in people who did not. Researchers say that water may be so effective simply because it makes people feel fuller and eat less calorie-containing food during the meal.

4. Sip green tea throughout the day: Don't like water? Have some green tea. Green tea is rich in nutrients and has been shown to help reduce appetite. Like water, it also fools the brain into thinking that your stomach is full.

5. Exercise: People think that exercise increase hunger pangs. But exercise not only helps you burn calories but also consume less of them. Both aerobic exercise and weight training change your body's hormone levels in a way that temporarily suppresses appetite. A study published in the American Journal of Physiology showed that 60 minutes of high-intensity cardio 3 times a week can reduce appetite for up to two hours afterwards. The study found that aerobic exercise lowers ghrelin levels (appetite stimulating hormone) and increases the peptide YY levels (appetite-suppressing hormone) in your body. Weight training, on the other hand, lowers only the ghrelin levels.

6. Get enough sleep: A shortage of sleep lowers level of leptin in your body which makes you feel hungrier. Make sure you get eight to nine hours of sleep each night to keep your energy high.

7. Drink you meals: Research at Pennsylvania State University shows that men and women who consume their meals in the form of drinks like whey milkshakes, soy milkshakes or even soups are 50% less likely to get hunger pangs during the day as compared to their counterparts who eat the same amount of calories in form of snack food.

8. Eat small but frequents meals: Instead of having huge meals three times a day, you should have smaller but more frequent meals. This way, hunger does not build up and cause you to eat excessively.

9. Brush your teeth or use mouth wash: A lot of people don't feel like eating once they have brushed their teeth. Brushing gives your teeth a fresh and clean feeling, deterring you from wanting to eat immediately after. Also, certain foods (especially foods that contain citric acid) reacts with the flouride to create a bad taste in your mouth. This flavor change has been shown to help deter people from wanting to eat more.

10. Disgust yourself: This is a bit extreme but the least thing that will be on your mind when you are disgusted is food. So the next time you feel hungry look at an image of something that is unattractive or gross. You can even think or smell something gross.

11. Blue color all the way: The color blue naturally decreases appetite. So the next time you want to purchase dinner plates, go for the blue ones.

There are various appetite suppressing supplements in the market that can modify your brain signals to reduce hunger. But this will have a negative impact on your health in the long run. You rather stick to the natural ways.