Manage Hunger for Effortless Fat Loss
When people generally attempt to loss fat they follow the mantra of “eat less and exercise more” but do this in a way that makes them not feel good: always feel hungry, have low energy, experience mood swings, develop cravings, etc. These feelings are why 90% of people fail to achieve or maintain the results they desire. However, we can manipulate certain hormones, so that you don’t have to suffer when attempting to lose body fat and become healthier.
Hunger Hormones
Hormones don’t exist in a vacuum. No single hormone can be classified as good or bad. Instead, hormone levels are constantly in flux, influencing each other as well as impacting different systems in the body. It’s when there is too much or too little of a hormone that problems can arise or when nutrients and chemicals in our diet and environment disrupt the auto-regulatory system of the body.
Leptin
I want to introduce two hormones that can directly affect your fat loss and muscle gain efforts. The first is Leptin. Leptin is an extremely important hormone in relation to fat loss/weight gain. Leptin is a ‘hunger hormone’… it’s job is to basically tell your brain that you are full and satisfied when eating. However, this process can be interrupted causing leptin resistance where your body no longer listens to leptin’s message resulting in overeating or not feeling full/satisfied. Stress, sleep deprivation, high calorie foods and fructose can turn your leptin response off allowing you to over eat.
Exercise and proper fat loss nutrition have the opposite effect. This is why most people can’t simply “eat less” to loose weight… they always feel hungry or their satiety level does not last long (feel the need to eat again shortly after a meal). Encouraging a good Leptin response can make fat loss feel effortless.
Ghrelin
Ghrelin is considered the counterpart to the hormone leptin. Think of Ghrelin as your go hormone… it should naturally increase before meals (sending hunger signals to the brain) and likewise decrease after meals helping with satiety levels. The very interesting thing about dieting is that it directly affects ghrelin function.
Research has shown that Ghrelin levels rise immediately with calorie-restricted diets for weight loss. Successfully lean people do not “diet” they “eat for fat loss”, which creates an optimal hormonal profile for long-term success. A simple fact is the more a person restricts calories, the hungrier they get! It is almost as if semi-starvation triggers gherlin to increase. The study concluded that this might be part of the reason that individuals regain weight lost, and then some, by calorie restrictive dieting.
The level of ghrelin within the body is highly dictated by the nutritional status and hydration levels of the individual. In other words, ghrelin also regulates water and fluid intake, so if you drink a glass of water when you are hungry, ghrelin signals can be satisfied and subside the feelings of hunger for a while. This provides a simple way to control your hunger. Research suggests that “one 250ml glass of water before every meal decreases the amount you will eat by at least 8 ounces and suppresses ghrelin for longer after the meal”.
To lose weight without feeling terrible and constantly hungry you need to effectively manipulate the brain’s hunger signals. Therefore, to optimise these two fat loss hormones and achieve long-term fat loss you need to reduce stress, get quality sleep, eat low GI nutrient dense foods, limit fructose and stop calorie restrictive dieting. If you do these actions you will feel great and effortlessly lose weight.
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