Please don’t blame your ravenous appetite or lack of will power in your inability to keep tabs on the amount of food you are eating. Overeating, binge eating are not always because your body needs energy or food, there are a whole lot of factors playing up, keeping you in a state of hunger all the time. We all know overeating would not only result in weight gain, it also puts you at a risk of developing type 2 diabetes and other life-threatening diseases, and that’s why it becomes all the more important to have a control over the amount of food you are consuming with each meal. So, here are some tips to stop overeating, particularly if you are trying to lose weight and get healthy.
1. Cut out Refined Carbs: When you are in a constant state of hunger, it would be prudent to check if you are having too many refined carbs on a daily basis. When a majority of your meals have refined carbs, they supply loads of calories to the body without any nutritional value. And it’s the body seeking nutrients by making you hungry all over again. All calories are not equal, and our body needs not just calories, it needs various nutrients to run bodily processes and functions, and when nutrients are missing, it sends out hunger signals. Also, refined carbs cause sharp rise in blood sugar and insulin shows up to regulate blood sugar. When insulin removes this blood sugar, the body demands more glucose, and triggers carb cravings. To counter all this, start on a healthy diet such as the Rati Beauty diet, where you are eating complex carbs, healthy fats, protein and fiber rich food which keeps you fuller for long and would help you lose weight as well.
2. Get 7 Hours of Sleep: Are you waking up “hangry” every morning? Sleeping for less than 7 hours can trigger sharp rise in hunger hormone “ghrelin” and cortisol levels which push you towards eating unhealthy and increasing the appetite by a great degree. Researchers have associated less number of sleeping hours with weight gain and increase in appetite.
3. Drink Lots of Water: If you are not drinking enough water, less than 2 liters a day, the body tends to mix up thirst and hunger signals and you are more likely to eat food than drink water to calm the signs. We tend to confuse “thirst” for hunger, and turn to food to curb hunger pangs, adding unnecessary calories that are hard to burn off at the end of the day. Drink a full glass of water upon waking and sip on water through the day. Also, keep a bottle handy at all times and keep refilling it through the day.
4. Emotional Eating: Stress eating or emotional eating is a situation where one eats to feel good and pleasant, to cope up with trauma, to relieve stress, rather than to satisfy hunger. One can easily overeat food under stress and most of the times it is food that is high-fat, high sugar, calorie-rich food full of transfat and ingredients that are extremely unhealthy for the human body. So, rather than indulging in high-calorie food, “Eat These Things When You are Stressed Out without Falling off Diet.”
5. You are Eating Foods That are Manufactured to be Overconsumed: Artificial sweeteners, refined carbs, sugary delights, processed food have ingredients that are manufactured with ingredients that push you towards overeating. These foods physiologically stimulate ghrelin even after enough calories have been reached. The flavours in hyperpalatable foods trigger the release of endorphins and dopamine, pushing you to reach out for such kind of unhealthy food all over again, similar to drug addiction. Regular consumption of fast food, junk food, all of which are “hyperpalatable foods” cause the fullness hormone “leptin” to malfunction and you would be unable to reach satiety even after eating large quantities of food. We are particularly talking about sugary foods, which activate the pleasure centers of the brain – so do avoid processed, junk and fast food, and also say no to sugary delights.
6. Distracted While Eating: Studies have found that people eat more when they are distracted, for example while watching TV or browsing on phone. In fact, people do not even notice the amount and kind of food they are eating while watching TV. Eat your food in peace and mindfully to avoid overeating.
Hope these tips would help you to have a control over your eating habits and help you lose weight in the process.
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