You walk into the pantry and you’re surrounded by chocolate. You go to the freezer and the tub of ice-cream stands in front of you.
And when you’re preparing to workout, your friends asks you to attend a party event filled with pizza and soda.
It’s challenging to avoid unhealthy, savory food in our modern world. Every day you are presented with sugar-loaded, trans-fat filled snacks. If you succumb to all this food temptation, you will only put on more weight and continue to be shamed for your image.
The good news is you can put a stop to this.
Here are 8 ways on how to stop eating when not hungry and help yourself achieve a better body.
The worst time to decide what to eat is when you’re hungry.
You can’t think with a clear mind and you’ll likely end up settling with your friend’s suggestion of heading to Wendy’s.
The same applies to your groceries.
Don’t shop on an empty stomach. You’ll find additional salted chips, bagels and canned drinks in your basket.
Plan out your meals and groceries when you’re full.
Stick to your plan and you’ll be more conscious of what you eat. You will be able to see and cut out all the unnecessary sugar, fat and salt you have been adding to your diet.
Before you grab your cutleries, drink one glass of water 30 minutes before hand. This will promote your gut’s digestion
The Handbook of Non Drug Intervention (HANDI) Project Team from Australia found out that drinking water before a meal can lead to an increased rate of weight loss by as much as 44%! Having water in your gut before a meal helps to promote digestion and better absorption of nutrients.[1]
This makes you feel full when you’re done with your meal so you can skip dessert without feeling guilty.
Plus, water is a healthier beverage than calorie drinks like coke, so why not help yourself lay off even more calories while you’re at it!
It may be tempting, when you’re starving but you shoudn’t gorge your food down like there’s no tomorrow.
Andrade from the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Rhode Island tested two groups of patients who ate at different pace. And he noticed this big outcome.
The group of patients who ate slower at meals constantly consumed less food and felt more full and satisfied.[2]
Eating less food doesn’t need to be forced like many imagined.
Eat your meals with your colleagues, friends and family. Have a good chat with them and you’ll naturally slow down your chewing and swallowing.
Sometimes, you just need to get out of the environment that is bombarding you with unhealthy snacks.
Stay away from the pantry, go for a long walk in the park with your family.
But make sure you’re not heading towards your favorite burger bar!
Travel in more natural areas like parks, hills or the pool so you can expend your energy and stimulate your metabolism.
Being engaged in activity will also take your mind off food.
The problem with today’s enivronment is everyone has instant access to unhealthy food. All you need to is stretch your arm and those salted chips come diving at you.
If you try to make these snacks less readily available, you will be less inclined to reach out to them.
So take some time to dig out those pretzels, candies and frozen burgers from your pantry. Discard them into the garbage chute, and give yourself a pat on the back.
And here’s one additional tip from our readers while you’re at it.
Put your weighing scale beside the refrigerator. That way, you’d be more conscious of your numbers every time you think about food.
When you head somewhere on an empty stomach,, you are probably going to stop somewhere for a quick bite.
And the closest food store to you will be a fast food outlet or a convenience food store, where you will be served a trans-fat cheeseburger or a chocolate bar filled with fattening caramel.
Keep a healthy snack with you. A bag of mixed nuts or a banana is a great treat to keep you cravings down till you reach your destination.
If you’re always craving for more food, your willpower alone isn’t to blame.
Science has revealed a deep-rooted cause: Your gut health is likely to be in bad shape. When your gut lacks the good bacteria, it will affect your body in many ways.
One notable mechanism is how it activates your vagus nerve, a nerve that directly affects your digestive tract. When it gets activated, it will keep triggering your brain to eat even when you’re full.[3]
In fact, your gut health is one of the most intimate controller of your cravings.
But research has shown that if you correct your gut flora with a weight loss probiotic, you can block this vagus nerve and immensely cut down your cravings.
That means you’ll have the “willpower” to say “No!” to sweet, sinful dessert.[4]
Adding probiotics into your diet is a good strategy for the long term, but that doesn’t mean all probiotic will be helpful. In fact, many of yourprobiotic foods will cause weight gain instead.
It’s essential to take onlyweight loss probiotic strains that have shown clinical evidence of cutting down fat. An example of such probiotic isLactobacillus gasseri, which helped to cut down fat composition, waist size, and body mass index (BMI) on over a hundred patients.
We at Better Body Co. have formulated a 3-strain probiotics for weight loss called Provitalize. Comprising of clinically-proven weight loss strains, it's shown promising results with Provitalize users reporting to lose as much as 5 pounds within a week, even without any major change in their diet or lifestyle.