Appetite Rescue

May 14, 2016

Appetite is hugely influenced by the content of our diet. Want to be hungry? Then follow the standard American diet (aptly aka SAD) with its excess of processed carbohydrate.  Insulin directs calories and nutrients into fat storage where they become sequestered, unavailable for usage.  The overfed but undernourished body keeps sending signals to eat.

Want to feel energized and satiated?  There are plenty of books with strategies to combat the challenge of a relentless appetite:

• Always Hungry? by Dr. David Ludwig details how excess body fat acts to increase our cravings and how our diets can be deliberately engineered to overcome this.
• Dr. Sara Gottfried’s book, The Hormone Reset Diet addresses seven different hormones that affect appetite and weight including leptin (which was mentioned several times in the article as a post diet casualty)
• JJ Virgins book, The Sugar Impact Diet shows how folks can eliminate cravings by eliminating sugar and not just the sweet kind.  Blood sugar management is critical to insulin management.  Insulin directs calories to fat storage and excess insulin means excess fat storage and excess hunger.
• Dr. Mark Hyman’s 10 Day Detox Diet also resets appetite while it helps to remove toxins that may be acting as obesengens and interfering with weight loss
• Smart Fat, Dr. Steven Masley and Jonny Bowden’s new book, although not intended as a diet book addresses how the lack of fat has impacted our appetites. See also Eat Fat Get Thin by Dr. Mark Hyman
• Wheat Belly and Wheat Belly Total Health detail how the dwarf wheat so prevalent in our diet is impacting appetites, weight and heart disease
• Dr. David Perlmutter’s international best seller, Grain Brain shows how our love affair with grain has affected our brain health and Brain Maker shows its effect on our microbiome and thus practically every area of our body from our immune system to our brain chemistry. The microbiome  has a huge influence on obesity (see “Gut Bugs and Extra Pounds? Seriously?!“)
• Dr. Laura Pawlack, Ph.D in her 2010 book, The Hungry Brain dives deep but clearly and simply into how the cravings are set up in the brain and what you can do about it.  She literally uses pictures to make complicated concepts understandable.
• Daniel Amen examines the role of missing amino acids and their contribution to mood, hunger and weight in his book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body

Then there are the books that simply show you how to get the biggest bang for your caloric buck.

• Volumetrics by Barbara Rolls, Ph.D teaches one of the skills I had originally learned also – veggies are all but free, a philosophy Weight Watchers has embraced for years. (I disagree about the free fruit though because not only is it is twice the calories, carbs and sugar of a veggie serving for serving, but more importantly because folks will eat fruit even if they are not hungry which I am guessing is rarely happening with broccoli!).  Adding healthy fats to those veggies makes this strategy easy and delicious
• Picture Perfect Weight Loss by Howard M. Shapiro makes very clear how outrageously higher in calories many of your favorites are, requiring much more than just a lite lunch or a couple of mile walk to balance into your caloric budget!

Here are some information that will help you to take back the reigns on your appetite and your weight:

• sugar, wheat and MSG are appetite stimulants (read: The End Of Over Eating by Dr. David Kessler or The Wild Diet by Abel James)
  sugar causes calcium and magnesium deficiencies and calcium and magnesium deficiencies cause sugar cravings (read *The Micronutrient Miracle by Jayson and Mira Calton)
• sugar is more addictive than cocaine
• junk food depletes nutrients (it steals from your body the vitamins and minerals it needs for digestion which were removed in the processing) which in turn causes increased appetite
• The microbiome of an obese individual is different from a thin counterpart and has more of a type of bacteria that derives more calories from your food and turns more of them into fat. You can impact this imbalance both through diet and supplementation (See “Gut Bugs and Extra Pounds? Seriously?!” and The Belly Fat Effect by Mike Mutzel
• tons of veggies provide temporary fullness (read Volumetrics by Barbara Rolls Ph.D)
• more fiber from foods or supplements (especially a fiber supplement called PGX) provide sustained fullness (read Hunger Free Forever by Michael T. Murray, ND and Michael R. Lyon, MD
• more fat and protein and less high glycemic carb will keep blood sugar stable (read Always Hungry? by Dr. David Ludwig) as well as seemingly provide a bit of a calorie fudge factor – that is the theory and that is my personal experience. I simply get to eat more calories to maintain the same weight
  read “Nature’s Appetite Managers” from my Surviving Myself blog and learn how our hunger hormones and neurotransmitters are affected by our lifestyle choices such as sleep and time of day eating
• check out the menus, recipes and companion cookbooks to these bestsellers