Healthy Weight Loss Tips

So I’m sitting in church and suddenly have the craving for fresh roasted peanuts. I can imagine smelling them and tasting them. I leaned over and whispered to my hubby, “I’m craving peanuts.” He looked at me funny.

A few minutes later, I smelled a delicious popcorn aroma coming from the kitchen where they were preparing the snack for the kids.  “Mmm, popcorn,” I whispered.

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When you’re restricting your calories for weight loss, it’s super important not to blow your calories on a little piece of junk food. You don’t want to feel hungry. You want to be able to fill your belly up.

Well, you can feel full and satisfied with the right choices.

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I know very few people who eat only when they’re hungry and stop as soon as they’re full. They don’t overeat. They don’t eat for emotions. They eat because they’re physically hungry and that’s it.

Most of us fall into a different category. We’re emotional eaters. We eat when we’re miserable – stressed, angry, sad, bored, lonely – and we eat when we’re happy – celebratory, relaxed, or excited.

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How many times during the day do you eat when you’re not hungry?

If you stop and check the status of your stomach before you reach for food, you may find you’re often eating for reasons other than hunger.

During these times, you probably experience strong cravings for salty snacks, sweets, or fatty foods. (It’s doubtful that you’ll crave a salad with tuna.)

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I find that I get in trouble with my calories when I don’t plan my food out for the day. Even if I’m choosing healthy foods, it’s so easy to have 50 extra calories here, 70 extra calories there, and so on. Before I know it, I get to dinner and realize I don’t have enough calories left for the rest of the day to remain in my calorie limit.

It’s simply poor planning on my part. When I sketch out my food for the day (before I eat it), I can make adjustments and wiser choices.  This allows me to add up my calorie total to make sure I’m within my limit.

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I tend to burn through my food like the Tasmanian devil spins through a tree. About two hours after eating, I’m feeling hungry again. If I don’t eat, I’ll become tired, spacey, and sometimes shaky.

I had my blood sugar tested and it was normal. No problems there. So why the high hunger level? And why do I go craving crazy if I eat any starches other than brown rice or oats? Why do I only feel full if I eat a lot of protein?

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Doritos, Oreos, Snickers, potato chips, French fries, M&Ms, pizza, nachos, chicken wings, oatmeal cream pies, chocolate, cheese curls… can you think of a few more?

All of these foods make you want to keep eating and eating, after you’re full, when you’ve already consumed more than a serving, and your taste buds clamor for more. To win the battle with them, you’ve got to cut them off cold turkey.

You cannot flirt with these foods or wean yourself off of them. They’re dangerous. Just one bite and you’ll be slammed-bammed-whammed with huge cravings to eat more. Why?

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Emotional eating happens to everyone at times. We feed our feelings, trying to meet an emotional need with ice cream, chips, or fast food. But instead of feeling better, we feel worse – guilty and disappointed in ourselves.

Emotional eating is anytime we reach for food when we’re not physically hungry. It’s times when we eat because we’re sad, lonely, angry, or rewarding ourselves. This kind of eating, however, can really mess up our diet efforts.

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One of my clients is a school teacher. Her toughest time of day for staying on track with food is right after school. She’s hungry, stressed, and tired. She would arrive home and begin raiding the kitchen. What also made this time difficult was waiting for her husband to come home so they could have a late dinner together. She was so hungry she would continue snacking.

She realized that the rest of the day went well. It was this one period in the afternoon that was sabotaging her weight loss efforts. She came up with a plan to deal with this trouble spot.

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“I have no idea what I’m going to eat for dinner tonight,” I heard one lady say to her friend as they walked out of the gym.

She’s headed for trouble, I thought to myself.

When you’re already hungry that is NOT the time to figure out what to eat. Your blood sugar is low, your brain is signaling your body to eat, and your stomach is growling.

If you haven’t already figured out what you’re going to eat before you’re hungry, what do you think you’ll do when you walk in your kitchen door? Calmly prepare a salad and open a can of tuna? Very unlikely. You’ll probably open the cupboards, the fridge, and the freezer and start munching on anything that looks good!

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If you’re like me, when you get overly hungry all you want to do is put something in your mouth as fast as you can. Then you can hardly stop eating because it takes awhile for your brain to catch up with your belly to know there’s actually food in there.

When you wait too long to eat, your blood sugar drops and the brain sends hunger signals to your body. These hunger signals get stronger until you’re ravenous. When you do start eating, the digestion of food and release of sugar into the blood stream takes a little time. So it makes overeating very likely.

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I came home from my run today hungry and tired. It was lunchtime and my kids were sitting at the table with Grandma eating chocolate ice cream for dessert (that she’d brought special just for them). The house also smelled like pizza and the empty pan with crust crumbs was sitting on top of the stove.

Now, I knew I needed to get out of there. So, I drank my electrolytes then hit the shower. My lunch was in the oven baking and would be ready by the time I was finished.

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Have you ever watched a TV commercial for pizza? The cheese bubbles, the crust glows golden, and you can nearly smell the aroma. Suddenly your mouth is watering and you’re craving pizza like crazy! Maybe you even call up the local ristorante for a delivery.

If you react like this to a food commercial, you might have EFS.

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