How to curb hunger pangs?

You have to eat stuff that could curb your hunger. Try those nutrisystem bars or similar stuff. One of those and you aren't hungry plus you haven't eaten anything fattening.

If you're going on a calorie-controlled diet you should cut out alcohol.

There's so many calories in alcohol a binge would pretty much undo any good you'd done already. Plus you're more likely to binge eat after a drink binge, either that night or the next day when you're hungover.

[quote]'ve recently gone back on calorie restricting and fasting to get my weight down

Maybe instead of driving you should walk next time.

When you chew, your stomach produces an acid that helps break down the food you’ve eaten in order to be digested so if you chew gum, it actually ‘tricks’ your body into thinking you’re eating.

Obviously don’t use it as a substitute for food though, just maybe chew some gum between meals so you’re not snacking.

Caffeine from tea or coffee certainly allays hunger. A snack of seven almonds, or two or three celery sticks is effective too. Certainly getting enough fats is key to satiety. Chewing gum can actually be worse in the long run as it stimulates gastric secretions and can end up making some feel hungrier. Drink plenty of still water too OP.

drink carbonated, non caloric and naturally flavored water.

cut out those drinks.

snack bars, even diet ones, are mostly garbage.

Though I personally don't abstain R6, there are new studies showing carbonated water isn't the best idea. It somehow helps people hold onto weight. It may trigger more hunger also. It has a similar effect as non-calorie sweetners also.

Op, keto slash low carb is the only thing that curbs my binge eating

I lost the weight and now making sure it stays off.

I drink coffee. Flavored water. Eat fruits and veggies. Small anounts of meat. No pasta, rice, etc. It works well.

Everytime I eat a sweet or sugary snack, I fall off the wagon and over eat. So I stay away from that..mostly

1. Bacon. Lots of calories per pound, but more hunger-fighting power per gram than almost anything. Seriously. 2-4 strips of bacon will do more to fight hunger at fewer total calories than 5 bowls of cereal.

2. Adequate sleep. When you're sleep-deprived, your body makes you hungry AND turns as much of whatever you eat into body fat that it can.

True R10

[quote]Do I have to cut out alcohol?

Yes. If you want to lose weight.

[quote]I like to have a binge night once a week at least.

Drink things that are non-alcoholic and unsweetened. If "binge night" takes place outside the house, drink plain San Pellegrino or unsweetened iced tea.

Psyillium husks. They'll keep you full and also clean you out.

I snack on rice cakes at my desk and it helps with nervous energy.

Why Stella, you're just as plump as a little partridge, and it looks so good on ya. honey. Really, it does. I've always maintained my fashionably lean figure with cigarettes, meth. and rough trade.

You need weed, OP.

Beginners sometimes get the munchies, but advanced users bypass the munchies and go straight for the activities phase.

With coffee, tobacco, and weed flowing through your system, you're not hungry until 2pm and then it's protein and rabbit food.

The Anne Frank method, lie down and place pillow over your stomach.

Adderall or a bit of cocaine.

Thank you for this thread. I used to be able to live with hunger pains no prob and was very thin, but then I went on various psych Meds and gained 60 pounds. It makes me want to die. I have also somehow begun to link anxiety and hunger, to the point where not only does anxiety make me want to eat, but I am also frightened of hunger and can't tolerate it at all. I don't drink alcohol. I get terrible cravings for sweets and hours later terrible cravings for potato chips and carbs. :( I was about 33, skinny all my life and this bomb of obesity sent off inside me. I am now diabetic 2. I should just kill myself.

My problem is that I'm bored at work and so I eat to fill the boredom.

R19, get some good therapy. Leave off some of the meds, gradually. Gradually is the key word.

You need hunger pangs if you ever want to thin out. You think skinny people eat all the time? Count calories, eat balanced meals and remember those pangs mean you are losing, fattie!! Eventually your body and your mind will get the idea but you gotta have some discipline, quit caving. quit binge drinking! Gross!

Eat small snacks (preferably low cal/carb snacks) every 3 hours.

Celery plus peanut butter jerky healthy peanuts

And don't eat heavy meals for breakfast/lunch and especially dinner.

Portion control while eating healthy ish stuff and youll see the lbs come off.

and stop drinking alcohol especially beer. that is nothing but calories and carbs

Hunger pangs is your body's way of telling you it's losing weight. Enjoy them.

r24 not true. it's your body telling you you're not eating enough. Which is actually a bad thing if your goal is to lose weight. Your body goes in preservation mode, and slows it's metabolism as it conserves nutrients (including fat)...as if you are in a middle of a famine.

You'll just feel lethargic and lose good weight while fat will be the last to go. Not the kind of healthy skinny you want to be.

It's called Intermittent Fasting, and it works. Tons of info on it on the web.

What about long term (1week to a month) water fasts? I've heard that the metabolism resets itself when you do them.

A pack of Camels works well.

R19, if the hunger is due to psych meds, the weight gain is "mostly" due to carb cravings. I've been there... you aren't "hungry" so much as "feel nauseous, and only carbs can make you feel better". The key is to recognize it, give your body what it wants, but ONLY what it wants & nothing more.

In other words, temporarily *fuck* good nutrition. If you're craving sugar, 20lbs of veggies won't do *shit* to resolve your cravings, and if you insist on the veggies, those calories are "wasted" in the sense that you'll gain weight from them, but they'll give you no relief. Likewise, you don't need chocolate ice cream or a donut... all you're *really* craving is the sugar... the fat calories will add up, but give you no relief.

So... instead, snack on things that are low-fat, but have real sugar (HFCS will give short-lived relief) or, better yet, sugar alcohols (mannitol, etc). Try sugar-free candy that's marked "not a low-calorie food" (like the Hersheys chocolate made for diabetics).

At mealtime, eat your dessert *first*, and skip the "nutritious" part if the dessert & stuff you like best fills you up. It's ok, your mom isn't watching.

Eat slowly, but often,. Think of your sugar supply as a metaphorical IV drip line with morphine for someone dying from cancer. A stomach full of chocolate bars will give no longer-lasting relief from drug-induced carb cravings than 4oz of sugar-sweetened (non-HFCS) Pepsi consumed with a bottle of Slim-Fast (or a few strips of pre-cooked bacon).

Example mini-meal: shot glass with sugar-sweetened Pepsi, followed by 2 or 3 strips of ready-cooked bacon with a diet Coke & followed by a few "fun-sized" diabetic Hersheys bars sweetened with mannitol (eaten one by one, with a glass of sugar-free instant Hawaiian Punch between each over the span of an hour or two). The Pepsi shot tells your body, "it's party time!" & blunts the cravings. The bacon satiates your fat/protein hunger. The diabetic chocoiate stretches out the carb metabolism so it's slow & steady instead of spiked & crashing. The sugar-free hawaiian punch keeps your stomach filled & tricks your body into thinking you're continuously ingesting sugar (with the mannitol in the chocolate supplying a constant trickle of real carbs to fortify the illusion).

Nutritionally, this is an awful diet... but I've found it to be an effective way to short-circuit carb cravings and avoid weight gain.

Along the same lines, before you go into a "real" meal, blunt your cravings & hunger with a shot of pepsi, a glass of sugar-free hawaiian punch, and 2 diabetic fun-sized chocolate bars 30 minutes beforehand. The idea is, you *don't* want to go into a "real" meal starving... take the edge off FIRST.

Interesting advice, R29. (Also, I remember mannitol from my cocaine days.)

One caution about mannitol... in small quantities, it's a sweetener that's basically slowly-metabolizing sugar. In large quantities, it's a laxative... and a pretty potent one, too. I learned the hard way... I bought a mannitol-sweetened sugar-free chocolate cream pie from Walmart (it was marked down and looked interesting), ate half of it over the span of 2 hours, and spent the next day and a half with some of the worst, most foul-smelling explosive diarrhea I've had in my entire life. Point being, don't overdo the mannitol until you know what your body's limit is before diarrhea kicks in.

Binge drinking is ridiculous if you are trying to lose weight. Figure out how many calories are in what you binge drink each week and think of all the delicious food that could represent. I'd rather eat than drink. However, if you can't give up alcohol (and you likely have a bigger problem in addition to being fat), eat only salad and vegetables on those days so you don't completely blow it.

Tips to fight hunger:

Sipping a cup of low sodium chicken broth is very satisfying. Not boullion cubes which are loaded with sodium and will make you retain water, but either homemade or packaged low sodium broth.

An apple is very satisfying and gives me a nice clean feel in my mouth so I don't want to eat anything.

Embrace the feeling of being hungry - most people eat so much and so often that they don't even know what hunger feels like anymore. Set a time limit, say give yourself an hour to look forward to eating something. You won't die from hunger nor will your body go into "preservation mode" if you allow yourself to feel and appreciate being hungry for an hour. Think of all the starving people in the world, including our very own Darfur Orphan.

OP - I suspect you are looking for a very easy, simple solution. BUT - I may have one. It was suggested to me and it actually worked.

Buy a bottle of unfiltered Apple Vinegar, Bragg is he most popular.

Get a shot glass, and take a shot first thing in the morning and at night sometime between dinner and bedtime. Not only does it decrease your hunger, but it helps to cleanse your intestinal track, (and help with voiding).

It's a $4.00 investment. And like I said, it worked pretty well for me.

Please let me know if you tried it and if it works. Good luck.

I've lost weight while still drinking almost every night, it just depends on what you are drinking. Vodka is only 64 calories per oz. La Croix sparkling flavored water is 0 calories. Combined with a low carb diet I still lost weight.

A handful of raw walnuts works to kill the hunger pangs for me. I also add them to a bowl of oatmeal when I have breakfast.

If I want to drink while I'm trying to lose weight (and even when I'm not), I will have a gin and soda tall. A 1.5 ounce shot of 90 proof gin will cost you 84 calories.

r32 comparing not eating on a diet to Darfur is ridiculous. A normal body goes in preservation because they have something to preserve (stored carbs fats and other things).

The malnutritioned in Darfur and other places of the world are born starved...and stay that way.

Their body do not have anything to preserve.

Caffeine is a great appetite suppressant.

You just have to time it so that it's not keeping you up all night.

A lot of the over the counter "fat burner" tablets that bodybuilders and others use are just caffeine with some vitamins. Green tea caffeine will make you less jittery

I have digestion issues (bouts of gastritis and diverticulitis) and have to go on 3-day clear liquid fasts when they flare up. The hunger goes away after a while.

I had a friend who did the vinegar (one teaspoon in a glass of water) and he said it tasted fine and it suppressed his appetite

Like others have said above, there really is a point where your body needs to adjust to a calorie deficit, and you really can't trick your body into not feeling hunger pangs. What you can do is get your body to adjust to the feeling. Right now, I haven't eaten anything since last night, save for a cup of coffee. My stomach is gurgling and I am definitely hungry. But I have no internal push to eat anything. Getting acclimated to smaller servings and fewer calories, especially down from the typical American diet of large portions of high-calorie "junk" foods, is rough. But it is certainly doable, and the body does adjust to not having as much food. And you do get accustomed to being hungry. The simple fact is that for most people out there, particularly Americans, a daily calories limit (male) of 2000 is far too high when you factor in the fact that people have weight/energy to spare. Speaking anecdotally, I basically "trained" my body to eat less. Fasting is great, I do it when I've had a day or two of especially heavy eating and/or drinking. But there is a point where it does backfire, and that backfire is often in the form of garbage food. The process I used to basically eat very clean, good salads with fruit and veggies and low fat cuts of meat, at about 800 cals a day. On days where I exercise, I will bump that up.

eat an apple as some have said. totally fills up you up without many calories

OP,

I've always been able to put on fat too easily, but I have a few secrets for losing that always work. (I haven't had hunger pains since I figured these things out.)

1. Stop eating all sugar immediately. (Fruit is okay.) Sugar tells your hunger instincts to turn on.

2. Drink lots of water. (Green tea is fab.)

3. MOST IMPORTANTLY

Eat high fat snacks. Eating half an avocado for breakfast (I put a little salsa/bruschetta topping on mine), and you won't want to eat for hours. Cheese. Peanut butter. Nuts, etc.

You said it better than I would, R42. Perfect.

I use fennel tea to curb my appetite, OP. Some people swear by other herbs, but chewing a few fennel seeds helps with digestion, curbs the appetite and gives you sweet breath.

If I know I'm getting a high carb load (spaghetti at the MIL's), I'll take a 250mg of powdered gurmar. It's name means 'sugar killer' and it helps the gut process high carb loads a lot quicker and kills the appetite for sugar.

Brush your teeth.

60 lbs overweight and my scale refuses to budge despite weeks of restriction...granted i dont exercise regularly(im starting to) but with my obese bmi you would think cutting back food would drop something..so sick of being fat.

r45, can you work with a nutritionist to customize a plan for you? Or even try Weight Watchers. You will lose weight if you consume fewer calories than you use.

[quote] An apple is very satisfying and gives me a nice clean feel in my mouth so I don't want to eat anything.

Or, as Joan Crawford says in almost exactly similar language:

"While other people eat dessert. I eat a dill pickle. I like things sour and I like to finish the meal with something like that. It’s better for me than a sweet, of course. My mouth only waters for a nice, juicy, kosher pickle.”

Try eating.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

I should add, give up all sugar in food, sugary drinks, juices (basically just water, teas, coffee) and no pastries or deserts. Yogurts ok with berries and nuts, sticks of celery and carrots - lots of ideas online. You Detox too, you start to lose those pounds and feel like a better person all round (‘scuse the pun!)

Two tactics I use when I'm hungry:

1) eat a spoonful of peanut butter. It coats your stomach and makes you feel full. 2) Eat high fiber foods. Carrots usually work for me.

Good luck. Wouldn't it be better to just workout and eat?

Let's all remember that our bodies are not as stupid or tame as we would have them. If your body is working with the shit you throw it, it may not want you fucking with the program and it may know you're fad dieting. Your body remembers. Show some fucking respect.

Is raw unpasteurized honey ok? Seeing as it has all the nutrients and antioxidants intact.

[quote]I like to have a binge night once a week at least.

Forget about losing weight if you want to keep drinking alcohol, especially binging on it. One night of binging would destroy a whole week of work. You will never see results. In fact, binging on anything while trying to lose weight is a self sabotaging act. I think most programs say if you must have a cheat day, no more than once a month. And even then its not binge gone wild. It's one slice of pizza, or one restaurant style dessert at dinner, or one sugar doughnut with your coffee.

A typical can of beer is 145 calories. A standard pour of wine is 125 per glass A simple cocktail like gin and tonic is 148 A Mixed Drink like a Margarita is 680

Just 4 beers is 580 calories! That's more than a big thick slice of chocolate cake!

No bread,certainly no crappy mouthfulls of chips and get off your fat ass and start walking.

Common sense will tell you what foods to avoid just by looking at them.

You're not going to lose any weight until you expend more energy than the calories you're taking in.

Now get up off of that couch and start by walking around the block.

Swing those arms and don't shuffle.

Agree with everyone who says you can't binge drink weekly and lose weight.

If you take the advice of the poster who broke down their 800 calorie diet, (except don't drink at all because it may be hard for you to stop), you could easily lose 25+ pounds by this time next month. See if you want to fuck it all up binge drinking once you drop 25 lbs like that.

As another poster said, once the first few pounds start dropping, you'll come to regard those pangs as positive feedback. Every morning when you wake up, your stomach will be a little flatter than the day before. You just have to tolerate the pangs until you start seeing the results (and you'll see them quickly on 800 a day). After that, you'll be on a roll.

Or keep binge drinking and get increasingly heavier and unhealthy.

Thank you so much for all this excellent advice!

800 cal for a man is hard to do. I am currently on 1000 a day which is still very difficult and below what most legitimate weight loss experts say you should go. Even a calorie counting app like" Lose It" wont let you punch in a daily number that low without cheating the system.

Is there a calorie counting app that uses the metric system?

A square of 90% dark chocolate is a good appetite suppressant (but not less than 90%).

Two great books on the science of weight gain/loss are "Why We Get Fat" and "The Obesity Code".

Drink something warm with low/no calories like herbal tea or water with lemon juice.

Can you eat pasta if you're still under your calorie deficit?

R53 I came to ask that. I can take or leave most sugars, but honey (local, cloudy raw kind) and fruit seduce me. I feel like I was a fruit bat or a bear in a former life, I'm just addicted to natural plant sugars somehow. As a very little kid my folks say I used to lick sap off tree trunks and try to eat poisonous berries, too. Is that strange?

I would never dream of drinking alcohol while on a diet. That shit is filled with calories! Also, when I get hunger pangs I just drink large chugs of water. If the pangs really get too much, I just eat lettuce (no dressing).

Fruit, yes. Honey - not for a diet. Honey is great and I love it but not what I would take during a diet.

Eat lots of lettuce.

Ketogenic diet. Eat enough fat, you will not have cravings. It’s rough to start, but that shit WORKS. You are allowed vodka, but I’d advise giving up booze for the first few weeks.

As for its effect on health? My husband had a full workup after 8 months on it and every test came back “optimal”; cholesterol, A1C, all that jazz.

It would seem too good to be true, but it’s not. The downside is giving up sweets and carbohydrates.

What's the 5:2 refer to, r49?

Eat on smaller dishes. Buy a beautiful set of small silverware to eat with, sit down to eat, take small bites, and chew each bite thoroughly. Drink water with every meal.

As posted above, knowing the exact calorie value of your intake is key, although tedious at first. Once the weight starts coming off, you'll be so stoked that it will get much easier. Agree with tips in r49 to r56.

Don’t give up psych meds without medical supervision. But it is quite possible to lose psych med weight, and stay on the meds if you need them.

The 5:2 diet worked for me. Couldn't do it forever and if you aren't busy on a fast day, it's killer. But I was not very strict on the days off and still lost a pound a week at the least often more.

R68 what is the secret to keeping weight off while on psyche meds? On Prozac and hungry all the time. Lettuce and watermelon just not cutting it. I can eat a meal and still be hungry right after. Makes no sense. And it happens every time I’m on these meds.

R70 for me, cardio, 4-5 days per week, about 45-60 mins. Could be group ex at gym or walking or treadmill to tunes or any combo. Counterintuitive, but this completely reduces hunger and craving, for me.

The key here is also to reduce calorie intake as well, otherwise you eat right back what you worked off. So, the tips from posters above help with that.

The cardio is not chiefly to burn off calories, but to get the body's metabolism going, and reduce craving. I’m still on the psych meds and can lose (unless Haagen Dasz, etc, then all bets off).

r65 replace lettuce with kale, spinach, or some other dark green leafy vegetables. lettuce provides no benefits to your body.

Wait a second...

If you eat less than 1200 calories, your body thinks you're starving (unintentionally) and your metabolism drops to compensate.

Please don't eat an 800 calorie diet. It will work for a very short time until your body's survival mechanisms kick in.

I would advise, if you're used to overeating, just try to stick to a 2000 calories--this is the "maintenance" number for most people, and do a little light exercise. (Walk every day for 45 minutes.) Once you feel comfortable there, you can cut more calories (but not below 1200.)

Don't do anything drastic or your body will rebel.

r70, see r29

Weight gain due to many psych meds comes from carb cravings. Advice to avoid carbs while on them is futile -- carbs are what your body is demanding, and NOTHING ELSE will make them go away.

The loophole is, sugar alcohols (like mannitol, used in "diabetic" candy & baked goods) will satisfy the cravings, and they metabolize slowly & for a long time (so they'll satisfy the cravings for a while, instead of ~3 minutes followed by a sugar crash & more cravings).

Artificial sweeteners on their own won't make carb cravings go away, and might even make them worse. But artificial sweeteners consumed continuously, with periodic small doses of food sweetened with mannitol (or another sugar alcohol), can effectively fake out your body & neutralize the cravings.

Think of it like a chord on a piano keyboard... the constant stream of diet coke (or whatever) triggers the "I taste sweet food" sensor, while the slow, constant stream of metabolizing sugar alcohol triggers the, "yep, digesting sugar!" sensor. The body sees both, and turns off the cravings.

For the remaining hunger pangs, eat a few strips of bacon, augmented by an occasional bottle of SlimFast. It ticks the "protein" & "fat" checkboxes, giving your body *exactly* what it's craving... and nothing more.

Eliminate carbs entirely, and the meds will make you nauseous & miserable. Eliminate fat, and your body will say, "nope... not done yet." The key is to avoid actual sugar & HFCS, because your body metabolizes them too quickly & easily. Sugar alcohols satisfy the need for sweets, but make your body work harder and longer to digest them.

It's not a contest of moral fortitude, it's just chemistry and neurotransmitters. Eating normal food is like blindly shooting into a barrel of fish with a machine gun... it kills the fish, but makes a mess. The strategy above is like precision sniping at a county fair booth to win a stuffed animal by hitting the targets that count, and ONLY the targets that count.

R62, try the pastas made from pulse flours which are about 25% protein. Some taste just like regular pasta.

Chromium supplements- don't take more than 1000mg/day.

No one wants to be fat, except the Kardashians. Anti depressants can make you feel awful. One of the older ones makes some people lose weight. Yes. I have seen it happen. Prozac.

Lots of water a few almonds eaten very slowly

Chain smoking and endless martinis

I have a tip or two about what makes a delicious, lo-cal, satisfying meal!

Truly, take two weeks to do it and eat anything, just small portions ... poultry and fish, no more than 1/4 lb. serving ... vegetables, learn what calories are, how to count, try to ingest 1,000 or 1,200 and youtr stomah will adjust. Eat healthily.

R67 the 5:2 diet refers to 5 days in the week eat whatever you like / normally do and on 2 days (they don’t need to be together and can move around) restrict to 800 calories. It’s difficult but works. The fact that you can move the 800 calories days to suit your work / social schedule really helps.

I agree with r80 and his tips too - I started on 800 - 1000 calories as per the link in r49 then when the pounds peeled off gradually moved up to 1000 to 1200 which is so much easier. Picking up on r73 - it’s fine to drop to 800-1000 calories for a few weeks as long as you are getting a good balance of nutrients. Use an app like ‘Fat Secret’ to track what you are eating, the calories and your weight and also to give a breakdown of the protein, carbs and fat per day. If you do the 5:2 then two scattered low cal days in 7 won’t mess with your body. As stated I was on a permanent low cal routine for 8 weeks (you couldn’t do this in a full time office job, try the 5:2 instead). I’m now moving gradually to 2000 calories a day and aim to stick there - maybe with a weekly 800 calorie day to compensate for the inevitable binges.

For me I had to see 20 pounds drop off in a few weeks or I would have thrown the towel in. It’s far far more than I’ve lost over the previous 20 odd years and gave me the focus, and confidence, to see it through and - most importantly - the will power and knowledge of what I can achieve to maintain it. Go for it!!!!

R62 - you can eat your favorite pasta etc as long as you keep inside your 800 calories. It’s just that it uses quite a bit of your calorie count up.

I've been experimenting with fibre, and have had good results. In the past I've tried Fullbars, Metamucil, and Citrucel. The poster upthread who recommended Psylium has some merit too. Beans are very filling, and help with satiety too. I do Keto with intermittent fasting, and bacon is really satisfying long -term, as another poster mentioned upthread. I think binging on anything is a bad practise, though I drink and smoke.

R76 I was never skinnier than when I was on Prozac.

Haha, that got posted to the wrong thread. Obvs!

I drink carbonated water and it makes me feel full

Acid inhibitors. Like zantac. If you eat because your stomach is empty and uncomfortably acidic, this solves the problem.

Topomax.