Dr. Eric Bakker here.
Thanks for coming back.
I've got a question here from a lady, a subscriber to my channel, of course, and her name is
Marjorie Eskin, Eskine, or Eskine, and she's from Vancouver.
One of my favorite places, I love Vancouver.
I want to go back to Vancouver Island, actually.
It's awesome.
Now, Marjorie, "Why am I always hungry?
I'm hungry all the time.
Why can't I stop eating food?"
Well, I've written down a few points here I'm going to discuss with you, and this will
be quite a good video for anybody, really, who's concerned about how much food they're
eating.
And, worried particularly about their weight, thinking their weight's associated with an
up regulated appetite.
And, how you can curb that appetite, you know, and just be someone who just eats at certain
times of the day and doesn't always think about food, or want food, or things like that.
So, remember, there are lots of control mechanisms that's associated with appetite, particularly
the hormones leptin and ghrelin, which we'll talk about a bit later.
So, that's something that you want to think about, too.
It may not be you.
It could be things inside you, mechanisms that aren't working properly, stimulating
this appetite.
So, one of the key things I see with many patients who carry weight is, they don't eat
enough protein.
So, protein really, it's probably been drummed into you with many YouTube videos now, and
many channels, many articles that you've read and many doctors that you've seen, but you
need to eat protein.
But, when I say eat protein, I'm not really talking about a carnivore diet where you're
going to have steak three times a day.
That's not really a healthy approach.
Got to have the balanced approach, right?
Protein doesn't have to be a slab of meat.
Protein can be lentils.
Protein can be many different food sources.
It can be some nuts, you know.
So, proteins are in many things.
Many people choose to seek animal-based proteins, and other people don't choose to do that.
But certainly, eating protein at different times of the day, and regulate, can make a
big difference.
Protein has a slower burn, okay, it breaks down more slowly, certainly, than carbohydrates.
Protein makes you feel good, and there are many mechanisms on why it will do this.
Protein is also very important because of it's ability to stimulate the muscles.
And, when you exercise, any protein, particularly when you get to 60 like me, you want to have
good muscle tissue and not a lot of fat tissue.
And, protein will enable you to power you up, develop some good muscle tissue, rather
than fat.
The big one, I find, with a lot of people is eating too many carbs.
So, many people eats too many refined carbs.
Breads, donuts, Cheerios, Muesli bars, even protein drinks with high sugar content.
So, the more you stay away from these kinds of foods, the less you're going to want to
keep getting repeated hits of these foods.
Let me give an example.
I like giving examples to people, sort of common sense examples.
So, we burn fires here in New Zealand in wintertime, and I'm sure if you're in Canada, you would
understand that principle.
But, if I've got a piece of pine, really light pine, and threw that on a fire, how long would
it take for that pine to burn?
Like that, it's up, gone in no time.
So, it'll produce a bit of heat, then it's gone, okay?
So, that's the refined carbohydrate.
That's the donut, or that's the cookie or the piece of bread.
You get a bit of energy, but then you drop back again.
But, what happens in this case, your blood sugar goes up, i.e., the heat goes up, okay?
The energy goes up, or the anxiety goes up.
But then, it comes down again quite fast, because the response is only very brief.
Insulin will quickly be produced to act on the blood sugar, but also, it's a very quick
burn.
So then, often, you'll come down really fast.
And, that could change your mood, or make you a bit hungry again within a few hours.
And then, you'll want another hit.
And then, another hit.
So, people who eat bread, for example, slices of bread, you know, peanut butter and jelly,
or whatever, they can go from one sandwich to another, three or four times a day, all
right?
So, they're never really eating much of sustenance.
All they're doing is putting a little bit of wood on the fire and get a quick burn.
However, if you've got a piece of hard wood, okay, like ash or solid ... Ash is one of
the most densest timbers you can get.
And, here in New Zealand, we've grown timbers.
You've heard of manuka honey, there's also [Canuka].
So, Canuka is a tree, a small tree.
Now, Canuka is one of the densest fire woods in New Zealand.
When I put a piece of Canuka into the fire, and shut the fire down, that will burn all
night.
That's like you having a small piece of meat with a bit of fat on it, or a meal with some
fat and protein.
It's a slow burn.
So, it's going to drip feed that, plus break down products of digestion to you, and give
you a nice, even energy curve.
And, you're not going to get a strong insulin response.
So, you're going to feel a lot better in the long term by eating more substantial, solid
meals, than having these quick bits of wood in a fire all the time.
So, be careful with refined carbohydrates.
I don't tend to eat any refined carbohydrates at all.
I would just stick with vegetables, fruits, and meats, and Brazil nuts and almonds, and
the usual stuff that I eat.
So, my energy never varies throughout the day.
I'm always burning the same kind of fire wood constantly, even when I go out, I try and
select the right kind of wood.
I don't go for the quick burn.
So, take my advice.
Look for heavier fire wood, if you get my drift.
Always look.
Now, the thing is, you're going to be paying more for the heavier, denser wood than you
are for the lighter stuff, all right?
But, because you'll be eating more quality and less of it, and your health improves,
it's a mute point.
Stick with the better quality food.
That way, you're not going to be prone to getting overweight, and diabetes and heart
disease, and all of the stuff that people my age just don't want to get.
Twenty year olds don't usually get heart attacks and diabetes, 60 year olds like me do.
I've had several friends seriously sick, and even pass away in the last several years,
all because of Diet Coke, seriously obese.
You know, and with close friends, I don't really talk about diet and nutrition.
It's not my thing to do that.
I'm not the fun police.
I love these guys, and I get really sad when I see a close friend pass away on something
that was avoidable.
So, don't fall into that category, okay?
You might not be my close friend, but I don't want you dying of something that you could
have prevented because you couldn't control this, all right?
Poor sleep cycles, so, people who don't sleep well get interrupted sleep, often have issues
with two hormones.
In fact, three hormones.
Cortisol, cortisol is produced by the adrenals.
And, that can sometimes, if you've got an adrenal low in the afternoon, you can have
adrenal high in the morning between 2:00 and 4:00.
It's not uncommon, and that can wake you up.
And, that can stimulate your appetite.
Have you ever been in bed, and you're lying there and you think, "Oh, I want to get up
and eat something.
I'm really hungry."
You know, that can often be a sign of an elevated cortisol response.
In that situation, I would ask you, well, what were you like the day before?
You know, from lunchtime to 6:00 p.m.?
Were you stressed?
Were you tired?
Did you want to lie down?
Did you have a high or low?
Did something happen?
And, often you'll find there will be some type of emotional event that occurred one
or two days prior.
Now, that could be ongoing with you and create lots of disrupted sleep cycles.
Talk to someone who's very overweight, and they'll often say they've got very crappy
sleep.
Most obese people don't sleep well at all.
People with maybe, normal body weight, and with good cortisol response don't generally
ever have a problem sleeping.
They go to bed.
I'm usually in bed by 9:30, 10:00, and then, bonk, within about 10 minutes I'm asleep.
I don't wake up till 6:30 a.m.
That's how it should be.
That's what a healthy person has, okay?
So, if you're waking up repeatedly at night over a long period of time, this can really
affect two hormones, ghrelin, and leptin.
Now, ghrelin is the appetite stimulating hormone, and leptin is the fullness hormone.
Now, these get messed up with sleep, so sometimes, it's hard to work out how full you are.
You could overeat when these hormones get right out of kilter.
So, always create a good sleep cycle.
Look at some of my videos on this channel on sleep.
You need to cultivate sleep like you need to cultivate anything in your life, if you
want to really get a good outcome.
Not enough fat.
Many people are scared, still, of the word F-A-T, okay?
They still see it as a three letter word.
Well, we know now that fat's not actually bad.
So, depending on the kind of fat you eat, medium chain triglycerides, for example, in
coconut products are really nice.
And, they're going to give you a nice slow, even burn.
Satiety is very well controlled with small amounts of fats in your diet.
I like olive oil.
I like sesame oil.
I talk about a lot of these oils with the new kitchen that's being built right now.
I'm excited.
You can see some of my cookbooks over here, I should give you a bit of a shot over there.
So, this is just a few boxes on some of my cookbooks.
And yeah, well, as you know, I'm a bit of a book freak.
So, I've got about 400 cookbooks.
Now, some of these cookbooks I've collected since I was about 18, 19.
I've got some really nice cookbooks [inaudible].
Some classics, and it's interesting when you have a look at different cultures, and their
takes on proteins, fats, and oils.
Always look for natural sources of fat, if you can.
Plant-based fats like avocado, you know, or salmon if you can get raw salmon, even better.
Sardines, like fish fats, fish oils.
These are the things I like to have in my diet.
Coconut, you know, but again, look at some of my diet and nutrition videos where I outline
this in detail.
Not enough water, how many people are drinking water?
Still, not everybody.
Many people still don't drink water, and please be careful in summertime, to really keep well
hydrated.
Even in winter, it's important to drink.
Water definitely give you a sensation of fullness, so you know the trick, if you get ... Sometimes
you think, "Oh, I want to eat something, but I don't really want to eat something."
Have one or two glasses of water.
People who drink water like that can reduce their calorie load by 600 calories or more
per day, just from drinking water, studies have shown.
So, definitely become hydrated.
If you don't like water, and you think, "Oh, it's bland," just squeeze a little bit of
lemon juice or lime juice in it.
It's quite nice, all right?
And, what's the next part we're going to talk about?
Not enough fiber.
That's the other key thing.
Many people now are scared of fiber.
In fact, fiber is taken out of diets of a lot of people with bowel problems by their
doctor.
Bad move, right?
Many people are scared of fiber now, because they think it increases candida or dysbiosis.
Bad move.
Look again at some of my videos on fiber.
Plant based fibers are very, very good to eat.
There are many foods high in fiber.
Vegetables contain lots of fiber, and they make you feel full.
Especially if you eat something like Tracy and I do, nice bok choy, small bok choy that
we grow.
We'll cut that, wash it, and then I'll very gently stir fry that, just lightly with a
few onions and garlic, and maybe some carrots or other vegetables in there.
And, we have that nearly every day for lunch for, like, 30 odd years, we eat like that.
Now, the vegetables in this situation are very lightly cooked, very lightly cooked.
It's the best way of cooking.
In fact, I'll grab this book quickly here.
One of my favorite, when I grew up as a young guy, one of my favorite books to look at was
a guy called Ken Huang, is it Ken Huang?
Look at that, a dollar.
I only got a dollar at a garage sale.
Isn't that a beauty?
So, Ken Huang, I think he may have passed away.
He may be quite elderly now.
Ken Huang is a chef, Asian chef.
And, I've really started to understand what cooking with this guy here about the heat,
the quick heat, the searing on how to make something taste fantastic and cook it quick,
but yet, don't nuke it, don't destroy it, don't embalm it, okay?
The fiber content stays there.
The flavor stays there.
You seal everything in quickly.
It tastes fantastic, so I'll show you these sort of things coming up.
So, fiber is a key component, because it creates fullness.
So, if I give my wife and I a small plate with some vegetables like that, maybe a piece
of fish for lunch, as opposed to three sandwiches with peanut butter and jelly, there's a big
difference, all right?
You can see that satiety is going to be different.
Protein content's different.
Okay, and the sensation of fullness is going to last so much longer on a vegetable and
protein dish, than on the couple of pieces of bread.
Distractions is another one.
Many people are distracted today, or they're hungry because they're looking at their mobile
phone.
And, my 25 year old daughter drives me crazy, because she's always got this iPhone up to
her face, and texting people and Instagram.
And even if she's eating, she's sitting there eating, she's got the phone lie there and
she's eating.
She's not even looking at her food.
All right, distractions.
We've talked about this.
Come on, guys, listen to me.
You can't drive a car while you're texting.
How many people are driving their car, okay, while they're talking to someone on their
phone, you know, pushing buttons and stuff like that?
You can't do it.
You need concentration.
Eating is no different.
You need to concentrate on your food.
You need to relax.
You can't relax, okay, when you've just read, or just watched some guy being beheaded by
ISIS.
How can you be relaxing when you're watching that on your iPhone, you know?
My daughter doesn't do that very well.
Now, stress is one of the biggest ones.
That's a topic that I could spend a lot of time talking about, because I see it so much
in my patients.
Stress has got the ability to really affect you in several ways hormonally, and boost
appetite right up, make you want to be hungry all the time.
So, you need to really work on that angle of stress.
Look at the breathing exercises we've spoken about.
You know, the nice, relaxed breathing to increase vagal tone.
Okay, to stimulate that parasympathetic nervous system, to boost it up.
I can guarantee you, one or two nice, very slow, deep breaths, and let it out, and you'll
be so much better for it.
You'll feel better, all right?
If you regularly do this, you'll keep your cortisol levels more balanced and evenly,
and this is going to really help with your appetite.
How can breathing help with the appetite?
You try it, and give me some feedback, all right?
If it doesn't work, we'll give you refund, how's that?
But, you didn't buy anything.
Anyway, that's a little bit my take on why am I hungry all the time?
You don't have to be hungry all the time.
You can get that controlled like anything else in your life.
You can control it.
Once you tame that hunger beast and control it, and you're in charge of that, you watch
the weight come off, all right?
You watch the weight come off, particularly if you're really focused on quality protein,
good fats.
Every now and then, you can cut loose.
I'm at a friend's place and I have a couple of beers or a wine, and there's a piece of
some crap there, I'll eat it.
But, it's not common, I would do that.
But, I really enjoy it when I do.
And, my friends know that too, all right?
Thanks for tuning in.
Don't forget to click on the link.
There's a nice paper for you all about weight loss.
Check out the report.
Thanks for tuning in.