- What's up? It's your girl, FrumpyFit.
If you don't know who I am,
I'm an online weight loss coach
who's dedicated to calling out all the BS
in the fitness industry and providing you
with accurate fitness, nutrition and weight loss information.
Today we are talkin' about hunger hacks for weight loss,
or all of my tips to make sure
that you're not starving while you're losing weight.
And if you don't already know,
a calorie deficit is required for weight loss,
you can watch the playlist up here
if you need more information about calories and a calorie deficit.
And when you're in a calorie deficit,
it's very normal for you to feel more hungry than normal.
So because of this, managing hunger
is gonna be really important for your success
on your weight loss journey.
All right, so I've got five hunger hack tips for you,
and the first one is going to be
eating a balanced meal.
If you can make sure that you have certain components
in every single one of your meals,
you're way more likely to be satisfied
from that meal on a physical level.
Like you'll feel more full and less hungry,
and it'll likely longer for you to get hungry later.
That combination is protein, fiber, and fat.
Now all three of these things have different reasons why
they're gonna make you satiated or satisfied.
I have a couple of videos about protein
where I talk about all the benefits
and how helpful protein can be on your weight loss journey,
but I'll recap them really quick.
So, protein is the most satisfying
of the three macronutrients, protein, carbs, and fat.
One of the reasons why this is is that protein
has the highest thermal effect of food
out of the three macronutrients.
And I've talked about this in other videos before,
but your body burns calories in a bunch of different ways
throughout the day, and I'll put up
a little chart here that illustrates that.
First up you're gonna have your BMR,
which just means all the calories
that are required for your body
to just maintain itself and keep you alive.
Number two is going to be your
non exercise activity thermogenisis,
meaning any movement that you do
thoroughout the day that is not related
directly to you doing specific exercise,
and the third one is gonna be
the thermic affect of food, meaning all of the calories
that your body burns just from digestion.
So your body has to work a little bit harder
to digest that protein, meaning that it's gonna stay
in your stomach for a little bit longer.
So that's why protein is gonna me more satiating
than carbs and fat, however, fiber kinda goes
into the carbohydrate category and I did say that fat
was gonna be really helpful for feeling satisfied,
so those are both important too and they both also take
a little bit longer in your digestive system.
Now the only thing I didn't mention
'cause we just talked about protein, fat, and fiber, is just carbs.
And so I'm not saying that carbs are bad.
You should still be having carbs at every meal,
in fact, 130 grams per day of carbs
is generally the minimum recommended
in order for you to feel the best and function the best.
If you eat fewer than 130 grams of carbs,
you may notice that you feel kinda brain foggy,
sluggish, fatigue, and things like that.
So that's why this tip is to eat balanced,
but it tends to be pretty easy to eat a lot of carbs,
so that's why we wanna emphasise the protein, fat, and fiber.
And that brings us to the sponsor of today's video, Magic Spoon.
Magic Spoon is an incredible option
if you love cereal and want to make sure
that your breakfasts are a little bit more balanced.
Magic Spoon, this in particular,
has 13 grams of protein per serving.
Now if you pair this with something like
a higher protein milk, which is what I love to do.
You can also do anything plant-based.
That's like a decent amount of protein
in a single serving of cereal.
So if you struggle with hunger,
this is a really great option.
I don't necessarily struggle with hunger,
and my primary goal is not weight loss right now,
so that's potentially why, but I also just love Magic Spoon
because of the protein factor because anything that's gonna
help me hit my protein goals is a great option
in my opinion because like I mentioned,
protein has so many benefits, weight loss or not,
that it can be really helpful to get your protein intake up.
And this is my all time favorite flavor, frosted.
It literally tastes like marshmallows
and considering that it has 0 grams of sugar,
14 grams of protein depending on which flavor you're having,
and only 4 grams of net carbs, it really is
too good to be true how delicious this cereal is.
If you wanna try out Magic Spoon for yourself,
make sure you use the link in the description
and this discount code to get $5 off your order of a variety pack.
Thank you so much, Magic Spoon, for sponsoring this video.
So hunger hack tip number two
is to understand food volume.
Okay, so we have something called calorie-dense foods
and nutrient-dense foods.
Calorie-dense foods tend to be foods
that are higher in calories, but lower in food volume.
So think like a smaller amount of food, but more calories.
A nutrient-dense food tends to be less calories
but for a higher volume of food.
It also has more nutrients, hence nutrient-dense.
This isn't always the case though
because you think of something like a whole egg,
or the egg yolk, or an avocado, both of which
are very nutrient-dense, but also have a little bit more calories.
So it's all on a spectrum, but for the sake of this,
we're gonna forget about the nutrients
and we're just gonna talk about food volume.
Now when I was getting my degree in exercise science
and kinesiology, my anatomy professor
was one of those professors that just repeated
the same thing over and over again throughout his lessons.
He was on the older side and had been teaching
for a million years, so I don't necessarily blame him,
but one of the things that he would constantly repeat
especially when we were talking about digestion and nutrition
was the fact that calories are not the only thing
that matters, food volume also matters.
And you can probably understand this if you think about it
for a second 'cause it's happened to you probably.
Let's say you had a junk food, calorie-dense kinda food day
and you ate tons of calories but not a high volume of food,
and you were just never satisfied,
you were just hungry the entire day.
Or you have something that is pretty calorie-dense
and it's like you didn't even eat anything, you're still hungry.
And this is because our body expects to consume
a specific volume of food on a daily basis.
According to my professor in college.
But think about it, if you were to eat a huge pile of food
that was less calorie-dense, you would probably feel
more physically satisfied and also mentally satisfied
because you got to chew a lot, you got to swallow a lot,
you were eating longer which also may help you
get to the point where your body is giving you your hunger signal,
and you know that it's time to stop eating
'cause we know our hunger signals can be delayed,
so it's easy to scarf down a bunch of food
and not get that fullness cue quite yet.
So a way to make sure that you're satisfied
from your meals and that you don't get hungry
immedietly after that is to choose foods
that are more nutrient-dense or more voluminous.
Volumous? You know what I mean.
So one of my favorite things to do is,
I try to have a big salad every day,
whether it's on the side of whatever meal
that I'm having, or if it's big enough, that's the meal.
Another great way is to just make sure you're adding
veggies and fruit to your meals, or having them in your snacks.
And this kind of goes with that tip
that you may have heard before,
which is to approach weight loss not by subtracting
and removing foods, but by adding more foods.
So don't think about cutting out the high calorie
or calorie-dense foods, think about adding in
more voluminous nutrient-dense foods.
And that might just help you eat less food overall
without you having to restrict or think too much about your diet.
Hunger hack tip number three is to get good sleep.
And this might not fully connect, so let me connect it for you.
When we get not enough sleep or even just poor quality sleep,
that's gonna throw everything off in our body.
And one of the main things that it throws off
when we're talking about weight loss
is your hunger and fullness hormones, leptin and ghrelin.
Now when these get thrown off,
it's gonna be much harder to listen to your hunger signals.
And your body's probably gonna tell you you're starving,
you're craving everything, because those hormones
are all thrown off.
Now while we're here, let's talk about eating before bed.
You've probably heard that tip before
that you should stop eating at a certain time
and not eat too close to bed because that food
is gonna get stored as fat,
but I'm here to debunk that.
Food that you eat before bed
will not be automatically stored as fat
because, like we mentioned before,
there's so many different ways your body burns calories
and your BMR is one of them.
BMR includes the time that you're sleeping.
So it's not like you just stop burning calories
while you're sleeping, your body still has those energy needs.
However, it may be beneficial for you
when it comes to weight loss to not eat
super close to when you're going to sleep
because sometimes, depending on the type of food you eat,
the amount of food you eat, how close it was
to your bed time, if your body's having to focus on digestion
when it should be fully resting and recovering,
that may lead you to getting poor quality of sleep,
which would throw off your hunger signals the next day.
So I always recommend just testing it out.
If you're constantly eating a bunch of food before bed,
try to eat it earlier before you go to bed
or eating less to see if that improves your quality of sleep.
Hunger hack tip number four is to eat regular meals and snacks.
Eating breakfast is sometimes really beneficial for people,
snacking, eating meals at regular intervals
if it fits your schedule can be very helpful
for making sure that you're not hangry
at some point throughout the day.
One of the students in my course actually,
was just asking the question, "Should I eat breakfast
even though I don't want to?"
And I encouraged her to do a little experiment on herself,
and she found that she was way less likely
to be ravenous the rest of the day when she ate breakfast
even though she wasn't necessarily hungry for breakfast
or in the mood for breakfast.
So I encouraged her to find foods
or meal options that were convenient enough for her
in the morning and focusing on things like volume,
protein, fiber, and fat, to maximize the benefits
from that breakfast meal so she could have
the hunger crushing benefits thoroughout the day.
She tried it and she noticed a big difference.
Also, if you're interested in learning more about my course,
you can use the link down in the description
or pinned in the top comment.
I would love to have you inside.
But anyway, I think this tip in particular
is gonna be extremely specific to you and your needs.
I'm somebody who loves snacking and needs to snack.
This doesn't mean I'm eating constantly throughout the day,
it's good to give your digestive system a little bit of a rest.
But what I found that worked the best for me,
especially when I was working in my office job
when my schedule was a little bit more predictable
because now it's kinda just like a tornado every day.
But I would have breakfast, and then I would have lunch,
and then I would have a snack at work,
then I would go to the gym and then I would have dinner.
And that worked really well for me.
If I had eliminated that snack, my workout woulda been horrible
because I'm somebody who feels the best
when I eat relatively close to a workout,
so experiment with this and figure out what meal
and snack frequency is going to make you feel
the most satisfied from your food.
And like the breakfast example with the student in my course,
it seems a little bit backwards to add an additional meal
in order to lose weight when a calorie deficit
is required to lose weight, but again,
if you are starving throughout the day,
you're just more likely to eat more calories later
because you're so hungry, and I actually mention this
as a tip in my eating out tips video
that I posted last week.
It's better to feed yourself throughout the day
rather than saving your calories for that meal.
Same is true for this tip here.
And hunger hack tip number five
is to develop awareness about your hunger.
Where is it coming from and why?
When is it happening?
Awareness is a super super valuable tool.
And so I'm gonna give your some prompts
so tha you can start thinking about this,
either just in your head, or even if you wanna journal them out.
I find journaling to be super helpful
and I do have my students do a food journal in my course.
So this is an Instagram post from Aligned Nutrition on Instagram.
And it's outlining the four different types of hunger,
and, admittedly, this is something that I'm still learning about,
and wanting to acquire more knowledge about.
So I found this post really helpful and insightful.
So the first kind of hunger is primal.
Biological and if put off can be intense, you get hangry.
This is what a lot of the tips that we talked about
in this video are looking to prevent.
We wanna prevent, or at least manage,
this kind of hunger as much as we can.
Also to flag, this doesn't mean
that you should never be hungry,
being hungry isn't necessarily a bad thing,
you shouldn't be afraid of it,
but we just wanna be aware of it
and if you're noticing that it's making it more challenging
to stick to your weight loss plan,
we wanna try to help out a little bit.
The second type of hunger is practical.
Now I don't know if I would really consider this hunger,
but it's like the decision to eat, maybe eventually you do
deveolpe hunger, but that's practical.
This is eating around a schedule, being proactive
by eating a snack on a work break
even if you're not hungry yet.
And this is something that I totally have my students journal about.
When they eat, I ask them, "Why are you eating?"
And this is potentially one of the reasons.
A lot of times we don't have as much flexibility
as we would want throughout the day,
so it's important to note that this is happening.
Again, just because awareness is extremely beneficial.
The third type of hunger is taste.
This means that you're not hungry
but you're wanting something,
like you saw an advertisement for fast food
and now you wanna go get that fast food.
Or you're having a craving for something,
like the only reason you would be eating
is because you want to taste it.
And the fourth kind of hunger
that this post is illustrating is emotional.
Eating to meet an emotional need whether it's effective or not.
I also would like to add that I think that there are
generally two categories of hunger
and that's physical hunger and more of like a mental,
emotional kind of hunger.
And so you've probably heard me say in this video,
the word satiated and the word satisfied.
And the way that I distinguish these two
in as simple of a way as possible,
is that being satiated is the physical sensation
of satisfaction from your meal, the fullness cue
that you get after a meal.
But satisfaction would be the mental satisfaction
that you get from a meal, and those two things don't always align,
and I think this is what a lot of people will struggle with is their body
is physically telling them, "Hey you're satisfied," but for whatever reason,
our brain is not fully satisfied from that meal yet.
Abbey Sharp actually talked about this
in her weight loss tips video that she did sort of recently,
and I reacted to it, and we talked about this
in a little bit more depth if you'd like to check that out.
But I think that these two things
can change over time, and that's what Abbey said.
And I noticed even myself in the past
when I wasn't so aware of my food choices
and my hunger and I just was never paying attention to it,
my mental satisfaction wouldn't come
until I was past the point of fullness.
There was a point in time where I needed to be
close to being uncomfortably full to feel satisfied from a meal
and now, the second I get my fullness cue I'm like,
"I'm good. Mentally satisfied as well,"
and I can only attribute that to my commitment
to mindful eating and developing that awareness that I'm talking about.
So if you'd like to develop some awareness yourself,
here are some things that you can think about or journal about.
Now a food journal is, in my opinion, is not meant
to keep track of calories or quantities,
it's simply to notice patterns and habits that you have with eating.
So you can ask yourself, "Why am I eating right now?
Why did I choose to eat this specific food that I chose to eat?
How am I feeling emotionally before I start eating?"
After you eat, how satisfied am I from that meal?
Maybe physical and mental satisfaction.
How do I feel physically overall?
Do I feel uncomfortable, do I feel bloated,
do I feel sick, do I feel sluggish, do I feel tired?
And even just making a note of these things
can help you realize some really important
patterns and habits that you may not have ever noticed before.
And I wanna do a full video on mindful eating,
but eventuially the goal is to take those observations
and turn them into active mindfulness.
But again, I'll save that for my mindful eating video.
All right, so those are my five tips.
Let me know if you have any other tips
that you like that you've noticed have helped with your hunger.
Let me know what you think about the tips that I've provided,
and don't forget to like, comment,
and subscribe to my YouTube channel.
You can also follow me on TikTok and on Instagram.
As usual guys, your support means the absolute world to me
and I will see you in the next video.
Bye!