Always hungry for fitness?

Are you always hungry? Do you have constant cravings for rubbish and do not know how to fight them? This is completely normal and even the best athletes experience this. This article shows you why you feel like this, what the driving force is and how to get it under control. You will also find some easy recipes and tips to organize yourself to start immediately. The tips are based on the book "Always Hungry" by David Ludwig and were applied in my daily life.

Many diets do not work. At least 45 million US Citizens are on a diet according to CBS News. Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 68% of people over 20 are obese or overweight. A big contributor to this is the rebound effect. Some also call it Yoyo effect. This happens when you regain all the lost weight after going off the diet.

Gary Foster, clinical director of the Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania, says that nearly 65% of dieters return to their starting weight within three years after the diet. Only 5% keep it off as a result of a crash diet.

What is the point of a diet when you regain the weight? If you want to do better these tips help you along the way.

Does low-fat work?

I and my wife tried a lot of different diets. My wife tried slimming world for about half a year. It did not really work for her. She also did not like the meetings. For her, it was a meet up of weirdos who did not have their life in order. The public naming and shaming did the rest. It is done in a nice way. Still, it is not for everyone to go that public.

Obesity rates in the US

In my teenage years, I ate low-fat yogurts and diet food. Somehow I did not really lose weight. That was after my main growth period. So looking for low-fat dairy products also does not seem to work. Obesity rates skyrocketed over the past thirty years. It started in the US and spread from there to Europe and Japan. Such a rapid spread can not only be traced back to genetical changes. In fact, people became even less healthy since experts advised to cut back on fat.

The easy option out is to blame the caloric deficit. While this is a simple approach, simple calories in/out is flawed. Humans are more complex than a simple equation. We tend to overestimate the calories burned while exercising. We underestimate how much calories we are actually taking in. Also comparing food just by their calorie number can mislead you into bad habits. 200 calories of french fries are not the same as 200 calories of spinach.

What Insulin does to your body

If fat was the culprit we could just swap it for nonfat alternatives and be happy. The real culprit for obesity is insulin.

Insulin is generated by your pancreas. The hormone regulates how you process calories. The level of Insulin in your body increases when you eat. This causes your body's tissues to absorb the nutrients in your bloodstream. Among them are glucose from carbohydrates, amino acids from proteins and fatty acids from fat.

The foods we tend to like the most are rich in carbohydrates. If you ever observed children's faces when they eat a candy bar or salad you know what I am talking about. But why do we crave these high-carbohydrate foods such as pasta, snickers, and cinnamon buns? The risk-reward ratio is very high. When consuming these foods your body gets flooded with glucose. This gives us an immediate boost of energy. If this comes in a prepackaged, sparkly wrapping with no cooking required, even better.

This overstimulation has an impact on you. Your insulin response mechanism gets disturbed. This can cause diabetes. Diabetes and obesity usually go hand in hand.

What happens after insulin mechanisms are out of order?

Once you are overweight things get even harder. Your fat cells will be constantly stressed. This keeps your immune system in constant attack mode. Chronic inflammation is the result.

Chronic inflammation causes several health issues. Among them is increasing Insulin resistance. This leads to excess sugar and fat remaining in your blood. This clogs up your arteries. All in all your risk of cardiac arrest goes up.

What can you do to prevent this from happening?

The first two weeks will be aimed at the foods you crave the most and do the most harm. Usual candidates:

Jam
Nutella
Chocolate
Pizza
Noodles
Potatoes
Fizzy drinks
Candy bars
Cake

These foods trigger strong insulin reactions which you want to minimize. Rather than cutting out all these at once start small. I used to drink a lot of Coca-Cola and found that was the easiest to replace. I still struggle to say no to chocolate and cake. Possible replacements are:

Water
Tea
Coffee
Starchy vegetables
Legumes
Sweet potatoes
Honey

For fats, you can switch to healthier, natural options. You will find them in olive oil, nuts, and avocados. High protein foods like fish, eggs, and cheese also are good sources of fat.

In the first phase of this change, we will aim to get 50 percent of your calories from fats, 25 from carbohydrates and 25 from protein.

After a month you can switch to 40 percents fats, 25 percent protein, and 35 percent carbohydrates. Reintroduce carbohydrates slowly to learn to deal with them properly.

Afer this start to reintroduce carb-rich foods one by one on occasions. Keep them as treats and enjoy them sensibly. In the last phase of the program, you will switch to 40 percents fats, 40 percent carbohydrate and 20 percent protein. This happens when you have reached your goals and readjusted to insulin. Be careful to avoid falling back into old behavior patterns.

When you are on this diet it is more important to keep your macronutrients right. Avoid setting specific calorie goals. Your body will tell you how much you need and when. Calorie goals can be set if this technique does not work.

Same goes for weigh-ins. Try to be positive about them and do not obsess. Once a week is fine. Wehn you weigh yourself to keep everything the same. Put the scale in the same place. At best, be naked when you step on the scale. Pick the same time of day to weigh yourself. This will make sure that you limit the variables for your weight. If you weigh yourself on different days, at different times with different clothes on, it becomes a lot harder to track progress. If you want to step it up a notch, do daily weigh-ins and focus on the weekly average. Focusing on the day to day changes usually creates more harm than good.

There will also be times when you will not stick to the plan. Birthday parties, holy communions, weddings and other social occasions are one distraction. Another can be stress at work. Your boss looks at you sideways and you stuff your face with a candy bar. Avoid killing yourself over these moments. A guilt trip is the last thing you need on the road to success. Instead, acknowledge that it happened and write down the reasons. Be factual about it. What works for me is to slow myself down in these moments. Do I really need to follow through with the impulse to go to the vending machine? Do I need to have second helpings of cake at a social occasion?

"If...Then" plans are a great way to keep yourself on track and cut sugar intake. Here are some examples: If I am at a wedding, I will only go to the buffet once. If I am out with my friends I will order half pints instead of full pints. If I feel like red wine with dinner I will go with one, more expensive bottle to enjoy, rather than two cheaper ones. When I feel low and want a candy bar, I have almonds instead. If I have stuck to the plan all week, I will have some dessert when dining out with my wife. If I want to have the fries, I will order the salad instead.

You can come up with your own ideas. This is just the start. Another way of making your own way easier is to have a well stocked and organized kitchen. The first step is to remove all carbohydrate-rich foods from sight. Second is to have your favorite healthy snacks easily accessible and in sight. Plan the week ahead with cooking plans. Keto on a budget from Diet Doctor works well. Stop stocking fizzy drinks altogether. Only buy alcohol for the occasion, not on stock.

We had white bread directly above our toaster. When I sat down for dinner I was directly looking at it. Without being conscious of it I got cravings for jammy toast. Once we removed the white bread from sight it was a lot easier for me to skip that dessert. The same goes for me and any "kinder" products. If you put them in front of me, I will inhale the entire box. Other culprits in the kitchen to be removed are white rice and nonfat dairy products. Stock your kitchen with frozen tropical fruit, maple syrup, whole milk products, nuts and dark chocolate instead.

If you wonder what to have for breakfast here is a suggestion. Have two eggs with one extra egg white. Fry them with olive oil. Add a spicy chili sauce and two tablespoons of shredded cheddar cheese. As a side, enjoy a half cup of greek yogurt with fresh or frozen raspberries.

What also happens often is that people complain about their food being less tasty than before. If you want to get a bit more excitement into your diet, try making a ranchero sauce. For this chop one yellow pepper, one green pepper, a clove of garlic and one small onion in a food processor. Take a pot and cook this mixture for 10 to 15 minutes over a low flame in olive oil. Add dried oregano, a chopped red chili, one chopped tomato, salt and pepper to taste.

Dieting is all about discipline before the joy comes. If you have trouble try meditating in the mornings for ten minutes with an app like headspace. This will help you with focus. Avoid eating in front of the television or a screen. Embrace your food and show it some respect and it your body will respect you in turn.

Conclusion

Dieting is simple but hard. Sticking to your guns when everyone around you wants to be nice is not easy. Having a plan helps. Greatness is achieved by doing simple things again and again. Stephen King only writes so many books because he disciplines himself. He writes two pages a day no matter what. Simple rule, big effect. Same goes for your dieting. Start with one simple thing like stopping to drink fizzy drinks. Than add habit to good habit to move toward your goals.