Encouraging Health

Check out this natural, easy, and enjoyable way to keep your hunger in check: Eat long, liquid fats.

This type of fat helps turn off hunger signals and sate your appetite, so you eat less overall. Invite a few to every meal.

The Long Way to Full
What’s a long, liquid fat, you ask? According to John La Puma, MD, author of ChefMD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine, these fats have lots of carbon molecules adding to their length. More importantly, they produce cholecystokinin (CCK) — a lovely hormone that tells your brain, “You’re full now. You can stop eating.”

Long and Short of It
You’ll find long-chain, liquid fats right where you might expect — in the healthiest of foods. Good sources include fatty fish (salmon, trout), nuts and seeds (walnuts, flax), and plant-based foods (avocado, olive oil). You should not only eat more of these kinds of foods but also jettison the short-chain, solid fats (read saturated fats) at the same time. Why? Because not-so-healthy fats actually make you hungrier, according to La Puma.

More Hunger-Nixing Notions
Naturally, we all wish we could keep our hunger in check sometimes, and lose a few extra pounds in the process. Here are a few more tricks to try that won’t leave you feeling like a hunger artist.
Eat breakfast — every day.

Here’s how it will help you fight off the munchies:

Wake-up Call

Eating breakfast may tame your appetite and help keep your blood fats in check.

Breakfast eaters consume fewer calories throughout the day and have better blood lipid profiles and insulin sensitivity than breakfast skippers, a recent study concludes. Low-fat yogurt with fruit, granola with skim milk, or whole-grain toast with peanut butter are all great choices to start your day.

Easy, healthy breakfast choices include egg-white omelettes with sautéed veggies, low-fat yogurt, whole-wheat toast, nuts, fruit, peanut butter, low-fat cheese, or smoothies made with berries and low-fat soymilk. These foods can help keep your blood sugar levels stable and give you the nutrition you need for the day. On the other hand, high-calorie donuts, pastries, and sugary cereals may offer little nutritional value. They may give you quick energy, but you’ll feel sluggish after your blood sugar takes a dive. Skipping breakfast altogether may contribute to blood sugar instability as well.

Other ways to fight muchies:

Grab a few sips of water before you hit the snack cupboard.

Ditch anything with corn syrup in it:

Here’s why: High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), used to sweeten everything from the obvious (soft drinks) to the obscure (ketchup, salad dressing, bread), can trip up digestive system hormones that control hunger and appetite. The end result: Your brain misses out on hormone messages that signal a full stomach. Start reading labels and see if you can cut back on the 63 pounds of HFCS most people consume each year.

Your digestive system has two main hormones that control hunger and appetite. Ghrelin is secreted by the stomach and increases your appetite. When your stomach’s empty, it sends ghrelin out, requesting food. Leptin tells your brain that you’re full. HFCS inhibits leptin secretion, so you never get the message that you’re full. And HFCS never shuts off ghrelin, so even though you have food in your stomach, you constantly get the message that you’re hungry.

For 10 more ways to fight off the munchies, email me with the subject “How can I fight the Muchies?”.

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