Sticking to a diet is incredibly hard. There’s that old cliché that around the turn of the new year, every diet starts with great intentions, but so few make it past the first few weeks. Millions of Americans sign up for gym memberships and throw out all of the cookies in the pantry. While enthusiasm is a big part of any successful diet, discipline is in higher demand. After all, discipline is what’s going to get you through the first few weeks when your body is craving all the sugar it suddenly finds itself without. It’s worked so hard to store all that fat on your belly or your thighs, you didn’t expect it to just let it all go away easily did you?
Most people find that, after seeing promising results after a week or two of strict dieting, their hunger comes back with a vengeance in week three. We start to obsess about snacking, always feeling like we have to have something else to eat. If we’re not careful, we can binge on junk food and eliminate any gains we’ve made. Thankfully, there are ways you can fight off hunger and stay disciplined in your diet. And no, it doesn’t involve eating raw broccoli. Here are some creative ways you can prevent hunger from taking over.
Get Enough Sleep
The window between after dinner and bedtime is a danger zone for dieters. The kids go to sleep, work is wrapped up, and we have a few or several hours to sit on the couch for a movie, play some video games, read a book, whatever. What goes amazingly with all of those activities? You guessed it, snacks. Odds are you’ve been programmed to associate many of your nighttime activities with snacking. It can feel weird to watch Netflix without some popcorn or a bowl of ice cream. Before you know it, you’ve essentially snacked enough calories to constitute a second dinner.
But moving up your bedtime, you shrink the snacking window down to a smaller size. There’s less room to make mistakes and binge on sugar or harmful carbs. What’s more, getting more sleep will get your body rested and help you regulate your energy levels throughout the day. You’ll feel better and will be less inclined to grab a candy bar to boost your energy when you’re lagging.
Guzzle Water
Drinking a lot of water is a must for serious dieters who want to fend off hunger. Too many people are so hungry for the scale to show a lower number that they avoid drinking proper amounts of water. What ends up happening is your body goes into crisis mode and retains water weight. You can also get constipated and hunger can get worse. Instead, drinking a ton of water boosts your metabolism, will make you feel fuller sooner and will help you have consistent energy.
We recommend shooting for one gallon of water a day. That can seem like a ton if you’re not used to drinking a lot of water. Start with whatever you can and work your way up. Ditch the sodas and coffee for water instead. You’ll feel and look better.
Peptides and Hunger Craving Control
Melanotan 2 is a peptide that was developed in the 1980s at the University of Arizona. There are a lot of benefits to peptides, and ongoing research is giving more clues into potential health benefits. With Melanotan 2, researchers have seen incredible results related to hunger control in animal models. Melanotan 2 does this by mimicking the leptin hormone, commonly known to produce a feeling of satiety or fullness. In tests done on mice, those that received Melatonan ii showed reduced food consumption as well as a lowered preference for fatty foods.
Avoid Catastrophic Failure
Eating foods high in sugar and bad carbs will make you feel hungrier faster. For many people, those sorts of foods make up a huge percentage of what they consume every day. So, naturally, when you stop eating those foods, your body will produce a stronger reaction. Your cravings can seem overwhelming in the initial stages of a diet. Every year, thousands of dieters fail because they don’t prepare for the test of will that will eventually come.
What you need to do is be prepared. Make sure you have some healthy snacks on hand to turn to when cravings become too much to handle. What we’re trying to avoid is a catastrophe like eating the entire tub of ice cream or a whole package of cookies. Have low sugar snacks like nuts, no butter popcorn, vegetable slices, sugar-free gum, and other foods that will satisfy you until your next meal. The goal here is to keep the train moving as much as possible. We don’t want a situation in which one mess up deters you from continuing your diet.
