4 Ways To Control Your Appetite

So much of the diet advice we hear is contradictory, but one fact is indisputable: We are eating too much. Two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, and men and women weigh an average of 18 pounds more now than they did in the late 1970s. Since the region in our brain that regulates hunger—the hypothalamus—hasn’t evolved in the past 30 years, is there anything we can do about controlling our appetites? The answer is a resounding yes.

1. Rate Your Hunger

Before you automatically pop something into your mouth, rate your hunger on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being ravenous and 5 being stuffed. If you’re at a 4 or a 5, your “hunger” is not physical, and you should examine what is compelling you to eat. Often the culprit is boredom or stress. The best remedy is to engage in a pleasurable activity unrelated to eating, like talking to a friend, taking a walk or reading.

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2. Stop Mindless Eating

We’re often so distracted by outside stimuli that we chow down without thinking about how much we’re consuming. An experiment conducted by Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating, and his colleagues at the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab demonstrated this. Wansink rigged normal-size bowls so they could be refilled via a hidden tube. Subjects who ate soup from the trick bowls consumed an average of 73 percent more than those served from regular bowls.

The message? Proper eating demands attention, planning and a modicum of restraint.

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3. Be Aware of Triggers

In his recent book, The End of Overeating, former head of the Food and Drug Administration David Kessler theorizes that we eat in the absence of physical hunger largely because the combination of fat, sugar and salt in many packaged foods is difficult for humans to resist. The more of these ingredients we eat, the more dopamine (a neurotransmitter associated with satisfaction) our brain produces, and the more fixated on eating we become. Over time, the mere sight or smell of certain foods is enough to activate the brain’s pleasure centers.

Kessler’s advice: Choose unprocessed foods that contain less fat, sugar and salt; plan meals and snacks ahead of time; avoid trigger situations (if your route home goes by a bakery, take a different one); and pair an unhealthy food with an unappealing image (a cone filled with gobs of fat instead of ice cream).

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4. Eat Filling Foods

The nutrition researcher Barbara Rolls has found that people don’t rely on the number of calories they’ve consumed in order to know they’re full. Instead, they eat until they hit a certain volume of food. So Rolls recommends tricking your body into thinking it has taken in more calories than it actually has by choosing items that contain a lot of water, such as vegetables, fruits and brothy soups.

Lean protein and fiber tend to help people reach satiety without overeating. My favorite “ high-satiety” foods are salmon; chicken breast; nonfat Greek yogurt; low-fat cottage cheese; all vegetables; oatmeal; chickpeas; and my aunt’s chicken-vegetable soup.

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