Fitness Tips & Facts

U.S. Obesity Trends 1985-2007

Are you hungry just a short time after you've eaten? Does it seem that no matter what you do to curb your appetite, the hunger sensation stays with for hours or days? You're not alone. The hunger sensation seems to be a very large obstacle for individuals attempting to control their weight and enjoy a more healthy diet.

The actual mechanisms of hunger and what controls that feeling is not well understood by medical professionals and thus very difficult to control. None of the methods used in the past or currently can control this almost uncontrollable feeling. Hypnosis, medication, and even surgical procedures have all proven to be ineffective, especially for any long-term period. Surgeons once even used balloons placed in the stomach to curb the appetite, but patients still felt hungry.

Pharmaceutical companies are working at fever pitch to create a medicine that will control hunger, because they know the market and potential profits will be astronomical, but so far no "magic pill" has been found. Even the supplement industry is searching for an answer, but the products they market seem to be ineffective as well.

Let's look at this logically. If you are having a weight management problem, that means you are consuming more calories than your body can use and the excess calories are being turned into fat. So if your excess calories are converting to fat, you're eating too much. So why are you hungry?

You're probably not hungry. You may be bored, stressed, lonely or sad or a combination of these or other emotions. Rather than deal with the emotional problem, your mind is projecting your emotion as hunger. Attempting to figure out the real reasons for constant hunger is very complicated. If you do have a tendency to eat, first try to understand what emotions may be triggering the desire. Also, stay away from calorie-heavy snacks like chips. An ounce of chips can have 150 calories. Instead, snack on things like watermelon, which has only 46 calories in every cup (a slice of watermelon is 92% water and 8% sugar). Since your body is craving volume, it's better to fill up on high-volume, low-calorie foods like fruits and raw vegetables instead of calorie-heavy items like processed sweets and salty snacks.

Everyone should consult a physician and/or a registered dietician before starting any diet or exercise program.

As a final rule of thumb, just consider this: if you're a man with a waist of 40 inches or more, or a woman with a waist of 35 inches or more, the constant hunger you feel is not derived from a lack of calories. Talk to yourself about what other problems may be "gnawing" at you. Instead of eating, go for a walk, call a friend, read or play with your kids. And remember, try to choose a healthy belly filler over an unhealthy one. The body craves what it knows!