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Ways to supress the urge to snack.
Shurakai
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This seems like a silly thread, and indeed it might be, but I'm seriously after some kind of cure for snacking.
First of all I eat to much. Waay to much, to bursting at every meal (it's actually painful). To add to that, I have found recently that I get an almost irresistible urge to snack on things between meals. If I don't do it, it bugs me to the point that I can't enjoy whatever else I'm doing.
I'm not sure you folks would know, but is there any kind of over the counter medication that can suppress the hunger response? Barring that, are there any other techniques I can use? (besides willpower.. tried that and got beaten down many a-time).
First of all I eat to much. Waay to much, to bursting at every meal (it's actually painful). To add to that, I have found recently that I get an almost irresistible urge to snack on things between meals. If I don't do it, it bugs me to the point that I can't enjoy whatever else I'm doing.
I'm not sure you folks would know, but is there any kind of over the counter medication that can suppress the hunger response? Barring that, are there any other techniques I can use? (besides willpower.. tried that and got beaten down many a-time).
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enough to make you purge (not really but so much that you feel full)
T-Nation blog
I had/have a very bad habit of snacking lots after dinner until I went to bed. Chips, ice cream, pudding, whatever I shouldn't be eating I was eating it. By replacing the crap with something healthy (carrot sticks work for me) I didn't feel so bad about snacking.
I have no idea about medications. Hopefully someone can help with that.
When eating meals I would suggest putting ~1/2 of your normal meal on your plate, then if your hungry in about an hour eat the rest. This could be the "clean the plate" syndrome. If you have a full plate of food, and feel full after 3/4 you would still feel compelled to finish off the last little bit rather than save it or throw it away.
You have to want it bad enough. I sorta share these sentiments. There's little tricks like drinking lots of water...but in the end, no one is going to stop you from snacking. Snacking on fruits in large quantities will yield weight gain similar to snacking on a larger quantities of any other food.
But really, it's a willpower thing more than anything else. There are little changes you can start making, but you're going to have to make them.
and I've often heard the water theory. Personal statement- In highschool I would always get hungry in my second class of the day, only an hour or so after I ate breakfast. Everytime I would get water, the hunger would pass for a bit. And I cured that next hunger with water. So. Who knows, maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me. But it worked.
Stop eating things that will just go straight through and screw with your blood sugar and make you hungry again an hour later (stop eating white bread, white potatoes and sugars in everything - check the sugar in your cereals, sauces and anything with a package, you'll be horrified).
Once you are eating properly you will not be hungry 30 mins after a meal. But you should not feel bad about a couple of snacks during the day. Snack on cut veggies, hummus, small handfuls of unsalted nuts, fruit.
If you must snack, eat celery.
If you want to stop snacking, you are going to have to do a number of things. First, you are going to have to remove all of that junk food from your house or place of residence. Don't buy it, take what you have and give it to friends or the foodbank. People always talk about willpower and all that shit, but you will almost always fail if you have to rely on willpower alone - get it out of the house, and it's not going to be in your face. That means you won't be immediately tempted, and, second, if you do have a particularly strong craving, you have to actually get up off of your ass and go and buy it at the grocery store. That is usually enough to dissuade, but if it doesn't, and you do go out and buy what you want, make sure you buy only enough for a single serving. That is, don't buy 4 litres of ice cream, just buy one of those small little jars that you can eat and finish off in one sitting.
Second, you are going to want to drink more than you probably do. There are two things that I drink shitloads of, water and skim milk. I've always been really partial to milk, and I can pound back a 4L jug of the stuff in about a day and a half by myself, no problem. You may not like milk - that's cool - but if you want an alternative to water, you are going to want something that isn't liquid death. That means staying away from stuff that makes you thirsty, like colas. Some kinds of fruit juices are okay, but you have to be really careful with any drink that has a lot of sugar in it, because all you will end up doing is replacing the horrible sugar and crap in the junk food with the horrible sugar and crap in the juice or pop.
Third, cook your own meals. I usually end up making my own breakfasts and lunches, and I will almost always eat less of these than dinner, which is usually made by my housemates (schedules just work like that). It could be different for you, but when I have to actually cook my own food, it usually makes me less hungry, which means I end up eating a more healthy amount (I don't pig out, basically). I should note that when you cook your own meals, you are going to want to cook things that are healthy and actually good for you - lots of vegetables and fruits, and enough protein that will do you justice. In my experience, most people in Canada and the U.S. eat far too much grain and starch based foodstuffs, and they don't give you the kind of energy that will keep you going and keep you from feeling hungry. The kind that fruits, vegetables, and protein all give you.
Fourth, if you don't workout at all right now, you should start doing it. Or, if you are adverse to formal exercise for whatever reason, just get outside more, and walk around. I've found that I will naturally crave better foods and eat less of them after I've had a day where I've either been really active (out and about, walking around a lot) or had a good work out. Days when I've been sitting on my ass in the office or at home all day, I usually end up snacking and eating badly.
Fifth, be with people more. One of the main culprits in snacking is boredom and also...I'm not sure what to call it - melancholy? Basically, if you are bored, you are more likely to snack, and if you are tired and/or sad, you are more likely to snack. The desire to snack seems to increase for me when I'm doing something "passively" - like watching TV or a movie. I'll get cravings for food and be more likely to snack than if I'm with someone or doing something in an active manner. So instead of sitting at home all the time after dinner, maybe you can find something to do with friends and hang out after dinner for a little while, or maybe go for a walk (see above) or get yourself a game of good ol' fashioned road hockey going.
Finally, don't beat yourself up if you fall off the wagon and snack. Sometimes, snacking is good. Afterall, bodybuilders, elite athletes, and Thanatos all eat 6 meals a day - and what are 3 of those meals? Glorified snacks, that's what. I think the biggest problem that you have right now is that snacking is a habit for you, and habits are hard to kill or replace. You are going to want to stick with it as best you can, but it may take you a month or more to change your habit. Don't be discouraged.
I hope that helped.
Drink water. Drink milk. Avoid diet pop because the aspartame is apparently pretty carcinogenic.
If you -must- drink something other than skim milk or water try splenda sweetened drinks.
Second of all, don't eat until you feel full. Eat until you're not hungry. Nobody's going to make you finish, and if you keep force-feeding yourself you'll end up like a fois-gras goose and give yourself a cirrhotic fatty liver.
Get your triglycerides checked in the next few days and see what the doctor says. Chances are you're going to get a special diet because you've been effectively forcing yourself to eat wayyyy more than is healthy.
What is your height and how much do you weigh?
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
This. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that if I snacked on junk food and put on weight, that I only had myself to blame. Snack on the healthy things as already mentioned in this thread and look at the fitness thread for some advice, too.
T-Nation blog
That's hardly hippie talk. Now if I talked about the goodness of stevia, that'd be hippie talk (by the way it causes interstital cell proliferation in testicles and can lead to sterility and cancer)
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2007/04/17/new_study_by_ramazzini_institute_confirms_aspartame_carcinogenic.htm
(and by the way I'm a microbiology student)
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
The only credible study I've ever seen showed that it was carcinogenic in really, really big doses. We're talking, like, regularly drinking 8.5 cans of diet coke per day if you're 120 pounds. And if you're regularly drinking 8.5 cans of diet coke a day at 120 pounds, I really don't think aspartame is going to be the biggest reason why you're going to get cancer.
8-)Phosphoric acid8-)
I looked at the actually credible Italian study.
Besides, you don't really need to drink diet drinks anyways.
http://www.cspinet.org/new/200706251.html (more credible)
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
tube drinks water
thanatos is fat
tube is hot
study complete
So, according to that study, there's a chance that very small, young children are getting an amount of aspartame which increases their risk of cancer by a not-statistically-significant amount.
Gee, it's practically cyanide.
There are reasons not to consume aspartame. Cancer is not one of them, it's just the one that the hippies like to use.
always fat
not with a ph either
I almost never drink anything other then water, but sometimes like crystal ice for a flavor, but mainly just out of curiousity what are the actual bad reasons to not consume aspartame.
Besides
Again
Nobody -needs- diet soda.
It's just an excuse to drink sugarfree candy.
Candy that does not provide the same ploomth as real sugarfree candy
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.