Why does hunger strike when you're cutting calories? Do you want to know the best way to curb hunger during fat loss?

In this episode, Philip  (@witsandweights) dives into the fascinating world of hunger, the science behind it, and how it affects your fat loss journey. He talks about the hunger hormones — leptin and ghrelin and how stress and cortisol can make you crave that extra snack. He shares nine practical strategies to help you stay on track and how protein, spices, and water play an important role in these real-life hacks.

Today, you’ll learn all about:

2:51 Hunger during a calorie deficit
4:45 The science of hunger
7:46 Cortisol's role in hunger and appetite
10:55 Managing hunger with quality of sleep
12:34 Influence of the senses on hunger
19:22 Nine hunger hacks
35:40 Outro

Episode resources:

• Download Your FREE Hunger Hacks Guide

Episode summary:

When it comes to weight management, understanding the mechanisms behind hunger is pivotal for both short-term success and long-term sustainability. This episode takes a deep dive into the science of hunger and provides listeners with actionable strategies to navigate the complexities of appetite during a weight loss journey.

Hunger is not just a signal of an empty stomach; it's a complex interplay of hormones, psychological factors, and physiological needs. Leptin and ghrelin, known as the hunger hormones, play crucial roles in signaling satiety and hunger, respectively. When we're in a calorie deficit, leptin levels decrease, and ghrelin levels increase, leading to increased hunger. This hormonal dance is our body's way of trying to maintain homeostasis and can be quite challenging to manage when trying to shed pounds.

Chronic feelings of hunger could indicate a metabolic suppression, where the body maintains weight in a low-energy state, which is not ideal for long-term health. Philip points out that managing chronic stress is essential in this equation, as elevated cortisol levels can lead to overeating and weight gain. Stress management techniques, therefore, become critical components of a successful diet strategy.

Sleep is another unsung hero in the battle against the bulge. Sleep deprivation can disrupt the hormonal balance and increase the production of ghrelin while decreasing leptin, leading to enhanced appetite and cravings. Good sleep hygiene is, thus, not just beneficial for cognitive and physical health but is also a powerful tool in the fight against fat.

One of the most engaging parts of the episode is Philip’s personal top nine hunger hacks, a selection from his larger list of twenty. These strategies are designed to be high-impact yet low-effort, integrating seamlessly into one's lifestyle. For instance, he suggests prioritizing protein intake, which is known for its satiety-inducing effects, and aiming for daily fiber targets to aid in fullness. Additionally, he discusses the benefits of constructing nutrient-dense meals, such as the "big ass salad," which combines protein, fiber, and hydration to create a satiating and enjoyable eating experience.

Moreover, Philip highlights the importance of hydration in staving off hunger, suggesting water and low-calorie drinks as allies in the journey toward fat loss. He also touches on the psychological components of hunger, acknowledging that hunger during dieting can be both a physical and mental challenge.

In conclusion, the episode provides listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the hunger equation and offers practical, science-backed strategies to conquer cravings and enjoy a pleasurable slimming process. Philip’s expertise shines through as he blends scientific knowledge with relatable advice, making this episode a must-listen for anyone interested in effective weight management.

For those looking to delve further into these topics and adopt these strategies, the full episode offers a wealth of information and inspiration. As the episode underscores, mastering hunger is about more than just willpower; it's about strategy, understanding, and enjoyment—key ingredients for a successful and sustainable weight loss journey.

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:00

Have you ever struggled with feeling deprived, constantly hungry or even hangry while trying to lose fat? Today, we are uncovering the science behind increased hunger during a calorie deficit and nine game changing, but as always practical strategies for keeping those cravings at bay so you can stay consistent. Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast. I'm your host Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits &

Philip Pape  00:47

Weights community Welcome to another solo episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. In our last episode 157 Bill Campbell on aggressive dieting, dirty bulking and keto effects on muscle building. Dr. Campbell was back on to revisit the latest in rapid fat loss, including our findings from the Wits & Weights shred Tober challenge from 2023 that followed a protocol inspired by his research, we discussed progressive versus aggressive calorie deficits. When does optimal bulking become dirty bulking, the effects of a keto diet on muscle building and a new study that bill's Research Lab is currently planning today for Episode 158, the science of hunger and nine hacks to outsmart your appetite, especially in fat loss, you're going to learn about the science behind why we experience increased hunger when trying to lose weight. Plus, I'm going to share nine hacks or practical strategies to help manage cravings and adhere to your fat loss phase. So you don't get too hangry. A big shout out to Luke P in our Wits & Weights Facebook community for suggesting this topic because apparently it's been a while or maybe I've never done a full episode on managing hunger, even though I have both a hunger hacks guide, and a hunger scale and diary available for free to anyone who wants it. So if you want the hunger hacks guide, you can click the link in my show notes. Or if you want that one or the other guide, either way, you can go to wits & weights.com/free, and grab a copy for yourself. Hunger is obviously very important. It's probably one of the most important signals during fat loss that makes it difficult for people to adhere. And I do think it is a critical topic. And so today, I want to make it make sure it's comprehensive in terms of understanding why we get hungry, but also give you some tools to manage hunger there. There's a long list, I have a full list of 20 in my hunger hacks guide. And today I'm going to share a subset of those some of that some of my favorites. So let's get into today's episode, the science of hunger and nine hacks to outsmart your appetite, especially in fat loss. Now, if you've ever tried to lose weight, for the purposes of losing fat, you know that hunger can be one of the biggest challenges. It is the first thing that I noticed within a day or two when I go into a fat loss phase. And I hear the same thing from clients are like, well, everything else is fine. Nothing else has changed. But I'm all of a sudden getting hungry. And it's a very common reason why many people struggle to be consistent or stick with that diet. And then they ultimately fail to reach their goals. Just today I was doing a client check in and she was talking about how we have a fairly aggressive deficit. And she was talking about almost trying to white knuckle it through. And I said well, we need to take take step back. As soon as you get to the moment where the hunger becomes all consuming, or the focus of your attention, or becomes an impediment to you continuing with something has to change and that something might be changing the rate of loss, adding in some refeeds, things like that. Now, I'm not going to talk about those strategies. Today, I'm going to talk about things that you can do to mitigate or manage or even stop hunger, if it happens to be, for example, psychological hunger, or to simply reduce the amount of time that you get hungry, all of the things that just make it a little bit if not a lot easier to continue with a certain calorie deficit. But having said all that, the answer may be you're in too big of a debt calorie deficit. So I just wanted to bring that up early in this episode, in case you feel that hunger can be completely eliminated, which is impossible. Hunger is a sign your body is doing what you want it to do. So today we're going to dive into why we experienced hunger during a calorie deficit. Okay, I'm not going to talk about hunger during a calorie surplus. That also happens, believe it or not, but it's similar principles we're going to talk about mainly during the deficit. And I'm gonna give you some strategies to make it more successful, more sustainable, so that you have a better understanding of how to navigate all of this stuff. So let's talk about the science first. Now this is this piece I may not have included if it weren't for Luke's suggestion of hey, just explain a little bit behind why we get hungry what is really going on. And so I'm going to start with the hunger hormones, leptin and greyling probably heard of these, but if not, it's good to know them, good to become friends with them and manage them right and kind of make them your, well, we'll just leave it at that. All right, when we're in a calorie deficit, our bodies are in a state that is not natural. And so they naturally want to return to homeostasis, they want to get back to that state of balance. But as we lose fat, because we're trying to do that intentionally, and our fat cells shrink, and I did a whole episode about fat oxidation, mobilization, all that, like what happens with the fat a little while ago, our body releases less leptin. Okay, Leptin is a hormone that tells you your full, it's a satiety hormone says, Hey, you're full, as we're losing fat or fat cells shrink, it sends a signal to your body to release less of it can it does that through your brain. And at the same time, the opposite happens with the hunger hormone, ghrelin, it goes up, and it makes us feel hungry. And so this, the shift in these hormones, is one of many ways that our body says, Hey, eat more food, because I need to get back to energy balance. And this is why so many of you through years of dieting, even when you don't lose weight, your body's adapted, you still feel hungry all the time. One of the first questions I ask somebody on on my free calls, or even a new client is how often you feel hungry, like are you living in a perpetual state of hunger, because if they tell me, Look, I'm not losing weight, and I think I'm at maintenance calories, but I'm hungry all the time. That's a good indicator that you are not at maintenance calories, you are maintaining your weight, but you're doing so in an energy deficit, not a calorie deficit, but but in a low energy state. So in other words, you're not in a deficit, but you're below where you could be not being in a deficit, right, your metabolism is being suppressed, and then that would cause you to be hungry. So that's important to understand that the hunger right there right off the bat is telling you that you're in a low energy state of some kind. The next quick thing I want to mention is carbs. Before we get into some more of the detailed science of the hormones, when we are in a dieting phase, or in fat loss phase, where we're eating fewer carbs, just by definition, if you're doing it the right way, when the focus is body composition and preserving muscle, your protein is kept high, so your fats and carbs come down and your calories are fairly limited. When we're eating fewer carbs, it is just harder to recover from workouts, then the workouts feel more challenging. And this is because carbs are the body's preferred source of fuel, especially for high intensity exercise, which includes our lifting sessions, believe it or not. And so when CARB is low, we feel more fatigued, and we're less able to push ourselves in the gym. So I want to I want to mention that as well, because it's not hunger, per se, but it's part of the whole equation of being deprived of energy, okay, and it all kind of feeds on itself. One of the most important hormones besides the two hunger hormones is cortisol. We know many of you know cortisol as the stress hormone. And it does play a huge role in hunger and appetite. Because when we're under stress, and fat loss is a stressor, our bodies release cortisol. Guess what that does? Well, it increases feelings of hunger. It also increases cravings for energy, which we see as high calorie high palatable, in our in our world, in the Western world, processed foods, high carbon sugar, and fat type foods, right foods that wouldn't exist in nature, but we are amazing at making them with our science. And hey, they're delicious. I like a good doughnut ice cream or pizza here and there. But when you're in fat loss, and when the stress is higher, and now you've got emotions in the mix as well, especially if there's some emotional eating that you haven't dealt with yet. All of it comes together as a perfect storm of cortisol induced injury. All right. Now, this is thought to be an adaptation to stressful situations. Like if you think of our evolution, when there's a stressful situation, we want energy we want to restore again, it's coming back to homeostasis. So we're gonna go find the most nutrient dense thing we can. It's just all subconscious. And so in today's world, because we also have chronic stress, we have these consistently elevated cortisol levels. And and we know for a fact that this is contributing to overeating and weight gain in a massive part of the population. But if you're listening to this, and I've never thought about the importance of stress in your life, get it through your head that stress and chronic stress could be the number one factor behind why you're having trouble losing fat or maintaining your body composition. And managing stress is also very important. Now what's interesting is, after this episode comes out, probably it might not be for a few months, I'll be doing an interview. I'm not going to say your name just yet, but I'll be doing an interview with some actually a couple of interviews coming up. One interview is related to self care practices, which is something I don't talk about a lot because it's we often put it in the whoo category or like and you know, it's like at the bottom of the list after strength training and protein and sleep and everything else. But it could be the number one thing on your list in your life right now. that is preventing you from getting what you want. So I just want to emphasize that stress itself is important when it comes to hunger. Because the stress increases the hunger and then it all perpetuates. Alright, and in managing stress, you know, there's techniques like meditation and breathing, exercise and training and all that, to regulate your cortisol levels. This is why I love strength training, one of the reasons, I find that the acute stressor of training hard, seems to lower chronic stress. And because it lowers chronic stress, it also helps with hunger, just like walking does as well, just like having good gut health. And I'm not even getting into gut health today. But the more I learned about this more, I realized that that's important in hunger. So again, we're talking to science, we're not even getting to the hacks of how to manage it, because the best hacks of all are having a well balanced, low stress lifestyle, while you're in fat loss. And that's why we don't want to start fat loss when we have a lot of stressors on our life. Okay, so the corollary to this is going to be sleep that, right sleep affects your appetite regulating hormones, as well. And it increases cortisol. So it's like one messes with the other, and just makes it worse and worse. So when you don't have enough sleep, it disrupts hormonal balance, for hunger and fullness. Because when we are sleep deprived, we produce even more gralen. That's the hunger hormone, and even less leptin. And then we get increased appetite and cravings. Okay, and this is probably our body's, again, try, our body's trying to get back to homeostasis. And it says, Well, if you're going to deprive me of relaxation, and recovery, and getting into those different levels of deep brainwave states, so that my brain can recover, heck, I need to make up for it somewhere else, I need to eat food. So I'm going to increase your appetite. And that is why getting enough hours and quality of sleep is so important for managing hunger, and maintaining the body weight, the body composition you're looking for. And I've mentioned it before, but being sleep deprived, will not only cause you to get hungrier, when you're gaining weight, or when you're gaining fat, it causes you to store fat more in the visceral fat area, the protective fat around your organs, which is the danger, or I should say the dangerous fat that causes belly fat, right belly fat, you're going to store it in your belly. That's what I'm trying to say. So again, sleep here is technically like a hunger hack. But it's not on my list of that I'm talking about here. But I wanted to mention it in the science of hunger. So aim for the seven to nine hours of sleep, you know, get the quality, sleep, hygiene and all of that to keep those hormones in balance and reduce the likelihood of a hunger being higher than it needs to be. Another thing on related to the science of hunger is the influence of our senses. In the perception of hungry, this is important food, that sight of food, just seeing food, smelling food, and the sound of food like chewing or crunching, somebody eating a bag of chips.

Philip Pape  12:56

That was totally me just acting. That's pretty impressive, right? Those can trigger hunger and cravings, especially cravings, even if we're not physically hungry. Ah, come on, you know what I'm talking about. And this is why it's important to be mindful. And I don't mean mindful eating. But that's important, yes, but mindful the environment we eat in, and the sensory cues that were exposed to, and those cues and some of my clients know who you are, might include, you know, someone in your family loves to bake goods, and they're always baking in the kitchen always smells great. And the food's always on the table. We've got the pies and the muffins and the cakes. And they're there. And even though they know they're trying to support you, and they know what your goals are, and you think you've got all your steel will discipline there. The queues are unavoidable to our primal brains, right? So simple strategies like keeping those foods out of sight. Avoiding environments that have strong smells when you're hungry, eating in a quiet distraction, free setting, right? All of those help us tune into our physical hunger cues, and avoid overeating in response to sensory triggers. Now, notice, as I'm telling you about the science of hunger, I'm actually already sharing things that you might consider strategies and hacks to minimize hunger. Okay. And in fact, one more comes to mind that isn't even on my hunger hacks list. And I didn't even have it in my notes today. And I just thought of it. And so you're gonna get this bonus hack right now. When you go to a restaurant, you're probably hungry, you're probably hungry for a few reasons. You're hungry because you didn't want to ruin your appetite ahead of time. Like when you go to a restaurant, you want to enjoy the food, and you're hungry because of the sensory environment that we just talked about. This is what triggered it. You've got the visual environment of the tables and the place settings and the clinking glasses, the silverware. The smells of the food coming out of the kitchen. Heck, the smell coming out of the restaurant before you even walk in. Right? I'm convinced they put some sort of little smell capsules in there to make it smell like you know, char grilled steak, even when they're not cooking. But, you know, especially like a barbecue place. Oh boy, don't get me started. So You go in there, you're already hungry, because of all this stuff. And you're already thinking in your brain about the wonderful foods that are gonna be there. The wonderful experience is this positive thing for so many of us. And so if you don't have a plan, if you don't think ahead, you're just going to dive in and just start eating whatever and you can easily over consume. Now, how can you enjoy yourself, but but not over consuming? Okay? Now, this is a lot harder during fat loss, I get it. But whatever the situation is, if we're gonna go to a restaurant all the way I would do it is, and I think I heard this on April serveis, that YouTube channel or podcast, start with a fairly boring, nutrient dense low calorie, appetizer, like a salad that it's not so boring that you don't like it. But it's boring enough that it doesn't have very many calories. And when you eat it, it'll still taste good, because you're hungry. So in other words, start with a more bland, kind of boring, calorie dense or nutrient dense stuff first, because you're just so hungry, and ravenous, it's probably going to taste great anyway. And you know what I'm talking about, or, like, you're just hungry for anything, you'll eat anything, and it just tastes great, even like, you know, stale bread. Start with that, and then it starts to fill up your stomach. And then you start to get less hungry, and you kind of space it out, and then move to the more calorie dense stuff as you go along. And the idea being that you won't eat as much simply because of your hunger cues. Okay, so that that was the hack, I just wanted to tie it into this whole sensory environment. Now, there's also a psychological component to hunger during fat loss, right? There's a huge psychological components, you know it from day one of your fat loss phase, I know I do when I go from a bulk to a cut. And I was eating five or six times a day, and I was eating, you know, 3200 calories. And now I'm going down to say 2000 calories, that huge jump, it may not cause as much physical as psychological hunger, because I'm just not eating nearly as much food and my brain is like, what is going on something changed massively. You are eating five times, now you're eating three, you're going these long stretches nowadays, eating what is going on. And you become more food aware, and you think about food more often. And that makes you feel like you're hungrier. Right, even if you try to do the hacks like drinking water, and going and being busy. It's still there, right? Even if our physical hunger levels haven't changed. So this is the science behind it. That's, that's as detailed as I want to get, I really want to get to the hacks now. But it is very important to recognize that hunger is normal, it is expected want to revisit that concept, it's not something you could just eliminate. If you're not accepting of any hunger at all, you're either gonna go to fat loss, and you're gonna fail pretty quickly, you're gonna fall on your face, because you're just expecting it to be this easy ride. Or you just want to go at a slower pace, right? And incorporate more of the things we're going to talk about today just to mitigate that so that the hunger is as low as it can possibly be to where it's very, it's very below the surface, almost. And you could easily do that. Think about when you're just at maintenance, you're generally not hungry. Well, what if you just ate like 100 calories less a day? Well, you would start to lose weight slowly over time, and he still wouldn't be that hungry. It's a matter of degrees. Okay. Now, I personally like to go very aggressive early in a fat loss phase, and then taper it, but some people will go less and some people will do something in between like, go aggressive, but then the weekends are gonna go up to maintenance. Hey, this is Philip. And I hope you're enjoying this episode of Wits & Weights, I started Wits & Weights to help people who want to build muscle lose fat and actually look like they lift. I've noticed that when people improve their strength and physique, they not only look and feel better, they transform other areas of their life, their health, their mental resilience and their confidence in everything they do. And since you're listening to this podcast, I assume you want the same things the same success, whether you recently started lifting, or you've been at this for a while and want to optimize and reach a new level of success. Either way, my one on one coaching focused on engineering your physique and body composition is for you. If you want expert guidance and want to get results faster, easier, and with fewer frustrations along the way to actually look like you lift, go to wits & weights.com, and click on coaching, or use the link in my show notes to apply today. I'll ask you a few short questions to decide if we're a good fit. And if we are, we'll get you started this week. Now back to the show.

Philip Pape  19:22

So with that in mind, let's dive into nine of my favorite hunger hacks. And I mentioned that these are part of a full list. The full list has 20 Hunger hacks, this is my hunger hacks guide and it's completely free if you want it for yourself. Just click the link in the show notes or go to wits & weights.com/free, but the full hunger hacks guided by the way that website wits & weights.com/free. Or if you click free stuff, as a whole bunch of guys keep adding to it. They're totally free. Download as many as you want. Alright, here we go. Hunger hacks nine hunger hacks of the 20 in my guide, the first one is probably no surprise. Prioritize protein at every meal, and every snack when you're in At last, you need a lot of protein as a percentage of your calories, it ends up being 40 or 50%. For a lot of people, so just eat it all the time, just make it a rule for yourself that you're always gonna have protein. It's the most filling macro, it helps keep us feeling full and satisfied for longer, especially if you eat it from food sources. You might experiment if you're gonna have protein powder, experiment, having casing instead of whey and see if the longer digestion helps you feel full longer, for example, and all the all the protein sources or games, including game yeah, gave me lean meat, fish, eggs, tofu plants, it doesn't matter but have something that every meal and every snack, don't get hung up on the leucine threshold, don't get hung up on whether you have too much or too little. If your total protein for the day is met, you're good. After that point. If you're doing that consistently, you can go and look at other ways to optimize. Okay, so just prioritize protein at every meal and every snack. That's it. Number two, include fiber. Now, can you include it at every meal? Maybe not? Maybe not. If you have a primarily protein based meal, it may not have much fiber. But if you're looking for a number to hit, I'm going to try to hit for for women at least 20 grams a day for men probably 30 grams a day. Yeah, even during fat loss. And if you can go higher, even better. I came across one of my clients, his wife was doing keto. And so she buys all this keto food, you know, keto branded food, one of them is this keto bread. And I went and looked for something like that a Whole Foods and I found it because I wanted to try it out during fat loss myself. And it was like, it was like 80 calories for two slices of bread. Whereas normally two slices would be 220. And I looked at the package and it's you know, it's made from like wheat starch. The fiber was incredible. It was it was 10 grams a slice, or 15 grams, I don't know, it was some high amount, some crazy amount of it's like all fiber. Basically, you're Yeah, you maybe you're just eating cardboard, I don't know some people joke joke about it, right. But a lot of bread doesn't have a lot of flavor anyway. So it kind of works to hold things like a sandwich. Anyway, I got off set track there. But adding fiber will slow your digestion as well. So it's not just because of the goodness of fiber for your gut. And for your health. It's also for your digestion and for your hunger. It promotes fullness, big time, it bulks up the meals, it slows down the digestion. When you look at a packaged food, if you've ever scanned it into your food app, like if you guys use macro factor, but quick add here macro factor, download it, use a code Wits & Weights O N word, you get an extra week free trial, right out macro factor, okay? When you look at a packaged food label, and you look at the carbs, and the calories and the fiber, and it has a lot of fiber, you'll realize the math doesn't add up, if you use the normal calories per gram for carbs. So carbs we usually think of as having four calories per gram, just like protein. But fiber is less than that, because some of the fiber doesn't get digested. So the food companies are allowed to account for the true calories, which is fine like that, that's, that's honest, to be to be honest, they're not lying by doing that. For every gram of carbs, that's really a fiber gram, you're not quite getting four calories out of it, you might be getting two, three, or one, you know, it depends on the type of fiber and all that. In fact, there's insoluble right? Might be close to zero. So when you see net carbs, that's how they're calculated. My point is, it's an interesting concept when you think about it, because you're, you've got all this food volume, but the calories are lower. And that's kind of the benefit of fiber, right? That's what I'm trying to say. Good sources of fiber just from whole foods are going to be fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, legumes, you know, depending on how your diet fits those in with the carbs, maybe less on the table during fat loss or not. But definitely fruits, vegetables, and then again, whole grains it depends on carb levels. So fruits and vegetables are going to be my primary in that case. And that leads me to number three, which is incorporating vegetables and salads as much as possible. So I made this a separate hack. Because I think during fat loss, it's helpful that every lunch every dinner and then potentially one or two or three snacks including breakfast, you throw vegetables in there, you throw steamed, raw, maybe if you can handle it like raw vegetables, some people can't handle the digest, you know too much of that, especially like cruciferous or the FODMAP sensitivity or something but steamed vegetables cooked even like even pureed but the problem is I don't like that during fat loss because you're missing out on the chew ability which is gonna be a different hack that I'm gonna get to later. So I like what they call a big ass salad for lunch where you might have meal prep some chicken or pork or fish or you know, tempeh or whatever. And you incorporate it in a big giant salad with greens, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, like all the things that are super filling I have my have a lot of water in them and very few calories. Okay, vegetables are great. I mean, I wouldn't even include some fruits in here like strawberries is a good one because it has five fiber and pretty low calories. So definitely throw those in your salad. Oranges are great. Orange is high satiety apples are high satiety but those in your salad right it's just Amazing. So this adds volume, right? The non starchy vegetables, they're low in calories or high in volume, they fill you up, they don't add calories to your diet, you know, go all out with all the different colors, enjoy yourself a lot of great flavors to enjoy freshness, you know, go with the seasons go with the farms, seasons and all that fun stuff. Okay. So if rule number one when a client says I'm starting to get hungry, Mike, I look at their data, say are you you got enough protein got enough fiber got enough vegetables. Usually they're good on the protein because we've already worked on that before the fat loss phase. But the fiber and the vegetables sometimes are lacking. And it's just, it's just a habit. It's just a matter of saying like, Okay, I need to meal plan a little bit to get these in, make sure I go to the grocery store, have them stocked up, you know, buy those giant boxes or bags of greens, make it easy on yourself, buy the pre cut up stuff if you want, or just chop it all up on a Sunday. Okay, number four, hydration, always I've got to have this on the list. I know everybody knows it. But a lot of people just don't do it. They neglect it. In fact, as I record this show, I realized I probably haven't had a glass of water in two hours. And that's a long enough time. And I'm a fat loss. That I'm probably feeling a little dehydrated right now, let alone the fact that it would have staved off some hunger now I'm not feeling hunger now because I'm doing this. Okay, which is one of those hacks I don't have on this list, but distracting yourself. But staying hydrated comes in a lot of forms. This could be water, of course water with electrolytes. It could be coffee, I know coffee is mildly diuretic. And of course you've got the caffeine to watch out for later in the day we do decaf, or have you coffee in your morning? Tea. Same idea. Diet soda. Okay, I am I'm a huge fan of diet soda. I love it. I know there's no there's no issues artificial sweeteners in my book. And if you have a problem with that, keep the hate to yourself, okay, because the science doesn't support any health risks whatsoever from moderate consumption of diet soda, just like there's not really a health risk of moderate consumption of just about anything. That's the point. It's moderate. It's moderate. Okay, so one diet soda a day to diet sodas cans a day, if that helps you curb your hunger. If you enjoy it, if it tastes great, if you'd like the fish and the experience, if you have a favorite flavor that you look forward to, okay, great. Enjoy it. Like it replaces the food in a way you know, mentally psychologically. It keeps you hydrated, right, it's something to look forward to. It's got it checks all the boxes. Thirst can be mistaken for hunger, you know this. So just staying hydrated on a regular basis can help. And then electrolytes like make sure to have electrolytes once or twice during the day will also help your body stay hydrated. Okay, so my point on that one is like if you feel hungry, and it wasn't that long ago, since you eat just go get a glass of water if you haven't had one yet, in a while. Alright, hack number five, spice up your meals, so that they taste better, and also increase satiety. So there's some science behind this, I don't I don't have the details. But I'm definitely aware that if you have more flavor, variety, more protein more robustness to the flavor. Your body perceives it as more satisfying, and therefore it can reduce the hunger. Right. And all you got to do here is add spices, herbs, anything you know, even mustard, anything that's like low to no calorie type seasoning to all your meals. Just go for experiment with different spices, find combinations you enjoy. This is the time to do it. Maybe you're meal prepping your meat, go ahead and experiment with a whole bunch of great spices at you know, the antioxidant effects of the capsaicin, right pepper base, spices, chilies, stuff like that can be great. But just just versatility in general and flavor without adding calories. Spices will be your friend. Alright, number six. Okay, this is one of those unique ones people don't talk about a lot. Having a consistent eating routine, a consistent eating schedule, can help regulate your hunger. And I believe it has to do with the fact that our bodies are very good at adapting. And when you are constantly changing things on your body, it will adapt. And in this case, the adaptation is more hunger. Whereas if you are eating the same day for same time for breakfast, lunch, snack dinner day after day after day, your body can expect it your body doesn't have to be stressed or seek out an adaptation. Because anything's changing. Nothing's changing. So it just kind of coasts along. And what I've seen happen to some people, when they get into a consistent eating schedule is not only does the hunger come down, but sometimes their metabolic rate goes up. Okay, I can't I can't guarantee that that's going to happen for you. But sometimes that happens simply because they're related. The two things are related. The fact that your hunger goes down is because your body has relaxed a little bit, become a little bit less efficient, which is a good thing with its calories. And so you burn a few more calories because your body knows the food is coming in on a regular schedule. So if your schedule is all over the place, this is a good one to look at, to help with your hunger. Okay, number seven, I got this one from Dr. Eric Trexler. I hear I mentioned it all the time, I think it's an amazing hack. I've used it myself, it works really well. And that is to choose harder, more substantial foods, foods that require you to chew more and it takes longer to eat. So this could be foods that are harder in texture, right, because they take more time to chew and swallow and they help you feel more satisfied. And that could literally be you know, instead of having ground beef, having sirloin that's maybe a little bit tough. Now, I'm not saying you know, badly cook your steak or cook it medium or anything like that, oh, I'm gonna trigger a lot of people with this comment. They can no more than medium rare for me, I'm sorry. But

Philip Pape  30:39

if you want a little bit, you hear a little bit harder. That's, that's what I mean. Now think about crunchy vegetables that just take a long time to chew. And there's almost no calories. Think about whole fruits. Okay, this is this is a reason not to put your fruits in a smoothie. Don't make a protein shake with fruit stirring fat loss, just have the protein powder with like water, almond milk or something, and then keep the fruit hole and eat it. That will actually help with hunger. All right, lean proteins, whole grains, all of that like whole grains, brown rice versus white rice. It's not just the extra fiber and the lower calories. But the extra to ability that tricks your brain and your stomach legitimately and physiologically tricks them via hormones to think that you're eating more food because there's more volume, they they require more effort to eat, they slow down the eating pace, they give your body time to register fullness. And I believe there's an aspect to your saliva as well. All the chewing, and the generation of saliva is also connected to this system of telling you you're eating something that's substantial, and therefore, you don't need to eat as much. So I think that's a really good one harder foods. Okay. Number eight is sleep. Okay, I forgot that I had this on the list. Okay, I did this, all this because I was telling you earlier, it's like, oh, here's an extra hack. Now it's actually on the list. And we already talked about it. So I'm not going to rehash all of it. But just in summary, not getting enough sleep will make you hungrier and will increase your cravings for a high calorie dense food. Because your body is making up for the lack of sleep. That's it. So prioritize your sleep for hunger. And then number nine, another one you might not expect is to practice positive reframing. If we can view hunger, since we know it happens, we know it happens. It's a sign that your body is responding to fat loss. So instead of you and hunger as a negative, you reframe it as a positive sign these your diet is working, you say, Okay, I noticed I'm hungry. That means I'm losing fat. Great. All right. When you feel hungry, you remind yourself, this is a normal part of the fat loss process, my body's responding to the calorie deficit. And I want to keep doing what I'm doing. And I've seen clients who check in with me and they're deep into a fat loss phase. And like, you know, I'm hungry most of the time now, because, you know, they're they're deep in right there almost at the end. But I'm also making so much progress that I, I accept it, like it's fine. It doesn't even take much discipline or willpower. I just know that the hunger I've experienced over the last 12 weeks has also correlated with the fat loss I've been going after, therefore, it's a positive thing. Okay, so that's it. That's number nine. So as mentioned before, these nine hacks are part of a larger list of 20 Hunger hacks that you'll find in my free hunger hacks guide. The guide includes 11 additional strategies for managing hunger during fat loss along with these nine, and the link to download the guide is in the show notes. Or you can go to wits & weights.com/free, to grab your copy. Alright, managing hunger during fat loss. It's a skill, it's a skill, like many of the other things we talked about, on this show, were all about learning knowledge, tools, skills, developing the expertise for long term sustainable success. And if you understand the science behind hunger, if you understand what it takes to just move the needle a little bit, you can make this whole calorie deficit thing a lot more bearable, right, because it's not supposed to be fun, but we want to be able to live life enjoy life and have the calorie deficit and get through it. Okay? The key to all of this is always finding what works best for you and your lifestyle. So, experiment with the different hacks, see which ones work for you. Reach out to me and let me know. Okay. And keep in mind that with everything we talked about, consistency is number one, and patience is right there as a close second. Because sometimes, you know, you might lack a little of one or the other. We need both. There'll be ups and downs along the way, always. And we want to celebrate the progress along the way, including the fact that hunger means we are losing fat, so that we don't get discouraged. Because if if you get hungry, and you get discouraged, like oh, no, I'm hungry, something's wrong. That's gonna set you back versus you know, hey, this is what's supposed to happen. And then you can achieve your fat loss, you can improve your health, improve your well being all the things we want to do. Alright, so again, if you want my full guide for hunger hacks, just click the link in my show notes or go to wits. & weights.com/free. And in our next app, Episode 159 Very exciting. Steve Hall is on the episode is called change how you train hard for ever with natural bodybuilders Steve Hall, you will learn what it really means to train hard. What exactly do we mean by that and how to effectively apply scientific research to your own training. We'll get into the nuances of principles like our IR, which is called reps and reps and reserve, proximity to failure and minimum effective volume MeV, and how these concepts relate to muscle growth. We'll discuss how to bridge the gap between research and practice based on your individual response to optimize your games while minimizing injury. As always, my friends stay strong. And I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits & Weights podcast. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits & Weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their Wits & Weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong