Thursday 17 July 2014

Listen to your stomach!!



Only if your body could talk, like would be so much easier. But unfortunately that does not happen in real life. The most important part of losing weight and keeping it off is to listen to your body. We all wish it could just say what it wants. Although your body doesn't have an oral language, it does communicate. Certainly, you know when your body hurts because you feel pain. You know when it needs rest because you get the cues like yawns and sleepiness. But are you able to clearly hear your body communicate when it is time for you to eat and when it is time to stop eating?

Infants exactly know when to cry for food and when to stop taking the feed.  Changing your perception about being full is the critical first step toward reaching your ideal size. Notice that an infant does not keep feeding on milk until he or she is full. Full is actually an uncomfortable feeling. Wanting to get full from eating is an urge that develops later in life due to social pressure and outside messages from family and peers. Infants feed only until their hunger is satisfied and the stomach is comfortable. You were once an infant too and knew well how to listen your body signals but as you grew up, you changed your eating habits to accommodate social norms and emotions. But the good news is, that you can get closer to your original instincts once again. You just need to recognize and listen to your body signals.

Hunger is a natural part of the body and it is good to feel hungry. You are supposed to feel hunger so that you can know when it's time to eat because eating helps sustain life. You may be thinking that your hunger is out of control. Most often, it isn't out of control; rather, you have either denied or ignored your true hunger feelings for so long that you don't recognize them. However, there's a sort of fake hunger. It comes from stress and anxiety or other emotions, sometimes from appetite stimulants such as alcohol, prescription drugs, illegal drugs, or a lack of sleep. The fake hunger is just that. The communication doesn't come from a hunger pang; more likely it comes from the mouth, as in an oral chewing need, from emotional feelings, or from thirst.
Hunger is a pain, and it is felt somewhere above, below, or behind your belly button. Hunger feels different for different people. For some, it is almost like a muscle contraction. For others, it's an empty or void feeling. To become acquainted with your hunger, wait to eat until you feel a hunger pang. For most people, it takes about two to five hours after the previous meal to feel hunger. Pay close attention to your stomach initially to feel hunger. Identify where the physical feelings are located. Listen intently to any rumbling or growling.

A human stomach is a muscle of 25 centimeters ( 10 inches) which can expand and hold 2-4 litres of food and water but that is the discomforting situation. In our body we have 2 hormones which regulate appetite, Leptin and Ghrelin. Leptin is secreted by the fat cells especially after eating a meal which tells the brain that the stomach is full and one should stop eating. Ghrelin is secreted by the stomach lining when it is empty and tells the brain that the stomach needs food and one should eat something. Generally both the hormones work in sync and one goes up, the other goes down regulating your appetite. But when people eat more food than required and increase the fat in the body, the leptin also increases which may make you feel that you will lose weight by the hunger curbing signal of leptin, but here is a twist, as the fat in your body increases, the leptin becomes resistant and stops signaling the brain which means you eat more than your appetite without realizing when you are full. This makes you more fat.

How to eat in control?
·         Don’t be distracted with all the tempting food around you and in the grocery stores which can give you fake hunger pangs.
·         Do not skip breakfast and meals as it can get you more hungry making you eat more than required food.
·         Do not watch T.V or talk much while eating as it can divert your attention and you can land up eating more than your capacity.
·         Chew your food well as your brain gets the signal of being full from your stomach 20 minutes after eating. Eating too fast can only make you eat more realizing later how full and uncomfortable you are.
·         Do not eat when stressed as it can affect your ability to understand true hunger pangs and you tend to eat more.
·         Avoid taking large serving sizes as in a buffet spread as one tends to eat more in such situations.
·         When you get cravings to eat something for 10 minutes before you put something in your mouth. Sometimes cravings are fake as well. Try drinking water and see if the cravings vanish. If not then go ahead and eat something healthy.
·         If you don’t have time to eat later, it is alright. But do not eat more than your body needs just because you wouldn’t get to eat later. That will just add to more fat to your body.
·         Try to set regular meal timings as they keep your hunger and fullness undercheck. Eat meals at the same time every day.
·         If you don’t like to waste food, try taking little in your plate and another serving when you need more. This just saves you from finishing the excess food in your plate, saving you from excess fat.

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