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Zest: Hunger!
Aaaahh! Everyone hates the hunger, its a real bummer; it gets your stomach all twisted in knots, it makes you grumpy and irritable and worse of all it always, always seems to make you eat more than you need.

Why do we get Hungry?
Hunger is the body's way of telling you that it needs extra energy resources, the actual feeling of hunger is stimulated by the release of the hormone 'ghrelin'. The sensation of hunger fades when we feel 'full' or 'sated' which occurs after the consumption of calories. The only trouble with this is that 'hunger' is one of the most unreliable systems that evolution has produced. Ever.
Even though we might have overly large fat deposits (and therefore more than enough stored energy) hunger still makes unnecessary demands for large portions of food, (quantities of food that we might not need).
Hunger is quite literally an insatiable sensation.
And to add insult to injury there is no 'on/off' switch! Even when we have eaten more calories than we actually require the sensation of hunger will continue until the food actually reaches our stomach. (Which can take 10 - 20 minutes for the food to travel from our mouth to digestive system!) So more often than not we tend to over eat and gorge on calories that aren't required.

Hunger and your Diet
Expect to feel hungry for the first two weeks of your diet, your stomach has become used to a certain intake of food (and if you've been putting on weight your stomach has more than likely grown accustomed to a surplus intake of food.) Your stomach will physically expand and contract, the first two weeks of a new diet is always uncomfortable due to the fact that overeating on a regular basis causes the stomach to stretch or expand out of shape. Your body gets used to this new stomach size and because of this takes longer to feel 'full', hence your unfortunate and unnecessary desire for large meals. When you begin to eat less, the stomach takes time to adjust which results in hunger pangs, however once the stomach has adjusted you will once again feel 'full' on smaller portions of food than before.

A word of warning! If you continue to feel hunger pains after this two week period this is likely due to you over reducing your calorie intake and you are in the process of malnourishing yourself. (By no means healthy!) Adjust your diet accordingly by gradually increasing your calorie intake..

Curbing the Hunger
There are several ways of preventing the sensation of hunger:

Drink a large glass of water 20 minutes before you eat. The water will partially fill your stomach, dampening your desire for food

Eat more protein, higher levels of protein can aid the sensation of satiety or feeling 'full'.

Eat sources of fibre which although having very little in the way of nutrients is a sneaky of feeling 'full' without consuming extra calories.

Everyone hates the hunger,
Everyone hates the hunger, its the hardest thing to put up with when on a diet
Hunger is not a precise body mechanism
Hunger is not a precise body mechanism and is not a reliable means of judging your calorie requirements
curb your hunger
Drink a large glass of water 20 minutes before you eat to curb your hunger
Consume more protein
Consume more protein to create a sense of satiety.
Consume more fibre
Consume more fibre, low in digestable calories yet an easy method to fill your stomach
 
 
 
 
 
 
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