Your body is a mystery, a careful craft of bone, flesh, and more–but when you don’t take care of it, it becomes much less than what it could be. Because there are so many variables in determining how healthy you are, like the food you eat, how much you exercise, your genetics, etc., you need a meter, a ruler to measure how you’re doing.Your BMI is essentially that: it tells you how you how your body is doing, at least in terms of its composition. The BMI number you’re given doesn’t depend directly on your diet on your exercise: it’s an aggregate result of your diet and exercise. It’s like the score you get on a test (but let’s not talk scantrons, please).Want to take that BMI “test”? You can do that below.
What is BMI?
Body mass index, or BMI, is a ratio-based measurement of your body that factors in your height and weight. It’s simple; it applies to both male and female; and it’s an excellent tool for you to use to track your body’s health.Some call it the Quetelet Index, named after its inventor, Adolphe Quetelet. He idealized a measuring method that would relate one’s weight and height to an ideal or standardized weight. In other words, he wanted to codify the system of body mass measuring, to make it easier for people to know how “normal” their body mass is compared to others.
Why does BMI matter?
Your body-to-weight ratio is extremely important, because there has over and again been a correlation between a high BMI and a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes II, high blood pressure, gallstones, and more. Measuring your body mass is also an excellent predictor of what your health may be in the future, especially when applied to children. You can track the pattern of body mass acquisition to take action early and prevent unhealthy habits later in life.(If you’re taking the BMI of minors, please consult the growth chart for more accuracy, as children’s body mass better correlates with standard growth charts.)Credit: ib.bioninja.com.auYour body mass index is on a rough spectrum from under weight to obese, though these parameters vary. For instance, there may be person A and person B who both have BMIs that mark them as “under weight,” but person A’s BMI may be 10 and person B’s BMI may be 17. Clearly, person B is healthier than person A. The same goes with your BMI related to obesity.
Should I even care?
Now, don’t take BMI as gospel. An unfortunate part of your BMI calculation is that it doesn’t factor in muscle.Let me iterate: if you actively lift weights and have a more muscular composition than someone who better resembles a couch potato and hasn’t heard of a guy named Gym, you may have the same BMI than she, but one of you looks drastically different.Take, for example, the following chart. Each of the figures is, surprisingly, 5′ 7″, weighs 145 lbs, and has a BMI of 22.8. Does that look true?mindbodygreen.comIt is true, because again, BMI is not a panacea for measuring your body status vis-a-vis other bodies.You should still care about your BMI because there is one thing it highlights: your excess fat, which, unless you’re pregnant or are facing the most inclement conditions and tend to be out of food for long periods of time, is just that: excess. Excess, of anything other than those cinnamon Poptarts (kind of joking), is usually bad.(Read more about general excess here.)
Address your body mass
Now that you know your body mass (or if you don’t, click here); and since the national obesity level (your BMI being 30+) is around 37, we need a solution to high body fat–or to losing weight healthy, effectively, and [it would be nice if it’s] quickly.Have you ever typed in “how to lose weight” in a search engine? We did, and what we saw immediately was not surprising.Notice the top and bottom “People also ask” questions. These are of the commonest questions asked on the internet when it comes to address your body weight.Apple cider vinegar doesn’t work: it just makes you more acidic and have some not-so-fun times on the toilet. Surgery? No. Please, love your body as it is. You don’t need to take a needle to it.The real solution to addressing a high BMI and losing weight is controlling what you eat: it’s putting your foot down on your appetite. And if you’re normal like everyone else, you may need some help with your appetite. You can find that here. Now that you know your BMI, what will you do with it?
You can actually control your appetite. It’s definitely possible, but it’s not easy. There will be hurdles, failures, relapses–but there will also be victories. And if you don’t lose heart, you’ll be able to look, feel, and act like you’ve always wanted to.You don’t have to be a slave to your appetite.Follow these fifteen (15) actionable tips to control your appetite; and if you forget them, just come back and read it again. Easy… (the reading part)!
1. Consider why you eat
Much of the time, we eat without thinking. It becomes second nature, like checking our cellphone upon waking up or understanding advertisement cues on television. Sometimes we just eat.
We’re bored; we’re tired; we’re nervous; we saw an ad somewhere–or it’s just nearing the time of day that we usually eat. Regardless what caused it, try to be conscientious of when and why you’re eating: even if it’s just a snack. You might be able to relate your hunger cues to other factors, like a dog trained to salivate at the ring of a bell.
2. Return to the basics
We get so accustomed to hearing the “top, new Hollywood appetite suppressing” tips that we forget there are basic rules to follow, ones we learned when we were young. Consider the food pyramid, the geometric guidelines for the healthy amount of food groups.
It’s always easy to take a step back and ask yourself, “Am I eating too much dairy? What about too many grains? Do I need more vegetables?” Yes, yes you do.
Image: MyPyramid, U.S Department of Agriculture
3. Drink water and more water
When it comes to taking control of your appetite, you always want to be sure you’re getting enough water. While coffee, tea, milk, and even watermelon are sources of water, you likely won’t get enough in your system by those alone.
Drinking water before or at the onset of a craving allows you to determine whether you really are hungry or you were just thirsty. You were probably just thirsty.
4. Don’t skip breakfast
Having a healthy, considerable but not oversized breakfasts kicks your metabolism into gear early in the morning. Research has shown that missing breakfast causes “metabolic and hormonal differences in response to food” that was consumed later in the day, which means your body may compensate for a lack and you may eat more. Uh oh.
Also, if trying to choose a light breakfast meal, make sure you choose protein. The protein versus other food groups like cereals, oats, and simple carbohydrates will make you feel full immediately, but the effect will taper off soon and you’ll have a hunger ravenous for two buffets by lunch.
5. Look at the label
Do you ever have a mouthful of some yummy food, look down, and realize that you just ate your day’s worth in calories? Same. Don’t let yourself unknowingly deplete your caloric quota for the day: look at what you’re consuming. Is that snack you want to eat going to be a sizable crater on your daily values? Choose an alternative.
Look at the amount of calories in an item, then scan the rest of the label. If the snack is anything over 100-200 calories, you should probably ditch it (unless you’re very active).
Take our weight loss fitness stick, for example. It only has 15 calories, and there’s only one serving: there are no calories hiding from you. But when looking at food labels, always check the amount of servings. You may be enjoying that 90 calorie snack, only until you realize that the package you ate was actually 3 servings worth (270). Ouch.
6. Get up (not the movie)
Okay, don’t cry. Hold on. The movie was adorably sad–yes. But do you know what the old man did? He got up! Even at his old age, he adventured and tossed the idea of an aged, sedentary lifestyle in the trash.
This part–the correlation between appetite and physical activity–is complex. In fact, many scientists disagree about the conclusion. Some say your body’s appetite hormones, ghrelin, the appetite increaser, and leptin, the appetite suppressor, are stimulated by exercises; others dismiss the idea.
Bottom line: exercise is healthy for you whether or not it suppresses your appetite, but doing jumping jacks, push-ups, or walking around the house or office now in then will definitely stimulate your mind and deter you from mindlessly snacking.
7. But don’t get down
This emotive tip for controlling your appetite is actually quite an important one: Don’t beat yourself up if you overeat while sticking to your dietary regime. I mean, if you downed an entire row of Oreos, you might want to repent a little.
You can’t climb to the top of the ladder if you get off it every time you descend a rung. You have to keep going up it, even if you slip and fall down 3 or 4 rungs. If you curbed your appetite successfully for a week, and totally messed up on the weekend, you have to keep going on Monday.
You can’t quit (even though, of all days, Monday is the easiest day to quit).
8. Watch for hunger cues
Our body is like a machine: it remembers our patterns, like the muscle memory a professional MLB player gathers that makes him an incredibly dexterous and explosive asset. Your body will remember–encode–certain behaviors that cue your appetite.
TICK. It’s time for you to eat… or is it? Is it “that time of the day that you eat,” which means you must be hungry? Maybe you aren’t really hungry; and maybe just everyone else ate early and you want to fit in.
What triggers your stomach to say, “Hey, I think I’m hungry”? Audit your body’s behavior and look for those moments that you get hungry out of the blue, and then see if any of them are false readings. Maybe you’re hungry, or maybe you just got home from work and opening the fridge is just part of your routine.
9. Eat early, not late
In an earlier blog we gave some hacks to avoid late-night snacking, and talked about how silly the myth is about eating late at night. Now we’re reinforcing it: instead of just shunning late-night snacking, control your appetite earlier in the day by eating your last meal well before bedtime.
When you don’t set a time frame for eating dinner, you remove parameters on meals and snacks. Instead of eating at a static time, you might push back dinner and snack in the mid-afternoon. You’ll end up eating late at night, sleepily snacking and rue it all in the morning.
Your body best operates in routines, and unless you are in control of your appetite, it will control you.
10. Brush your teeth
Have you brushed your teeth today? Don’t answer that unless it’s yes. Brushing your teeth is an excellent way to suppress your cravings immediately. Have you ever tried drinking orange juice right after brushing your teeth? Worst mouth event ever.
We suggest you get in a habit of brushing your teeth immediately after dinner. This prevents you from snacking and from delving into the cupboards late at night when everyone else is asleep… unless you’re stubborn, and you’d rather snack and brush them again. We can’t help stubborns.
11. Drink strategically
“What does drinking have to do with controlling the appetite?”
This special liquid is a conniving joy-giver. It makes you feel good, content, bold, and usually not hungry–until your body reaches that point and says, “Okay, where’s the fridge?” There’s a reason you crave simple carbohydrates when you drink.
Alcohol, when consumed, depletes your glycogen stores (carbohydrates) to metabolize it, so it needs to refill the carbs. The more you drink, the more your body is robbed of stored energy, and the greater the need it will have to fill it.
You have a few options. You can either…
Cut out alcohol completely (just kidding)
Drink less
Eat before you drink
When your glycogen starts to deplete from that wine, beer, or hard stuff, you will have built a barricade against the fickle behavior of your boozy appetite. Having eaten, you won’t have to deal with two appetites (natural appetite + boozy appetite = unmet dietary goals).
12. Shop like a minimalist
Minimalism is the “art or lifestyle of living only with things we need,” and when it comes to shopping for food, it’s a powerful lifestyle to embrace. If you’ve ever gone to the grocery store when you’re hungry, you know the game: your appetite chooses what to buy, not your brain.
It’s crucial you either eat before you shop, or only buy the bare necessities. While buying in bulk will usually get you the deals, if you buy a family size when you just want a bite, you’re giving your appetite a way in: “There’s extra in the house, so I can have a little more.”
13. Find your motivators
Sometimes it takes motivation to do just about anything: go to work, get off the couch, wake up… Choosing to eat healthy and not glut at every moment possible also needs motivation, which is why we recommend you find what or who motivates you to control your appetite.
Do you have a wedding or grand event coming up? Do you look up to a certain fitness instructor or someone who clearly has his/her appetite under control? Are you tired of the lazy, stuffing, lugubrious feeling after overeating? Whatever is your motivation, cling to it and set it before your eyes at all times.
14. Get accountability partners
Find someone who will walk with you side by side, to fight your appetite and overeating together. There’s nothing quite as powerful as having accountability for the things that you do (or don’t do); and when you’re trying to achieve fitness goals, you want find people who both praise you in victory and encourage you in defeat.
And when you learn how to control your appetite–once you’ve donned the medals and achieved your fitness goal, you can be someone else’s motivation. What a feeling that is when, not if, you get there…
15. Get confident, overly confident
There’s nothing more intimidating than someone who isn’t afraid to speak his/her mind or back down from a challenge. You might think those people have a certain “type of personality” or are just different from you. Maybe, but I think you’re scared.
Don’t be timid to be the best damn you possible: to be confident in the face of failure, to say yes when everyone is saying no, and to keep getting up when the easiest thing to do is lie there and let someone else tame the appetite.
You don’t have to be a slave to your appetite.
Do you have any tips that have helped you control your appetite?
No one who struggles with weight wants to talk about weight. I’m not just talking about weight, as in the pounds you carry on your body. I’m talking about weight, as in the emotional weight of not looking the way you know you could. That weight is the hardest to carry of all. That weight is what makes a person who has tried to lose weight again and again get tired of reading another weight loss article that makes big promises but doesn’t deliver.Now if I can implore you to consider that weight again either in your life or the lives of individuals you have the ability to help, do you think it’s worth looking again for a better solution? If the possibility exists to help yourself or others lose that weight permanently with a little due diligence, would you take the chance on a product that could change lives? Most people who have given up on finding a good weight loss supplement are done having blind faith. They want to understand a product that puts up no walls, false promises, and is transparent in the ingredients it offers and how they can help in their weight loss goals.Allow me to talk you about the Allura Trim.SimplicityAllura Trim isn’t a complicated compound that requires blender mixing or highly specific usage, and it doesn’t come with the health risks associated with other products on the market today. Simply pour a packet of Allura Trim into a 16 oz bottle of water and you’re ready to go.Allura Trim is effective and combines perfectly with workouts because it:
Manages Fat Storage
Helps Control Appetite
Promotes Thermogenesis (generation of heat)
Boosts Energy
All these benefits are achieved with natural ingredients that are known to work for multiple weight loss goals.Hydroxycitric Acid (HCA)Garcinia Cambogia has been long touted as a helpful ingredient for weight management. However, it is generally not used in the quantities necessary for effective results in most of the products that contain it. This is not the case, however, with the Allura Trim. The Allura Trim makes use of over 3 grams of Garcinia Cambogia in each packet, which contains the active ingredient Hydroxycitric Acid (HCA).Your body uses what it can when you eat and stores the rest as fat in your hips, thighs, and/or belly using citrate lyase. Citrate lyase is an enzyme that works as a part of the process of fatty acid biosynthesis. It is the link between metabolizing energy causing carbohydrates and producing fatty acids in the body. HCA inhibits the action of the citrate lyase, essentially blocking the storage of fat.African Mango Seed ExtractThe active ingredient in every packet of Allura Trim known as African Mango Seed Extract enhances leptin function. Leptin is a hormone that works like a thermostat for the hunger system. Overweight people may have higher amounts of leptin, but their brains aren’t getting the signal properly. This is known as leptin resistance. Your brain thinks it is starved when it is not, which is where African Mango Seed Extract comes in to assist the leptin in crossing the blood-brain barrier.Various Energy Boosting IngredientsIn addition to the above described ingredients for appetite and fat storage control, there are also various other natural ingredients in the Allura Trim that come together in a special blend for energy boosting. To get an idea of how they work, visit this article for more information on the many natural ingredients commonly used in Herbal Nitro products for energy enhancement.You may be interested in Allura Trim for yourself, or you may have others you feel may benefit from its many weight loss benefits. Whatever your reasons for considering a new product as a weight loss supplement, Herbal Nitro is here to be a product you can trust and recommend to others. Make Herbal Nitro’s Allura Trim your primary choice for weight loss!Incentives for Referrals and Stocking Herbal NitroHerbal Nitro is currently seeking individuals and companies interested in stocking our products in their stores or referring our products to their clientele. If you would be interested in working with us to make Herbal Nitro grow as a chosen health supplement for weight loss, energy enhancement, and cleansing and detoxification, please drop me a message on LinkedIn or email me at: [email protected] look forward to being your trusted and recommended source for health supplements using natural ingredients here at Herbal Nitro!
Notice the top and bottom “People also ask” questions. These are of the commonest questions asked on the internet when it comes to address your body weight.Apple cider vinegar doesn’t work: it just makes you more acidic and have some not-so-fun times on the toilet. Surgery? No. Please, love your body as it is. You don’t need to take a needle to it.The real solution to addressing a high BMI and losing weight is controlling what you eat: it’s putting your foot down on your appetite. And if you’re normal like everyone else, you may need some help with your appetite. You can find that here. Now that you know your BMI, what will you do with it?
SimplicityAllura Trim isn’t a complicated compound that requires blender mixing or highly specific usage, and it doesn’t come with the health risks associated with other products on the market today. Simply pour a packet of Allura Trim into a 16 oz bottle of water and you’re ready to go.Allura Trim is effective and combines perfectly with workouts because it:
Hydroxycitric Acid (HCA)Garcinia Cambogia has been long touted as a helpful ingredient for weight management. However, it is generally not used in the quantities necessary for effective results in most of the products that contain it. This is not the case, however, with the Allura Trim. The Allura Trim makes use of over 3 grams of Garcinia Cambogia in each packet, which contains the active ingredient Hydroxycitric Acid (HCA).Your body uses what it can when you eat and stores the rest as fat in your hips, thighs, and/or belly using citrate lyase. Citrate lyase is an enzyme that works as a part of the process of fatty acid biosynthesis. It is the link between metabolizing energy causing carbohydrates and producing fatty acids in the body. HCA inhibits the action of the citrate lyase, essentially blocking the storage of fat.African Mango Seed ExtractThe active ingredient in every packet of Allura Trim known as African Mango Seed Extract enhances leptin function. Leptin is a hormone that works like a thermostat for the hunger system. Overweight people may have higher amounts of leptin, but their brains aren’t getting the signal properly. This is known as leptin resistance. Your brain thinks it is starved when it is not, which is where African Mango Seed Extract comes in to assist the leptin in crossing the blood-brain barrier.Various Energy Boosting IngredientsIn addition to the above described ingredients for appetite and fat storage control, there are also various other natural ingredients in the Allura Trim that come together in a special blend for energy boosting. To get an idea of how they work,