ABS Audio Newsletter: Mitigating Hunger
Issue 20: Nutritional Adjustments to Mitigate Hunger
ISSUE 20:
What tools do we have to manage and combat hunger as we diet?
Welcome to the 20th edition of the ABS audio newsletter. Today we will discuss the challenges that can occur when dieting for fat loss. A big issue that can make the process more difficult would be hunger. This a normal biological signal to consume energy in order to maintain homeostatic regularity. When we are purposefully dieting we must adjust, adapt and manage this process so we can adhere to our target intakes to achieve our overall goals.
Why does hunger increase? Well, this is rather straightforward. We are dieting for fat-loss and are therefore consuming a hypocaloric diet. Over time, this will lead to an adaptive mechanism activating in order to stimulate the desire to consume more calories (at least to maintenance) since the body doesn’t really want to lose tissue.
The main mechanistic change comes via the leptin/ghrelin axis. Leptin is the satiety hormone and signals the brain that the body is full and no longer needs to consume additional food. Conversely, ghrelin is an appetite stimulator and increases hunger. During sustained dieting periods the reduction of leptin and the increase of ghrelin very clearly yields a significant net increase in hunger stimulus.
Despite these facts we, still, have many nutritional tool at our disposal to manage hunger. Let’s discuss below!
The outline of our conversation:
1. General intro.
2. Hunger While Dieting.
3. Individual Hunger Response.
4. Nutritional Levers to Pull.
5. What to do if the tools aren’t enough?
6. Closing and motivation sendoff!
I greatly appreciate your viewership; catch you all in the comments. Stay tuned for the 21st issue next week!