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Appetite can pose a serious problem when you’re not eating for a prolonged period. In fact, most of the people who are unsuccessful with intermittent fasting can’t deal with the hunger. Throughout this article, I will be discussing how to suppress hunger when fasting without making any major lifestyle changes.
Your Overall Nutrition Is Key
If you’re struggling to suppress your appetite, you must first of all realize that nutrition is key. Intermittent fasting generally does not require any sort of restrictive dieting, but you should be mindful of what you’re eating. You should mainly focus on consuming foods that are high in fiber and protein because these molecules help you feel more full.
- If your main goal is to lose weight, then you obviously need to instill a caloric deficit. When you’re consuming less calories than your body needs, you’ll definitely be hungry, but don’t starve yourself.
- You should focus on consuming foods with lots of fiber and protein. Fiber and protein helped you feel more satiated. To put this in simpler terms, you will feel full for a longer period of time.
- Try to make your final meal relatively caloric dense so that it can hold you over until your fasting window is done. Once again, fibrous and protein-packed foods are great for satiation.
- Replace all of your simple carbohydrates with complex carbohydrates. To dumb this down, eat more fruits and veggies! Fruits and vegetables contain a lot of fiber, and they are generally lower in calories per serving compared to most carb sources.
There’s an old saying that weight loss boils down to 80% nutrition and 20% exercise combined with other lifestyle choices. The feeling of appetite can sometimes be unbearable, but by keeping your nutrition in check you can help fight some of those cravings.
Take Advantage of Black Coffee
If you’ve been a part of the fasting scene for a while, then you’ve probably heard of the benefits of black coffee. Straight black coffee is a natural appetite suppressant because it reduces the amount of the hormone ghrelin in your stomach. Ghrelin is the hunger hormone, so it’s present in greater numbers when you’re hungry.
I always stress that it must be black coffee if you’re drinking good ol’ bean tea in your fasting window. You can’t be adding cream and sugar to your coffee during your window – these contain more calories than you think.
If you really need something to add to your coffee to get the appetite suppressant benefits, try stevia. Stevia is a 0 calorie natural sweetener that is perfect for making things like black coffee a little more enjoyable if you don’t like the taste. You can find stevia at most major retailers, including at Amazon by following the button bellow.
*Note that 0 calorie teas, and things like pre-workout are also acceptable. There are plenty that pack several health benefits and are great with stevia if you have a sweet-tooth*
Water Intake
A key aspect of suppressing your appetite when fasting is your water intake. Just like fiber and protein, water makes you feel satiated. The only difference, of course, is that water has zero calories.
Water is a key component of life. Human’s rely on it, we are composed of it, and we need it to maintain homeostasis. In simpler terms, water helps maintain and restore bodily balance, and it flushes out many toxins.
Perhaps the best way to deal with hunger while partaking in intermittent fasting is to increase your water intake. For regular people who exercise somewhat often, the recommend daily intake of water is 64 fluid ounces. Drinking up to a gallon each day is proven to have several health benefits.
The point here is that you should definitely increase your intake when fasting. Not only does it help you flush out all the toxins and speed up your weight loss process, but it will help with appetite.
I decided to put together the graphic below to visualize good hydration. If you fall short of 64 fluid ounces each day, chances are you’re not hydrated. Between 64-128 fluid ounces of water is a good daily range. This is equivalent to 1/2 – 1 gallon.
Supplements For Appetite
There are several supplements that are beneficial to curb your appetite. Generally, I recommend anything with caffeine in it because caffeine is an appetite suppressant itself. For this reason, pre-workouts and amino acids are my top picks.
If you don’t want to pick up pre-workout or BCAAs because you don’t exercise often, that’s perfectly fine. There happens to be an extensive list of supplements (must of them natural) that help with hunger.
- Fenugreek
- Green Tea Extract
- Caffeine Anhydrous
- Beta-Alanine
- Green Coffee Bean Extract
- Cinnamon (1tsp a day)
- Garcinia Cambogia extract with HCA
There’s plenty of products on the market designed to suppress hunger when fasting. Out of all of them, my favorite is pure Garcinia Cambogia extract. Garcinia Cambogia is a tropical plant that is sometimes viewed as a type of tamarind.
This plant is definitely an interesting one, both in appearance and it’s medicinal properties. It’s been used for appetite control for centuries, and even celebrities like Khloe Kardashian took advantage of it. Khloe Kardashian did happen to lose a lot of weight at one point, and maybe Garcinia Cambogia did the trick.
Regardless of what worked for Khloe, several people have had good results with this supplement. My favorite company is Magixlab because they’re the only company with 100% pure HCA in their products. After researching, the evidence looks pretty good. In my opinion, Garcinia cambogia is worth checking out because it’s all natural.
Closing Thoughts
It almost seems as though everyone has a different approach to fighting hunger. If you’re wondering how to suppress hunger when fasting, this article hopefully helped you out. Although there are numerous tips and tricks to keep your hunger under control, the information in this article is suitable for any skill level.
Nutrition, coffee, water, and supplements are the four key aspects of fasting that I hit on in this article. I always recommend doing your own research, however, and figure out the best path to take after researching.
I have no doubt that you will have success suppressing your appetite by following the advice in this article. If you have any other burning questions regarding intermittent fasting, I highly suggest you check out some of our other articles. Contact a medical professional if you have any personal health related concerns.
