There’s one reason diets fail—hunger.
I work with a lot of people who want to lose weight, and I see that they’re often willing to do a few things they don’t love, like ramp up their cardio at the gym or choke down vegetables they’ve been picky about since childhood.
But when they’re so hungry that they’re snapping at friends, losing focus at work, or just not getting the energy they need to enjoy their day, I know they’re never going to stick to the plan they’re on.
Maybe you’ve run into that issue if you’ve tried time-restricted eating plans like intermittent fasting. Even if you started to see health benefits with fasting, if the hunger pangs are making you miserable, it’s just not going to be sustainable.
But the benefits of fasting are really great, and I don’t want you to give up on it yet. There are some easy ways to keep cravings away while you’re fasting that make it easy to breeze through the morning to your first meal.
Benefits of Fasting
Before the appetite-curbing tips, though, let’s get a little reminder about the many benefits of fasting. It’s not for everyone (pregnant people and anyone with adrenal issues, I’m talking to you!). But for many others, it’s a lifestyle change that can have a giant impact on your health.
When you eat can be as important as what you eat. Fasting generally helps you align with an eating schedule that matches your circadian rhythm. Most people know about the rhythm’s impact on your sleep. Going to bed during darker hours and waking in lighter ones helps you remain focused during the day and restful at night.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world that makes it easy to sleep and eat only within daytime windows. Thanks to long commutes, work-around-the-clock mentalities, and busy schedules, it’s easy to find yourself wide awake or chowing down at all hours. But the research is clear—that type of eating can disrupt your internal rhythms, upping the risk of long-term issues like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.1
But eating according to the circadian rhythm—or as researcher and author Satchin Panda, Ph.D., calls it, “eating by the sun”—can mitigate many of those risks. Researchers found that time-restricted eating helps reduce weight, improves glucose tolerance, reduces blood pressure, and leads to a healthier gut.2
Other researchers looked at the impact of fasting on chronic inflammation. In a study with people at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease, they found that time-restricted eating lowered their chronic inflammation markers. And not only that—their cortisol levels went down, too, suggesting that fasting helped reduce the stress their bodies were under.2
Fasting Windows
Fasting can look different for everyone, depending on your schedule and how you already tend to eat. Check out a few typical schedules to see what might be right for you:
- Overnight Fast: A typical overnight fast might split the day in two, with 12 hours open to eating and 12 hours without eating. On that schedule, you might start your day with a loaded smoothie at 7 am and end dinner by 7 pm. If that sounds like something you already typically do and you want to see the benefits of fasting, you could lengthen the hours of your overnight fast—perhaps waiting until 9 am to break your fast and finishing dinner by 6 pm. Whatever schedule you choose, just make sure you’re closing up your kitchen about three hours before bedtime to optimize your sleep.
- Intermittent Fasting or Time-Restricted Feeding (TRF): These methods lengthen your fasting hours even longer. You might go 16-18 hours without eating. Just make sure you’re getting enough protein and nutrients in your shorter window of eating.
How to Curb Hunger While Fasting
Eager to stick to fasting, but your appetite is getting the best of you? Here are my top tips on curbing hunger during your fasting window:
1. Get a Little Sour or Bitter
I’m not talking about your attitude—a sour or bitter demeanor isn’t going to help your hunger! But I do recommend having something sour, like lemon juice or apple cider vinegar in a glass of water before meals. This helps reduce the glycemic impact of your meal, meaning your blood sugar won’t spike as much as it normally would following a meal.3 And when your blood sugar is nice and stable, you’re not as likely to feel ravenous.
Bitter tastes can help, too, especially if you’re fixating on sweets. One study found that a small amount of bitters helped inhibit the parts of your brain telling you they need sugar.4 As the researchers of the study put it, paraphrasing Mary Poppins, “a spoonful of bitters helps the sugar response go down!”
If sweets are your kryptonite, you might also benefit from taking the herb gymnema. It can work to suppress the sweetness you perceive in foods, making it seem more sour to you. In one study, researchers found that people who took gymnema an hour before a meal ate not just fewer sweet calories, but less overall than their counterparts.5 With it, your brain may be able to forget about the more hedonistic aspect of your hunger and eat only for fuel, helping you feel satisfied, reduce blood-sugar spikes, and curb cravings later on.
2. Lemon-Aid to the Rescue!
I’ve created a Lemon-Aid recipe that’s great for curbing appetite, not only because it’s full of sour taste and fiber that fills you up without weighing you down, but also because I like to add my Glutamine Powder to the mix. To stay in your fast, nix the chia seeds and fiber from the recipe (though some schools of thought say the lemon juice will take you out of your fast—it depends what you follow).
L-glutamine is an essential amino acid that keeps your gut healthy and can help curb cravings, especially if you really want some sugar or alcohol.6-7
L-glutamine works by having an impact on your ghrelin levels. Ghrelin is one of your hunger hormones—when your levels are high, you’ll feel hungry even if you don’t need to eat. Since L-glutamine minimizes the ghrelin released into your body, you’ll feel satisfied for longer and can avoid cravings.8
3. Get to the Bottom of Your Hunger
Yes, the main goal of eating is to fuel your body with nutrients and energy. But you’re human—which means that sometimes, you’re not eating just for fuel.
Chronic stress, anxiety, emotional triggers, and even just pure boredom can make you want to eat. Other times, eating has become more of a habit, like absentmindedly munching on something while you watch a movie.
Fasting can also force you to give up a social element of eating—you might think you’re hungry when really you’re just a little bummed you’re missing out on a ritual.
Be honest with yourself about where your hunger is coming from. Do you just need to eat by the plate, to get your fill of fuel? Or is there an emotional motivation behind your craving?
One way I love to do this is through journaling. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated. Just by keeping a simple record of what you’ve eaten each day, the activities you’ve done, how you’re feeling, or anything that stressed you out that day, you might start to pick up on patterns you didn’t even realize existed. Maybe you’ll learn that if you do a nighttime workout, you’re ravenous the next morning, or that the days you’re stuck in a morning commute really mess with your mood and make your cravings kick in.
Once you know why you’re reaching for food, you can look to solve that issue rather than trying in vain to curb actual hunger.
For instance, let’s say you have a lot on your plate right now with a high-pressure job and looking after an elderly relative. Unwinding with a glass of wine and mindlessly snacking on popcorn helps you clear your head at the end of the day. You take up fasting and give up that habit, but get hungry and cranky when you can’t reach for your usual comfort food.
Prioritize another ritual that relaxes you. A long bath with your favorite bath salts, a FaceTime with a good friend, or a short, brisk walk after dinner can all be ways to relieve the stress that is making you want to eat outside of mealtime, quelling your appetite in the process.
4. Adjust Your Fasting Schedule as Needed
Everybody is different. A fasting schedule that works for one person might not be the right one for another. If you’re really struggling with hunger while fasting, you might want to do some trial and error to see if a different schedule works for you.
For instance, if you don’t wake up feeling very hungry, you might push back your eating window until later in the day, helping to stifle an appetite that doesn’t usually kick in until later. Or, if you’re noticing that your cravings spike after a workout or during your long drive home, you can adjust to find a fasting schedule where you’re getting enough food to sustain you through those activities.
Trying out different schedules doesn’t mean you’ve failed at fasting—it means you’re looking at your own individual needs to determine what works best for you. Finding your groove and sticking to it will train your body to operate on that schedule, making your appetite between meals a thing of the past.
5. Eat by the Plate
After four decades in the wellness industry, I’ve come up with the best method of eating to fill you up and ensure you’re making the most out of every meal. I call it eating by the plate, and I like every meal to look like this:
- 1 lean, clean serving of protein, like fish, chicken, grass-fed beef, or my All-In-One Shake
- 2-4 servings of healthy fats, like olive oil, avocado, nut butters, or fatty fish like salmon
- 2 or more servings of non-starchy vegetables, like broccoli, green beans, zucchini, mushrooms, or peppers
- 0-2 servings of high-fiber, slow low carbs, like sweet potatoes, cooked beans, or fruit
This method helps in a few different ways. For one, it guarantees that your body is getting enough to eat at every meal. Too often, people who are fasting with the ultimate goal of weight loss end up cutting calories in a misguided attempt to trim down. But if you’re not eating enough to sustain your energy levels, you’ll never be able to curb your appetite.
Plus, eating by the plate ensures a smart balance of food that breaks down efficiently in your body. Protein and fiber work together to fill you up, while fat triggers the small intestine to release the hormones that let your brain know you’re full. That way, you won’t overeat. And as the high-fiber, slow-low carbs slowly release sugar to your brain, you’ll have the energy you need to stay focused and alert in the hours following your meal.
Without blood-sugar spikes that can come from too many sneaky sugars or the too-full feeling you can get from heavier fats or carbs, you’ll be ready to tackle any challenge until you eat next.
I know it can be difficult to prepare proper meals on a busy schedule. That’s why I love a loaded smoothie. It’s a way to get all of the protein, fiber, and nutrients you need for a meal in one easy and filling drink. And it’s anything but boring! In fact, I’ve got 60 different recipes for delicious smoothies you can download for free now.
Sources:
- Regmi, P., & Heilbronn, L. K. (2020). Time-Restricted Eating: Benefits, Mechanisms, and Challenges in Transition. Cell, 23(6). https://doi.org/June 26
- McAllister, M. J., Gonzalez, A. E., & Waldman, H. S. (2021). Time Restricted Feeding Reduces Inflammation and Cortisol Response to a Firegrounds Test in Professional Firefighters. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 63(5). https://doi.org/May
- Freitas, D., Boué, F., Benallaoua, M., Airinei, G., Benamouzig, R., & Le Feunteun, S. (2021). Lemon juice, but not tea, reduces the glycemic response to bread in healthy volunteers: a randomized crossover trial. European journal of nutrition, 60(1), 113–122. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-020-02228-x
- Lvovskaya, S., & Smith, D. P. (2013). A spoonful of bitter helps the sugar response go down. Neuron, 79(4), 612–614. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2013.07.038
- Brala, P. M., & Hagen, R. L. (1983). Effects of sweetness perception and caloric value of a preload on short term intake. Physiology & behavior, 30(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-9384(83)90030-6
- Ban, K., & Kozar, R. A. (2010). Glutamine protects against apoptosis via downregulation of Sp3 in intestinal epithelial cells. American journal of physiology. Gastrointestinal and liver physiology, 299(6), G1344–G1353. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpgi.00334.2010
- Simpson, C. W., Resch, G. E., Millington, W. R., & Myers, R. D. (1998). Glycyl-L-glutamine injected centrally suppresses alcohol drinking in P rats. Alcohol (Fayetteville, N.Y.), 16(2), 101–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0741-8329(97)00167-5
- Al Massadi, O., Pardo, M., Roca-Rivada, A., Castelao, C., Casanueva, F. F., & Seoane, L. M. (2010). Macronutrients act directly on the stomach to regulate gastric ghrelin release. Journal of endocrinological investigation, 33(9), 599–602. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03346655
