Why do we eat when we are not hungry?

We can all find a little space for something particularly delicious and tempting. Our stomachs (normally the size of our fist) are very stretchy.

Maybe you remember Mr Creosote from the Monty Python sketch? He tried to squeeze in one last mint wafer.

But what is making us eat when we are not hungry. Well, there are a number of reasons. If any seem to apply to you, think about how you can avoid them.

If we regularly eat a little snack at 3.00pm, then our bodies get used to it. Even if we have had plenty to eat, our bodies cry out for the 3.00pm intake. After a couple of days however, these cravings go. When are you snacking?

Refined carbohydrates make your blood sugar peak and trough dramatically so you feel hungry soon after. This includes sugary foods, white flour, sweets, cakes and biscuits. If you don't buy them, you won't eat them. Remember, in the hand is in the mouth.

Of course, if something looks and smells delicious, our body responds positively, with lots of encouraging saliva flow, which itself makes you hungry. As for me, I can never resist a mango, but I have trained myself to resist chocolate, and now it doesn't interest me.

Alchohol lowers your general ability to resist. If you eat before you go out drinking, you will be less likely to succumb to a takeaway on the way home.


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The diet industry is growing fatter and fatter

The diet industry is vast - about $70billion a year. Huge food companies, like Kraft, have diet product businesses - fattening us up on the one hand and then selling us stuff when we want to lose weight. And the reason Big Business are in the diet industry, is because we keep failing at maintaining our diets. We put the weight back on again and again. Pretty much everyone does. None of us can keep up a lifestyle of diet, deny and deprive for long.

I bang on about changing behaviour and habits rather than going on diets. Diets are fine in the short term, if you want to go on the beach in the summer, then a crash diet will help.

I think Julia Roberts was speaking the truth in Notting Hill when she said she had been hungry for 10 years. And in an interview with Jenny Murray on Radio 4, Joan Collins said that it was her job to keep looking good, so she spent up to 8 hours a day primping, preening and exercising, before she went out to face her public. What are they telling us here? Well, it is that they have made a lifestyle choice. They have habits that help them to achieve the goals they have set for themselves (pretty tough goals, but the rewards of obviously huge for them!)

So let me bang on again. If you feel you are heavier than you want to be, look at your lifestyle. What habits do you have that encourage weight gain?

Most of us do not get fat by eating 3 meals a day. Research has shown that the calorie content of our 3 meals has been flatlining. It is the hidden 4th meal that puts on the pounds. Getting out of established habits is not easy, but you will have done it lots of times. When you change job, you change habits. When you get a new partner, you change your habits too.

Think about these new habits, making one or two changes each week. Don't do it all at once.

1. No more fizzy drinks. Even diet ones. You are training your taste buds to want sweet stuff. And they don't refresh thirst. Train yourself to drink water when you are thirsty.
2. Cut down the takeaways. You really don't know what they contain. Just look at the orange fat floating on the surface.
3. Don't watch the telly when you eat (you don't notice your food and you eat much more). Eat at a table whenever you can.

Start to notice what you are eating between meals. Just being aware will help you avoid snacks.


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How to lose weight

Well, this advert from the Olden Days suggested eating tapeworms. We don't recommend this!

But (on the basis of a few small changes every week) here are some things to consider.

Cut out fizzy drinks. One can a day could result in 15lbs weight gain a year.

Reduce the number of takeaways. You have no idea of how much fat they contain - though you can see the yellow or orange oil floating on the surface.

Stop buying food in sacks or buckets. Buy small quantities so you don't feel the need to eat just to create space in the cupboard.

Use smaller plates.
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Don't drink your calories

The excellent Dr Sharma of the University of Alberta has pointed to research from Purdue University which shows that calories taken in a drink do not register with our brains as a meal. We feel just as hungry as if we had taken no calories at all. Some of these drinks can be as much as 200 calories - 10% of our daily allowance.

For calories to register, they need to be in solid food.

If you are wanting to lose weight, the easiest thing to give up is calorie filled drinks, such as fizzy drinks, and it could help you lose one pound a week.

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Are you pouring on the pounds?

A New York campaign has just been launched to limit consumption of fizzy drinks.
Read it.... Scotland is second only to the US in obesity rates.

Clearly it is not just me banging on about fizzy drinks. Fundamentally I suppose I feel that pop is for children, who need the sugar while they are growing rapidly. And we adults just don't need these sugar-filled drinks - and they really are sugar-filled. You wouldn't put 10 teaspoons of sugar in your tea, would you? Would you? Check the next can of pop that you buy. Most are around 150-200 calories. A teaspoon of sugar is 16 calories. Find out more here!

Most of Americans increase in weight over the last 30 years comes from adding these sugary drinks to their diet. Since making a change to other drinks is relatively easy, here is a way to reduce your weight with very little effort indeed. Give it a try!

www.carolinebrowntherapy.com