Jonathan Steedman (00:01.569)

Hey food groupies, today we're talking about a super fun topic. We're talking about hunger, specifically hunger when you're pursuing weight loss. I think if you're not pursuing weight loss, you really shouldn't be that hungry all that often. You know, of course there'll be days where it gets away from you and you miss this and that's made you hungry and that's totally fine. And there's a couple of scenarios that may increase your normal levels of hunger, which we'll touch on in this chat as well. But.

I'm, this is focused around hunger whilst dieting, whilst trying to lose weight. Because first and foremost, we talk about it all the time in the weight off program. Week three, the topic we go through is called the hunger helper and it's all of my strategies for managing that hunger. I, because I think a lot of the time with dieting, people don't talk about hunger because I get it, right? Like if I'm trying to sell you a weight loss program and I mentioned you might be a little bit hungry, like,

Automatically like I don't want to I don't want to do that right and I've seen plenty of people being like lose weight never be hungry and I just I wish that was a biological reality, but unfortunately It's kind of like if I joined a gym and they're like you're gonna love it here You're not even gonna break a sweat. I would immediately be like hang on a second. I don't That doesn't sound right to me. That doesn't sound like like I'm probably not pushing hard enough And and therefore probably won't get the the results that I want in the gym

Now, absolutely, you can take that too far. I shouldn't be destroying myself in the gym, lying, vomiting on the floor after every session. And it's exactly the same with hunger, right? It's not that I'm trying to say, the more hunger, the better. You gotta want it or any of that kind of crap, right? Really, and this is what I tell the guys in the group as well, there's this weird tension between you wanna do everything in your power to reduce your hunger in a deficit. And we're gonna go through a couple of different strategies. I'm sorry, my dog just.

Speaking of vomiting, don't know if that came through. you want to do everything in your power to reduce your hunger. And we're to talk about what to eat, when to eat and how to eat to reduce that. Whilst acknowledging and accepting that there will be times you're still hungry. Okay. That's what we want to be focused on. Do everything we can to not be hungry and then accept that you'll still be a bit peckish or a bit hungry at times. So you shouldn't be hungry all the time. You shouldn't be starving all the time. If that's happening,

Jonathan Steedman (02:25.184)

something's wrong, you need to reassess that plan. Or if you're in the group and you're working with me, you send me a message and we figure it out. But first and foremost, accept and understand that we're gonna be a little bit hungry. However, hopefully some of these strategies can stop that little bit of hunger from turning into excessive amounts of uncontrollable, unavoidable, know, hunger that ends up derailing your weight loss goals, right? So what we wanna do is we wanna build a day that minimizes hunger.

And the first thing that I always look at is when people are eating. Very high level, but a very rough guide is you want to be eating kind of every three to four hours. For most people, that is a good rhythm. Going longer than that once you've started eating tends to let that hunger get out of hand and then you make questionable choices. Certainly choices that aren't aligned with your current weight loss goals. So that's the first thing. Try to eat every three to four hours. Now,

What I often like people to do if they're able to is to delay breakfast a little bit, right? Because you might be eating a little bit less. And so if we're eating every sort of three hours or three to four hours and your first meal is at say 6 a.m., then your next meal is at nine, the next meal is at 12, the next meal is at three. And then all of sudden it's sort of like, it's like 5 p.m. and I've sort of run out of food for the day. So if you can push breakfast back a bit or a lot, I would encourage you to do so. I'm not talking intimate and fasting levels of

pushing it back. What I find for a lot of people works really well is don't have breakfast when you first get up. Don't have breakfast when you are trying to get the kids to school or when you're rushing to work, try and get to work and have breakfast, try and get the kids to school then have breakfast. Of course, there are lots of jobs where that's not possible. Of course, if you wake up starving and shaky, you should eat. as always, there are exceptions to this rule, but as a general guide, I find if you can delay breakfast a little bit,

all of a sudden that gap from breakfast to lunch gets smaller, gets more manageable, and you can start to stack your food a little bit better throughout the day. So that's what I'd be looking at. Eat regularly, potentially look at delaying your breakfast if you can. The next thing, really big one, is to eat balanced meals. We don't talk about this too much in the group because everyone's got a plan, like a meal plan, like a super flexible plan. It's not a seven day prescriptive plan, but it still gives portion guidelines specifically for people's requirements. So they are eating balanced meals because they're following all the recipes and choosing all of the food.

Jonathan Steedman (04:49.071)

that they want to eat. But what you want to make sure of is that you have a source of protein, you have a good source of complex carbohydrates, you have a good source of color, right? So fruits or vegetables to give you the antioxidants and the fiber. Maybe you have a specific source of fat, you don't always need a specific source of fat. What you might find is your carb, the carb food or the protein food also contains some fats. And so you may not intentionally add a specific source of fat.

particularly if you are on a deficit, that might be one way in which you reduce your calories a little bit. But anyhow, you wanna have at least, I would say three of those four things. Definitely the protein, definitely the color, probably the carbs and maybe the fats, right? And you want that at every meal. Most people do that at dinner, no problems. It's breakfast and lunch that can be a bit trickier. So it might require you to plan a little bit more, might require that you mix up your breakfast a little bit more. If you're a bowl of cereal or a piece of toast person,

I would encourage you to try and level that up by adding a source of protein to it, adding a source of color to it. Because you'll find that, you know, I said before, eat every three to four hours. But if you're having a piece of Vegemite toast for breakfast and then trying to wait four hours for lunch, good luck, right? Whereas if you're having a piece of Vegemite toast that has two eggs and some mushrooms on the side, you're probably going to get through maybe even longer than four hours. Once again, wouldn't recommend that. But you know, you'll be full and satisfied. So that's why eating

know, when to eat and then what to eat. Those balanced meals is really, really important. And then an extra caveat for or an extension on what to eat. Have a think about what meals fill you up more than others. What you'll probably find is even if the foods, the meals, sorry, are the same numbers, the same protein, the same fiber, the same calories on paper, you'll have quite different satiety responses to them. I know personally for myself, I don't find oats very filling at all.

So if I'm trying to lose a bit of body fat, I'm going to preference something, I'm to go for more like yogurt and fruit or eggs on toast because I know that those options at breakfast fill me up way longer than an oat based meal. Now I didn't know, and I know this from the group, plenty of other people find oats super filling. So that's why they have oat. They've got like baked chocolate oats. And I think this morning we sent out an overnight cinnamon scroll recipe. So, you know, because the people in the group that find oats really filling, we'll use those recipes and like not think about food until lunch.

Jonathan Steedman (07:13.418)

So what I want you to do is just make sure that you're preferencing options that you know are more filling for you. Now, I would just be, sorry, no, I said, what did I say? What, when and how? How? The speed of your eating is really important as well. Make sure that you don't eat too fast because it takes a while for your stomach. So as you eat your stomach stretches, a bunch of chemical signals get released by the stretch reflectors in the walls of your stomach.

They hit your brain and they say, hey, I'm stretched, I'm full, you can stop eating now. But that can take like 10 to 20 minutes to hit your brain. And so if you destroy your dinner in five minutes, even if it was big enough and more than satisfying enough, you're not gonna get that satisfaction for the next 10 to 15 minutes. And so in that window, you're gonna feel like I need more food, I need to go back and get more food. And you can do that and that can lead to that overeating. So I would really encourage you to try and eat slowly. Put your knife and fork down or put the burger or the wrap down.

have a look at what the person, the slower eaters in the table are doing and try and maybe, I don't know, benchmark yourself against their kind of pace. But eating slowly can also be very helpful for reducing the hunger and also managing portions a little bit better. And also can solve a lot of issues with bloating and that sort of stuff as well. So it's a pretty good strategy anyway. Now, what else do need to talk about? yeah, so.

I mean, I would encourage you to try and build your day like that all the time, but there's two scenarios where I think it's extra important. And that is if you are suffering from a lack of sleep. And so that can, the studies on sleep deprivation and food intake are pretty depressing because I think the sleep deprivation groups typically get like five hours in bed or something like four and a half, five hours in bed. And I know for a lot of people,

You might be like man that sounds amazing. I would love five hours straight in bed So if that's you then you you are probably finding that a lack of sleep is influencing your hunger because we also see in those studies the people in the sleep deprivation groups Typically eat an extra five to seven hundred calories a day unconsciously Unconscious no, that's not right subconscious. They're not they're not unconscious subconsciously They don't realize they're doing it. And so if you are if you're trying to lose weight and you put yourself in a deficit

Jonathan Steedman (09:28.777)

A 700 calorie deficit is a pretty big deficit. So even if you've calculated yourself to be in a big deficit and then you're inadvertently eating 700 calories due to lack of sleep, you're not going to be a deficit. There'll be no fat loss. So if you're in a state of sleep deprivation, that's like hungry situation number one. Hungry situation number two for a lot of people, not for everyone, but for a lot of people is certain phases in their menstrual cycle, particularly the luteal phase I find in the lead up.

you might find that you're extra hungry during that time, as well as, you know, obviously there's other influencing factors that can make you want to eat more. And so once again, that's another scenario where we would want to be more cautious with and be more aware of, I'm going to be hungrier. And so firstly, that's my first recommendation for the sleep and the menstrual cycle phases where you're hungrier is to literally acknowledge, yeah, I'm going to be hungrier today. I know that. That's okay. Okay.

So that's the first thing, because I think that pain that is expected is better. You know, I'd rather know that I'm going to get slapped than be surprised with a slap. And so same thing, that hunger won't surprise you during that day because you'll be like, yeah, I knew this was coming. Here we are. So that's the first thing. The second thing is all of the things I went through, the what, the when and how of eating, you just want to be extra on point with those to make sure that they're extra helpful. Because your margin for error on those days has shrunk.

we want to be extra on top of that. And then the last thing is, we talk about this a lot in the group as well. You want to make sure that you've kind of ticked all of those boxes, but then there are absolutely times where you need to eat more. if particularly on those days where you're extra hungry due to like sleep or menstrual cycle, oftentimes intentionally eating more is the smart move. And you might be thinking, but Jonah, that's going to stop my weight loss. But actually adding an extra 250 calorie snack at an extra hungry part in your day.

may stop you eating an extra thousand calories after dinner. So it's still a win, okay? And there's a, I give people a specific prescription of how much extra I want them to eat and like kind of different phases of adding more food in. But for the purposes of this, for you dear listener, who I don't know who you are and what your goals are and what your life looks like, I would at least just say, don't be afraid of being proactive with your hunger and intentionally adding a bit more. Even if you have a goal of weight loss, it can often still result in you maintaining

Jonathan Steedman (11:55.398)

more of a deficit than if you try and stick to your original plan and then just blow up because you're so hungry and so tired. So those are my tips for hunger. Not a fun topic, but a very important topic. So hopefully you can pull some of those strategies out and reduce some of that hunger.