Is Being Hungry Bad? + Some Studies To Think About
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast with your host and the future leader of The Republic Of Wales, Sveldfjer. Now this might be the only podcast in the world where you actually have to reduce the speed instead of increasing it. However, what I wanna get over to you is that the past is gone. The future doesn't exist. So if you wanna make the most of your life, you've gotta make the most of these moments every single day.
Speaker 1:And this podcast is gonna help you live a healthier, more fulfilled life, hopefully, giving you some wisdom to take away every single day. So I'm gonna shut up now so you can get on with listening to the next episode. Before we start this voice note today I want to wish a very happy 30 birthday to Ryan Grant Betholomew Libby. Happy birthday, Ryan. I know you don't listen to these podcasts, but happy birthday to you.
Speaker 1:Go and wish him happy birthday, people. Tell him you love his new hair. He looks like Goku off Dragon Ball Z. If you know, you know. But happy birthday, Ryan.
Speaker 1:But, enough about you. Wanted some more exciting topics now. I want to go research studies you know think imagine the type of bloke that reads research studies in his spare time yeah that's me sad man sad but potentially potentially positive for you guys. You can go on your daily walk and I'll read them the most important ones out to you. Was balan, what a deal.
Speaker 1:Okay before that though, like I said on Monday, I'm reading the book the old way about, you know, hunter gatherers and stuff like that. And what was interesting for interesting observations from reading. The first thing is they're nuts like these hunter gatherers are nuts. They literally go up to if a group of lions has like killed so like they hunt this like antelope massive one and they go and find it across the brow of the hill or whatever and it's like 30 lions this is a true story 30 lions just waiting around they're waiting for it to die because the poison arrow hasn't really taken effect. These hunter gatherers walked slowly for them up to a group or a pride of 30 lions and eyeballed them and walked really slow staring them.
Speaker 1:And what happened was some of the lions were like what's going on? And then some of them like turned away and then when they saw the alpha male turn away the rest of them turned away all of them ran away and they took the kill. Imagine the guts have you seen the size of a lion? A lion's head look on go and watch some of the documentaries oh my god they would maul you maul you but apart from that another important point is, she talks about how water is the most important thing. Water is the most important thing out there.
Speaker 1:When they have a choice between water and food they will always always always pick water and they'll also drink until they're bloated sometimes when they know they're gonna go days without water. So just to remind you as our ancient selves we haven't been eaten every two to three hours a day, we have been hungry most of the time, We have felt that hunger. You know that hunger you feel? Yeah. Don't panic.
Speaker 1:Don't press the panic button and get food in straight away because it's not uncomfortable. Get used to it. Mild hunger is absolutely fine. I'm convinced mild hunger is actually normal state. We shouldn't be always full.
Speaker 1:We shouldn't. I don't think we should. Digestive systems working all day all day all day. No I'm not saying that I don't know what the research does say in this though but you know they do some research on fasting and it's not better for fat loss but it might be better for our bodies to not be always digesting who knows but does it does kind of make sense and if she's observing that they would rather drink water and go hungry, I'm sure you can go right, I'm sure you can go a few hours when you're hungry without imploding and eating 10 biscuits. Just accept that if you as well as that if you are actually trying to lose weight you're actually in an energy deficit.
Speaker 1:So yes, hunger is a normal byproduct of that. Just to be crystal clear, don't really listen to those Instagram profiles that are like, you should never be hungry, you should never go hungry queen. Well, this is not true, is it? Well, we always we need to be wrapped in cotton wool, do we? Every single day.
Speaker 1:We need to be all not hungry ever. We need to have water dripping into our mouths. We never go a second without water we have food ready immediately. What world are we living in? Let's get back to reality let's get back to our primal selves for a bit thus see what they were reacting like but anyway anyway let's crack on yeah let's crack on studies studies three studies to three studies to blow your mind with maybe I don't know who knows But this is the first one why crash diets do not work.
Speaker 1:You probably know why they don't work but let's see what the studies actually. Crash diet is a way of losing a lot of weight very quickly by limiting what one eats of course. They usually promote significant weight loss often in a short period of time. So the study found that people who followed a crash diet right for two years after the diet eighty three percent gained back more weight than they initially lost. So it's just pointless.
Speaker 1:Honestly, you're going backwards. Imagine imagine knowing that and still going ahead with it. Do you know mean? It's like saying, yeah, I'll eat that, but I know when I die two years younger. Why?
Speaker 1:Why would you do it? It's not worth it. Crash diets are not even enjoyable. It's not as if they're amazingly fun. Like, it's literally bad all around.
Speaker 1:There's no one benefit apart from water weight. We'll get on to that now. So there's no medical definition for crash diet, but we know red red flags red flags. Lose 16 pounds in a month. Lose, you know, all this, like, huge claims.
Speaker 1:Usually crash diets are super boring, they're miserable, they literally cut out most food choices. Rapid weight loss is the goal, especially within the first week and I spoke earlier about being hungry is normal but on crash diets you're likely going to be starving and not just starving in terms of oh I'm rumbling but actually starved of nutrients which is not good okay so one study in the journal of consumer research found that when people had to use high levels of self control like during dieting they were more likely to prefer angry messages and displayed higher levels of irritability. That's true. That's true. So you just become a miserable sod basically.
Speaker 1:Come on now you're miserable enough as it is guys just don't even get worse. Crash diets actually damage your health as well. So your dieting is very taxing on the cardiovascular system and can deplete your body of vitamins and dehydrate you as well. So in the international journal of obesity suggests that your dieting alters fat tissue and decreases glucose tolerance which could increase your risk of diabetes and heart disease. Right that's not good, Not good at all.
Speaker 1:Crash diets are mostly water weight. We know this. We know as well. It's nice sometimes we're gonna we we do something for a few days and we go, hey, I dropped five pounds today. We know it's not five pounds of fat but we're still like, yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1:We get a little bump of motivation from it. Right? The thing is every gram of carb in your body retains three grams of water. So if you drop pasta, rice, grains, and you have a lot of PP, right, you're obviously gonna drop a lot of weight, but it's not fat. So don't mistake it for fat.
Speaker 1:Same goes the other way. Crash diet leads to micronutrient deficiencies. Now this is not good not good at all especially for women. You can have the bone mineral density goes down. There's a lot of bad stuff in bone health that can happen as well so we need to watch out for that.
Speaker 1:And then it's just not sustainable guys. So basically this study just really shits on crash diets and we shouldn't. And if any of you are feeling the pressure now because it's August to get into shredded shape and oh I've left it too late. There is it is pointless. Let me tell you, ringing the alarm and trying to crash diet this month until the end of the month because you will be back in a worse position later down the line.
Speaker 1:It's not worth it. You literally it's like a form of self harm in a sense. It's just don't do it. Don't do it. Okay.
Speaker 1:Next one. Research study on consistent tracking of your food. Okay. So intuitive eating, which a lot of people are promoting. Right?
Speaker 1:I think it's all like in most cases absolutely nonsense to tell people to do intuitively eat if they're overweight, right, because that's what they have already been doing. They have been eating when they feel hungry, right. We're so out of whack with actual our needs to tell someone that they can intuitively eat from the get go is a recipe for disaster. Intuitive eating is like an elite level skill. Right that's something ideally we all want to work towards and we don't need to track anymore and stuff like that but the reality is tracking is getting easier and easier due to technology aka turtle macros app aka the best nutrition app coming on the market.
Speaker 1:But with technology making it so easy to track and so little friction, why don't we just do it? That's what I'm saying. Okay? Go back ten years, maybe a bit more. Go back twenty years if you went to the track where you eat you have to look at the label write it down weigh it write down work out the macros and calories of everything write it all down notebook.
Speaker 1:Imagine that imagine how long that took and then you have to Alex send that off to someone is that right is this good? You can just scan the barcode now search food boom my favorite copy from the day before literally will take you a few minutes a day like 0.2% of your waking hours is spent on tracking the ROI is massive. Anyway back to study tangent. So let's look. So they looked at the study looked at, one year weight loss program, 45 pre diabetic and type two diabetes males and females.
Speaker 1:They didn't train. Okay. They weren't doing resistance training. So we had three groups: rare trackers, they tracked less than one third of total days. Inconsistent, they tracked about 33 to 66% of total days and consistent trackers tracked 66% plus of total days.
Speaker 1:Two of every three days they were tracking. So that's kind of in line what we say like you know if you track five out of seven days you're pretty much there but weekends can get you so do watch out. The participants were encouraged to maintain daily food journals, physical activity records, reduce portion sizes, reduce foods high in calories, fats, simple sugar, increase consumption of food, veg and all the basic stuff and weigh themselves frequently. And they were given quite a lot of, like, educational stuff as well. So that's quite fine.
Speaker 1:This is like this. It was the intervention. Given 22 in person educational sessions. So obviously, bit more education. That's quite a lot, though.
Speaker 1:But here's the results. The group that rarely tracked so one in three days lost 4.5 pounds right. The ones that inconsistently tracked lost four pounds so not much difference. The groups that consistently track lost 8.5 pounds so double the amount of the ones that didn't really track. And what you really see is and you look at the graph which you can't see, the ones that didn't, the ones that would rail inconsistent their weight flies up on thanksgiving, because it's an American one, and during Christmas.
Speaker 1:But the group that consistently track, their weight loss is quite stable all the way down. You don't have the ups and down, from the holidays. So consistent trackers you know didn't have that which is good which is good for us because we don't want to be going up and down we want to kind of be consistent we want to get into rhythm we want to build a lifestyle don't we. So it's interesting that the difference is significant there's other studies that show daily weigh in is associated with more weight loss and stuff like that so the more we can keep on top of our data and understand where we're at and we don't feel lost I think the better. Obviously okay there's some people where tracking is just not an option and they would need an eating disorder and in that regard you have to go ideally to get one to one support with that okay so I have to say that all the time because I don't want people to think that I'm saying this is for one hundred percent of the population but majority of people likely will be fine.
Speaker 1:So consistent tracking is a significant predictor of weight loss. So are you gonna track today? Now you know that consistent tracking is a significant predictor of weight loss. You try again? Are you gonna miss today again?
Speaker 1:What are gonna do? Gonna go on your phone now? Put the food in. Gonna copy your food from yesterday over to today. Easy done.
Speaker 1:Job done. All you gotta do then is execute. And one more study guys before I leave you for the rest of your day. Basic food and nutrition hacks. Okay.
Speaker 1:So drink water before after doing your meals. So we know water helps fill up space in our stomachs rather than result to eating more food and adding unnecessary calories per meal. Water fills up space so you feel fuller for longer without eating more calories basically. Okay. So make it a habit, which is difficult to drink before, drink during, drink after, and you should help the hunger levels.
Speaker 1:Another one, use smaller plates. So the photo I'm seeing now, two plates. One is big, one is small, same size food, but the smaller plate looks like more food because this fills up more space. This is known as the Delbaugh illusion. I don't know if I'm saying that right.
Speaker 1:Tricks your mind into thinking, you know, having more actually, you're having the same because you're using a smaller plate. A lot of bodybuilders do this. Welsh bodybuilder, Flex Lewis, mister Olympia, who's weight class, would eat his food during prep with baby spoon. If you use baby spoons. So yeah get more spoons in.
Speaker 1:So you know make sure you're not our portion sizes have increased to a plate's gone big and stuff like that so try try that technique it might work. Apparently surrounding yourself with the beautiful color blue when eaten. Well, apparently blueberries, the color blue isn't associated with food or cravings helping suppress your appetite. Apparently that's the case. The best way to incorporate this strategy is eat off a blue plate.
Speaker 1:A blue one around when you're hungry keep a lot of blue colored containers and books in front of you. Interesting. Little not sure if it'll work for everyone but with a go. Eat your calories don't drink them. So obviously we have the whey protein hydro which is a great flavored water style drink essentially, and protein shakes are fine of post workout.
Speaker 1:But if you're gonna have to decide if you're gonna have your calories from drinking them or eating them. You definitely should eat them and try and eat slowly much better, fill you up for longer. Eat with a group when ordering foods that you crave. You get to satisfy your food cravings, your friends get to enjoy your company maybe, maybe not and you get to consume less of the unwanted calories so eat slower with your friends you know share the food you crave can help okay don't have to have everything for yourself like I do. Drink tea, the very cheap and ancient old drink is one of the best discoveries.
Speaker 1:Drinking tea contains caffeine and helps suppress hunger. Okay. Sometimes this can help a lot and you know black black and green and jasmine teas. A lot of people swear by these when they're trying to drop weight and stuff like that. So give them a go.
Speaker 1:Might not work for everyone again, but give them a go. Prioritize whole foods is the next one over processed foods, obviously. So, you know, that's just an easy one guys sometimes it's easy to get processed foods but you know make a bit of effort to cook a meal of whole beautiful foods and you might feel fuller and better. Sleeping obviously we know this sleep and move more. The more we move the less our appetite that the more sorry the more we move the more internal our appetite is.
Speaker 1:So like I said before if you don't move enough you get hungrier. There's a there's a threshold where if you don't move enough like our ancestors did, your appetite regulation system is dysregulated in the bad way. And the bad way I mean you feel hungrier than you should and then you eat and snack and you you know that office 15. You join an office job, you gain 15 pounds in whatever time. It's true.
Speaker 1:It's true because you don't move. But, I've thrown a lot of you there. I've thrown a lot of you. Something might stick, something might not. One key point I wanna get across you today is, like, consistent tracking is strongly associated with, consistent weight loss.
Speaker 1:Okay? So if your goal is still fat loss, please do be consistent. Hopefully, new macros app will help with that because it's easier. It's not much time, and check ins are done very quickly and the AI can go to work. Mild hunger is absolutely normal.
Speaker 1:Live with it. If you're if you're in a deficit, live with it. The e the more you just accept you're gonna get mild hunger, the better. If you think you don't deserve to be hungry because social media is wrong, accept mild hunger, and you'll have a much better time on this fat loss journey, essentially. And any of those hacks, obviously, try them, but get moving, basically.
Speaker 1:Simple as guys, how many times do have to say the same thing? Do you you know what I mean? We the advice is gonna be consistent and and it's gonna be said in different ways. But how many more times do have to say, track your macros, get your steps in, drink your water? For me, old times till it sinks in.
Speaker 1:What are you gonna do today? What are you doing today? Get your steps in. Are you gonna track your macros? You're gonna be okay with mild hunger?
Speaker 1:You're gonna drink your water? That's all I need you here. It's all I'm asking, please. It's all I'm asking for you today. Just do it for today, then you might be able to do it tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Who knows? One day at a time. Other than that, guys, I will be back tomorrow. Enjoy yourselves and, speak soon. And that is it for today's episode.
Speaker 1:So hopefully, you took something away from it. If you didn't, here's what we need to take away. Stop wasting time on social media. Stop wasting time gossiping. You've only got a day to live.
Speaker 1:Today's the only day you ever have. So if there's anything to take away from this podcast, even if you can't understand the word I say, even if you didn't resonate with the wisdom I try to deliver, this is a reminder of you daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today, and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life. So enjoy your day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Do daily to live one day at a time. Give your moments meaning today and don't be fooled by thinking you've got unlimited amount of days. But if you can make the most of today, I'm telling you, you'll have a fulfilled life. So enjoy your day and hopefully I'll see you back tomorrow.
