If your are on a weight loss or fat loss journey, going through hunger and cravings is inevitable. In this episode you will learn 10-strategies on how to minimise hunger and cravings to achieve maximum success in your weight loss or fat loss journey
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Speaker 1: If you have been on a journey of fat loss
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Speaker 1: and weight loss, or if you're in the journey of
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Speaker 1: fat loss and weight loss, you know that hunger and
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Speaker 1: cravings are inevitable. You might have already faced it, and
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Speaker 1: uncontrolled hunger and savings is the major reason a lot
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Speaker 1: of people give up on their weight loss and fat
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Speaker 1: loss journey. You need not be that person because I'll
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Speaker 1: give you 10 strategies to help you minimise hunger and
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Speaker 1: cravings and maximise your results in your fat loss and
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Speaker 1: weight loss journey,
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Speaker 1: mascara and welcome to the Stronger Men project. If you
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Speaker 1: want to be a better man, become a stronger fitter
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Speaker 1: and a better looking version of yourself and fulfil your
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Speaker 1: fullest potential in all areas of your life. You have
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Speaker 1: come to the right place. I'm also on the same journey.
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Speaker 1: I'm your host. Others Desai, a mechanical engineer,
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Speaker 1: fitness coach and a gym owner. And here I'm going
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Speaker 1: to share my knowledge, experience and lessons and also bring
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Speaker 1: on experts and achievers who can help us all win together,
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Speaker 1: get ready and let's dive into today's topic before I
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Speaker 1: give you the 10 strategies to conquer your hunger and
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Speaker 1: cravings for maximum fat loss success. Let's understand how fat
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Speaker 1: loss works.
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Speaker 1: Fat is nothing but your body's stored energy. You get
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Speaker 1: energy from your food, and any food item you eat
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Speaker 1: has certain energy stored in it, which is measured in
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Speaker 1: terms of calories. And whenever you eat your food, your
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Speaker 1: body break downs the fruit, digest it and absorbs it
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Speaker 1: in the form of glucose, amino acids and fatty acids,
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Speaker 1: which are then converted to body fat and stored in
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Speaker 1: your body as a source of energy. Because immediately you
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Speaker 1: cannot use so much of energy
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Speaker 1: and you cannot keep on eating continuously. While your body's
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Speaker 1: energy requirement is continuous, it is necessary for you to
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Speaker 1: stay alive and do your day to day activity. That
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Speaker 1: is why our body has developed this mechanism of saving
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Speaker 1: energy in the form of body fat, which serves as
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Speaker 1: a long term fuel source for your body to stay
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Speaker 1: alive and do the day to day activity. And when
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Speaker 1: you eat more and more food, and when you consume
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Speaker 1: more and more calories, all those calories are stored as
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Speaker 1: body fat. But if you spend less and less energy
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Speaker 1: through your day to day activity, and by the way
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Speaker 1: of being sedentary, the stored energy will remain stored, and
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Speaker 1: that is how you gain body fat. And that is
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Speaker 1: how you gain weight. If you want to lose weight
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Speaker 1: and lose body fat, what you have to do is
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Speaker 1: you have to reduce your food intake in terms of
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Speaker 1: calories and start spending more calories by the way of
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Speaker 1: doing more activity and exercise. And when you eat fewer
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Speaker 1: calories and burn more,
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Speaker 1: what happens is gradually your stored body fat will keep
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Speaker 1: on reducing, and over a period of time you will
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Speaker 1: lose body fat and lose body weight. This is how
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Speaker 1: fat loss works when you're eating fewer calories than you're burning,
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Speaker 1: that condition is called as calorie deficit. That means you're
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Speaker 1: eating fewer calories than you're spending. And if that's clear,
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Speaker 1: let's jump into the strategies. The strategy number one is
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Speaker 1: to have a conservative to moderate calorie deficit. A lot
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Speaker 1: of people make a mistake of reducing their food to
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Speaker 1: a very, very low quantity, which will create a lot
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Speaker 1: of hunger. When you eat very less food, our body's
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Speaker 1: natural response is to create more hunger signals
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Speaker 1: so that you don't die because of starvation. Our body
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Speaker 1: is always trying to survive and protect itself. And hunger
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Speaker 1: is a way which makes you to eat more food
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Speaker 1: or seek more food, right. But if you maintain a
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Speaker 1: conservative to moderate calorie deficit, that means when you're eating
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Speaker 1: a little less than what you require, what happens is
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Speaker 1: your body will not notice the difference that much, and
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Speaker 1: it will not create that much of hunger signals. That way,
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Speaker 1: you can gradually lose weight. It may take a longer time,
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Speaker 1: but definitely it will be with less pain and less
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Speaker 1: hunger and less cravings. If I need to tell you
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Speaker 1: specifically what does conservative to moderate calorie means you have
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Speaker 1: to eat around 15 to 20% less than your daily requirement.
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Speaker 1: Your daily requirement
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Speaker 1: is called as total daily energy expenditure. In short, TDE,
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Speaker 1: you can find calculators online TDE calculators, which will help
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Speaker 1: you to approximately calculate your daily expenditure, which is your TDE.
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Speaker 1: I'll leave a link to such a calculator in the description.
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Speaker 1: You can click on that and calculate your total daily
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Speaker 1: energy expenditure,
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Speaker 1: and if you're tracking your calorie intake. It will help
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Speaker 1: you to understand what is your deficit. And if you're
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Speaker 1: not calculating your calorie intake, then you can start calculating
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Speaker 1: using a food tracking app like Myfitnesspal or healthy me,
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Speaker 1: which will give you approximate calories you're consuming. You just
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Speaker 1: have to log in the food you're eating and the
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Speaker 1: quantities you are eating, and it will throw you
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Speaker 1: the calories and the protein content, fat content and the
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Speaker 1: carbohydrate content. And if you're in a provision, it may
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Speaker 1: also give you all other nutrients composition also. So the
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Speaker 1: point here is start with a conservative to moderate calorie deficit.
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Speaker 1: Treat it as a long term game, but not as
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Speaker 1: a quick fix activity.
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Speaker 1: The second strategy is to have a fixed eating routine
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Speaker 1: and fixed meal timings. What I mean by this is
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Speaker 1: you have to fix a routine. And for most people,
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Speaker 1: what works best is if you have a breakfast, lunch,
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Speaker 1: evening snack and a dinner. A lot of people miss
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Speaker 1: this evening snack and end up eating something unhealthy at
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Speaker 1: that period of time, but if you plan for a
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Speaker 1: healthy evening snack, you can avoid it.
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Speaker 1: Why? I say routine and meal timings are important is
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Speaker 1: because when you follow a certain routine, your body tends
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Speaker 1: to adjust to that routine, and your body's clock will
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Speaker 1: adjust to that rhythm, meaning If you're eating at a
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Speaker 1: particular time, your body tends to generate these hunger signals.
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Speaker 1: At that time, you might observed, If you're eating your
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Speaker 1: lunch 2 p.m. every day, you may start feeling hungry
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Speaker 1: by 145 or 130.
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Speaker 1: And when you're in a weight loss or fat loss journey,
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Speaker 1: you're eating less calories, and these hunger signals will come
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Speaker 1: at the same time, but a little early. Maybe they
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Speaker 1: may come at one o'clock. By that way, you will
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Speaker 1: know that you will be hungry at this time and
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Speaker 1: you'll be mentally prepared to go through that hunger for
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Speaker 1: extra half an hour, maybe one hour in some cases.
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Speaker 1: But if you're not following a fixed routine or meal timings,
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Speaker 1: what happens is your hunger will not be in your control.
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Speaker 1: Your hunger signals can be very, very extreme and erratic,
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Speaker 1: and they may come at any time when you're not prepared.
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Speaker 1: That may put a lot of pressure on you, and
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Speaker 1: you may end up eating something and going off track,
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Speaker 1: but having a fixed protein will put you in control
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Speaker 1: of your hunger.
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Speaker 1: The next strategy is to make your meals high volume
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Speaker 1: and low calorie. How you can do this is opting
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Speaker 1: for food items, which are high in volume and low
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Speaker 1: in calorie and reducing food items, which are calorie dense,
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Speaker 1: which are low in volume and high in calories. A
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Speaker 1: very good example for high volume, low calorie food item
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Speaker 1: is vegetables and most of the fruits. These are really,
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Speaker 1: really high in volume, but very low in calories because
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Speaker 1: it is mostly 80 to 90% water.
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Speaker 1: And that is why this can be really, really helpful
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Speaker 1: in keeping your food volume high.
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Speaker 1: A good example for low volume, high calorie food items
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Speaker 1: may be food items which are very high in fat content,
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Speaker 1: like uh, nuts and sweets and uh, fried food items
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Speaker 1: and snacks, which are not really filling, which are very
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Speaker 1: low in volume. But they come with a lot of calories,
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Speaker 1: and these food items will derail your efforts in your
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Speaker 1: fat loss and weight loss journey. So
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Speaker 1: you have to focus on adding a lot of vegetables
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Speaker 1: and fruits to your diet and minimising food items which
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Speaker 1: are low volume and high calorie.
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Speaker 1: This is because your hunger and sati is closely related
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Speaker 1: to the volume of food you are eating,
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Speaker 1: even though you may be eating fewer calories. If the
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Speaker 1: volume of food is more, you will feel fuller and uh,
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Speaker 1: especially vegetables and fruits are rich in fibre, which will
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Speaker 1: help in slower digestion of food, and uh, which will
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Speaker 1: help you in keeping full for a long period of time.
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Speaker 1: And with that, we'll come to strategy number four, which
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Speaker 1: will also help you to stay more satisfied with your
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Speaker 1: food and stay full for longer. That is, adopting a
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Speaker 1: high protein diet.
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Speaker 1: Protein is a very, very important nutrient. When it comes
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Speaker 1: to fitness. It is a building block of our body,
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Speaker 1: and protein is very, very filling and slow digesting. That
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Speaker 1: is why adding protein to your diet can be very,
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Speaker 1: very helpful. And if you're on a journey of weight loss,
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Speaker 1: and if you're into some kind of exercising protein plays
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Speaker 1: a very, very important role in helping your body recover.
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Speaker 1: Whenever you exercise, you're putting your body through stress. And
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Speaker 1: because of this,
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Speaker 1: there is quite a bit of wear and tear on
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Speaker 1: your muscles and, uh, tissues in your body, which has
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Speaker 1: to be repaired. And, uh, protein is your building block.
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Speaker 1: That is why having high protein
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Speaker 1: will help, and when you are eating fewer and fewer calories,
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Speaker 1: there is a risk of losing muscle mass and strength,
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Speaker 1: and having a high protein diet will mitigate this effect
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Speaker 1: combined with strengthening, which will come to a little later.
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Speaker 1: So high protein is the way to go and try
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Speaker 1: to add high protein food items in all your meals.
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Speaker 1: Strategy number five When it comes to conquer your hunger
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Speaker 1: and cravings,
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Speaker 1: is to avoid excessive cardio and heat and CrossFit kind
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Speaker 1: of workouts, because these workouts can be really, really intense
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Speaker 1: and can really help you spend a lot of energy
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Speaker 1: Sweatt a lot. But these will also make you very,
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Speaker 1: very tired, and a lot of people tend to have
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Speaker 1: more hunger after doing such kind of workouts, especially if
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Speaker 1: you do it excessively for a prolonged period of time
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Speaker 1: doing them for a short period of time. Anything less
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Speaker 1: than 30 minutes may not really affect your hunger that much,
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Speaker 1: but definitely when you do it excessively, if you want
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Speaker 1: to do cardio, especially to spend extra energy. Walking is
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Speaker 1: one of the best forms of cardio, which is low
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Speaker 1: intensity and does not tend to cause a lot of hunger.
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Speaker 1: And the next strategy here is to adopt strength training.
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Speaker 1: Strength training is really, really valuable because strength training will
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Speaker 1: actually help you to conserve muscle and strength.
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Speaker 1: And if you do it properly, coupled with high protein diet,
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Speaker 1: it will actually help you to build muscle and strength,
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Speaker 1: which can be really helpful in the long run because
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Speaker 1: muscle is a metabolically active tissue, which requires more energy
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Speaker 1: to maintain. And if you have more muscle mass,
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Speaker 1: your body will have to spend more energy to maintain
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Speaker 1: your muscle mass. And that way, in the long run,
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Speaker 1: it will help if you keep gaining more and more
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Speaker 1: muscle mass and strength training. If it is designed into short,
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Speaker 1: intense workouts, it can be really, really energising, and it
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Speaker 1: will keep you energetic and active throughout the day. That
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Speaker 1: way you will move around more throughout the day and
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Speaker 1: spend more energy there is something called as non exercise
00:10:45
Speaker 1: activity thermogenesis, or meat,
00:10:48
Speaker 1: which is influenced highly by how you feel and your
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Speaker 1: energy levels. Doing excessive cardio heat and CrossFit will actually
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Speaker 1: affect your knee and make you spend less and less
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Speaker 1: energy throughout the day. Knee is nothing but the involuntary
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Speaker 1: bodily movements you do throughout the day, and strength training
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Speaker 1: does not affect me that much as compared to other
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Speaker 1: forms of exercises.
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Speaker 1: So not only spending energy doing your workouts, but you're
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Speaker 1: also being more energetic and active, spending more energy throughout
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Speaker 1: your day. That way, strength training will help in the
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Speaker 1: long run. And if your goal is to lose weight
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Speaker 1: and lose fat, your goal is also to look good,
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Speaker 1: and the strength training will help you build muscle and
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Speaker 1: give that great looking shape to your body. This is
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Speaker 1: what most people are behind, and strength training is the
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Speaker 1: way to go. If you're concerned about your looks and
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Speaker 1: your physical abilities,
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Speaker 1: the next strategy is not following restrictive kind of dieting.
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Speaker 1: There are certain kind of diets which will restrict you
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Speaker 1: from eating certain kind of food items, and if these
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Speaker 1: food items happen to be something which you like. Then
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Speaker 1: you will start developing a lot of craving for this.
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Speaker 1: And there are certain restrictive diets which will stop you
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Speaker 1: from having rice and carbohydrates and sugar and certain kinds
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Speaker 1: of food items. But whenever you restrict certain kind of
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Speaker 1: food item, the craving to eat those kind of food
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Speaker 1: items
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Speaker 1: will go higher and higher. That is why restrictive kind
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Speaker 1: of dieting may help in the short term, but in
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Speaker 1: the long run, it will not really help you. And, uh,
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Speaker 1: if the cravings go out of control, you will end
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Speaker 1: up bingeing on whatever food items you have been restricted
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Speaker 1: to eat. That way it will derail your items in
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Speaker 1: your fat loss and weight loss journey. That is why
00:12:24
Speaker 1: restrictive kind of dieting, though they may help you in
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Speaker 1: the short run, will not really help you to maximise
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Speaker 1: your results in the long run.
00:12:32
Speaker 1: And the next strategy on the same lines is to
00:12:35
Speaker 1: have a reward fixed in your routine. What I mean
00:12:39
Speaker 1: by reward is your favourite food items which may be
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Speaker 1: high in calorie and which may not be favourable in
00:12:44
Speaker 1: your weight loss and fat loss. journey. You need not
00:12:46
Speaker 1: really restrict or completely cut off these kind of food items,
00:12:50
Speaker 1: but you can have it as a reward. You can
00:12:52
Speaker 1: have it as a daily reward or a weekly reward
00:12:55
Speaker 1: or biweekly reward or a monthly reward. Let's say if
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Speaker 1: you like having sweets, you can have a small portion
00:13:01
Speaker 1: of sweet every day
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Speaker 1: within 100 calories, and you can adjust portion of all
00:13:05
Speaker 1: other food items to accommodate that extra 100 calories. You're
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Speaker 1: eating something which you like, or you can have a
00:13:11
Speaker 1: reward every week. Let's say you like ice cream. You
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Speaker 1: can have one or two scoops of ice cream once
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Speaker 1: in a week. That will not really harm your progress.
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Speaker 1: If you are strict with your plan for the whole week,
00:13:22
Speaker 1: let's say if you like to eat outside,
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Speaker 1: you can eat outside once in a month or once
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Speaker 1: in two weeks, and one meal will not break or
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Speaker 1: make your case. If you've been following your plan properly,
00:13:34
Speaker 1: having one extra meal outside will really not derail your efforts.
00:13:38
Speaker 1: And that way you'll not feel that you're missing out
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Speaker 1: on your favourite food items or not enjoying your food
00:13:44
Speaker 1: and by adding a reward every now and then will
00:13:47
Speaker 1: keep you motivated and keep you compliant with your plan.
00:13:53
Speaker 1: That brings us to strategy number nine to conquer your
00:13:56
Speaker 1: hunger and cravings, that is, to stay hydrated. Water is
00:14:00
Speaker 1: a very, very important part of your diet and nutrition
00:14:03
Speaker 1: because your body is made up of 70% water and
00:14:06
Speaker 1: you keep losing water through different means through urination, through
00:14:10
Speaker 1: sweating through passing of stools, or just exchange of moisture
00:14:14
Speaker 1: to the environment from your skin. And that is why
00:14:16
Speaker 1: you have to keep on replenishing water. And, uh, sometimes
00:14:20
Speaker 1: what happens is, if you're not well hydrated,
00:14:23
Speaker 1: it may manifest in the form of hunger and cravings,
00:14:26
Speaker 1: and you don't want that to happen. That is why
00:14:29
Speaker 1: you stay well hydrated
00:14:31
Speaker 1: and generally. For most people, you have to drink somewhere
00:14:34
Speaker 1: between 2 to 4 litres of water on a daily basis.
00:14:38
Speaker 1: And what is your individual requirement can be understood by
00:14:41
Speaker 1: trial and error, and you have to pay attention to
00:14:44
Speaker 1: few indicators like uh, your urine colour should always be
00:14:48
Speaker 1: clear as water or very pale yellow if your digestion
00:14:52
Speaker 1: is proper, if you're not facing any kind of constipation.
00:14:55
Speaker 1: If you If you're not getting pimples, then you Your
00:14:58
Speaker 1: water intake is on the point
00:15:00
Speaker 1: and the last but not the least strategy. Number 10
00:15:03
Speaker 1: is to maintain low stress and maintain a good sleep hygiene,
00:15:06
Speaker 1: which are interconnected. See, sleep is a very, very important
00:15:10
Speaker 1: part of your health and fitness, because throughout the day
00:15:13
Speaker 1: your body is going through a lot of physical stress,
00:15:15
Speaker 1: and especially if you're into exercising, the stress is more
00:15:19
Speaker 1: pronounced and your body is going through wear and tear.
00:15:22
Speaker 1: The repair and rebuild of this happens through the sleep,
00:15:25
Speaker 1: and all the mental stress you've gone through that day
00:15:27
Speaker 1: is also relieved during sleep. That is why sleep is
00:15:30
Speaker 1: important for relaxation and recuperation physically and mentally, especially if
00:15:35
Speaker 1: you're on a fat loss journey. If you're eating fewer
00:15:37
Speaker 1: calories than you're spending, that is a kind of stress
00:15:40
Speaker 1: if you're exercising. That is also a stress if you're
00:15:43
Speaker 1: busy in your work and personal set that will also
00:15:44
Speaker 1: add to the stress. And having enough sleep is one
00:15:48
Speaker 1: of the best ways to relieve the stress. And for
00:15:50
Speaker 1: most people sleeping somewhere between 7 to 9 hours per
00:15:53
Speaker 1: day does the work fine.
00:15:55
Speaker 1: So stop bingeing on your Ott and stop scrolling through
00:15:57
Speaker 1: social media and get to bed on time.
00:16:00
Speaker 1: So these were the 10 strategies which can help you
00:16:03
Speaker 1: conquer your hunger and cravings for maximum fat loss and
00:16:05
Speaker 1: weight loss success. I hope this episode has been helpful
00:16:09
Speaker 1: to you and valuable to you. Let me know in
00:16:11
Speaker 1: the comments how you feel about it, and if you
00:16:13
Speaker 1: have any doubts and questions, definitely leave a comment. I
00:16:16
Speaker 1: would like to answer those questions, and if you're still
00:16:19
Speaker 1: not subscribed to this channel, please subscribe now and share
00:16:22
Speaker 1: with your friends, family and colleagues who might get benefited
00:16:25
Speaker 1: from listening to this podcast.
00:16:28
Speaker 1: And if you're someone who wants to start your fitness
00:16:30
Speaker 1: journey or if you're someone who is in a fitness
00:16:32
Speaker 1: journey but struggling to get results, I would really like
00:16:35
Speaker 1: to help you. I offer quite a bit of free
00:16:38
Speaker 1: and paid courses, webinars and workshops and 1 to 1 coaching.
00:16:42
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about my services and offerings,
00:16:45
Speaker 1: I'd like to invite you to join a special WhatsApp
00:16:47
Speaker 1: group called Ticket to Transformation I have created for this purpose.
00:16:51
Speaker 1: The link to the WhatsApp Group is in the description.
00:16:53
Speaker 1: Click on the link and get into the WhatsApp Group
00:16:56
Speaker 1: and explore different kind of services you can get from me.
00:16:59
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode till the end.
00:17:02
Speaker 1: I'll see you in the next one. This is a
00:17:03
Speaker 1: always here to help you become the best version of yourself.