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How do I trick my brain into accepting eating less?
For example, last night I had some bagels and coffee, went to the gym, and had some oranges at home. I felt perfectly full and didn't need to eat, but even on melatonin my brain wouldn't let me sleep, even until 2am, until I broke down and fried something on the stove so I got the worst outcome in terms of diet. My subconscious is implacably against any kind of change or improvement and insists I need to compensate for any exercise whatsoever by eating more, even though frankly fifteen minutes on a treadmill and fifteen doing leg presses and biceps were unlikely to have burned more than a potato's worth of calories.
Honestly I'm going to encourage you to talk with a therapist and a licensed dietician (and/or doctor as well.)
What you're describing - the need to exercise in exchange for any food, and feeling unhappy with the compulsive feeling of the 2am meal/not being able to sleep - all of that lies in the realm of disordered eating and casual advice can be incredibly unhealthy on that topic. I'm not saying you have a diagnosable eating disorder by any means, but those are some possible symptoms.
I could share all my personal beliefs on food, dieting and exercise and it probably wouldn't fundamentally change those feelings you're having, even when you rationally know it doesn't make sense like the example about compensating.
The comments have gotten past the healthy point for me, so I'm tapping ignore on the post. Not sure if I'll get a notification of a reply so feel free to DM me if you have any questions OP.
I use Wegovy. It works well for me, and quiets the food noise I didn't even realize I was dealing with until it made its presence known by its absence.
That being said- I think @DefinitelyNotAFae is the one to listen to, here. What you are describing sounds like a relationship with food that might benefit from being discussed with a professional. I've benefitted from such discussions with my therapist myself.
To be clear, when you say Wegovy you mean Ozempic? I thought there were supply problems because of the demand from diabetic patients.
Wegovy is one of the three brand name medications of the drug semaglutide that Novo Nordisk sells. Wegovy is for weight loss, while Ozempic and Rybelsus are for diabetes. Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist. It and tirzepatide (brand names Mounjaro and Zepbound for diabetes and weight loss respectively), are effective new(ish) medications for treating diabetes, weight loss, addiction, and an increasingly wider array of diseases.
I definitely want to echo @DefinitelyNotAFae's advice that you should talk to a therapist or dietician(s) about your cravings.
I will say though, a GLP-1 agonist medication could potentially eliminate the cravings you describe. I don't know where you live, so I'll spare you a bunch of details about prescription requirements, insurance coverage, and compound pharmacies (unless you want those details, let me know), but it wouldn't be the worst idea to ask your doctor what they think about these medications, and what benefits your doctor thinks they could have for you.
I'm using Wegovy, which is the same drug (semaglutide) as Ozempic, but dosed differently, and in single-use autoinjectors.
There were, and are, some supply problems, although they are not as bad as they were six months+ ago. Many of us compensate by stretching doses for 10 days instead of 7, stuff like that.
[edit] @hungariantoast covered it better than I did. Thank you!
I am not a dietician and I have no "it worked for me" story, but I do have something concrete that you can try at very low expense with virtually no adverse consequences.
Fiber. There is a nice paper on one of the effects of fiber here. That looks at the effect of viscous fiber on diabetes treatment, but if you are interested in cholesterol, that paper is here.
But you are interested in satiation. That paper is here.
How much fiber is enough? Well, I don't know what's right for you, but the first paper talks about 13 g/day of viscous fiber. There's a lot that's covered under the term "viscous fiber", but psyllium husk powder is a good place to start. You can buy it in bulk at very affordable prices. At 13 g/day, you can get 1 kg every 3 months.
Drinking 2 large glasses of water a day with ~7 g of dissolved psyllium husk fiber each takes a little getting used to, but if you notice a desireable change in your appetite patterns, then it is a relatively simple, low cost, low effort, low risk way to improve your metabolic health and reduce appetites that you seem to feel are problematic.
If not, then the problem might be related to something else and you should keep looking for a solution.
Good luck!
This doesn't take away from anything you said as that all seems very accurate to me, but it's perhaps worth noting that psyllium husk fiber is also a laxative from what I have read. It may not necessarily produce the same effects as taking something that is specifically meant to be used as a laxative depending on amount taken, but I do believe it increases the number of bowel movements in a day in my experience.
I unfortunately don't really feel any benefit from the psyllium husk fiber with regards to changing my appetite. I take it in capsule form rather than powder form so there may be some differences there, though I would not imagine much since I think its just the powder packed into a gel capsule. I take it pretty regularly, like on a schedule even, but my desire to eat swings wildly between days. Some days I wake up in the morning and I feel like I'm super hungry the moment I get out of bed, other days I can be relatively content with little to eat in the morning and make it to the afternoon. I definitely have a problem with sugar though and I know sugar triggers my hunger more, so it's possible if not for this the fiber would have more of an impact.
As different individuals, we should expect different responses to the same treatment. For me, it is difficult to take 13 g of psyllium husk fiber as capsules, although I do it out of convenience when travelling. The capsules hold about 0.5 g each, so the 13 g in the diabetes paper would take 26 capsules. One bottle of psyllium fiber capsules will hold 100 capsules, making it last a whopping 4 days.
Even at 13 g, though, it's nowhere near the recommended daily allowance for adult women at 25 g per day and 38 g per day for adult men. So not even 13 g of fiber constitutes a heroic dose, albeit it kind of feels like it when knocking it back.
If lack of fiber isn't a problem, then additional fiber probably won't help, however the literature indicates that, if it is, then you might not see much benefit at <10 g/day supplementation.
It surprising to me that no one talks about this. Metabolic syndrome is a serious public health challenge. How much of it comes from a severe, widespread lack of fiber in our diet? Why isn't it the first intervention when cholesterol or A1c are elevated? Why am I learning about this from obsessive late-night Google Scholar searches and not from my doctor, who ordered the tests and reviewed the results?
Adding fibre to my diet is good, practical advice, thank you. I in no way wish to talk down the value of counselling, but my particular situation (expat in non-English speaking country) makes finding counselling services difficult and finding one that works for me, more so. Online platforms are a thing, but the BetterHelp scandal has made me very sceptical.
Again, I am not a therapist, but I have found the work of David Burns very useful. His book, Feeling Good, is well regarded, and his podcast, The Feeling Good Podcast, is also very informative. If you think it would be useful, there is also an app that he collaborated on called... can you guess the name? That's right, the Feeling Good App!
TEAM-CBT is best for anxiety and depression, but it is also good for behaviors, addictions, and relationships. Personally, I have found the tools helpful in my own life and will attest that I believe that I am happier for having learned them. But, of course, to each their own.
Lots of good comments but I just wanted to mention that in my experience, doing lots of exercise in the evening is generally a recipe for not being able to sleep, and this is especially true if there is a calorie deficit going on. I don’t know if it’s something to do with excess cortisol taking more time to settle down, but it feels like that kind of feeling. Maybe you could consider leaving a bit more time between exercise and sleep, if your schedule permits it?
I have the same experience with any kind of workout or activity above my baseline, I'm noticeably hungrier. I think that part is pretty natural. Which isn't to make any claims about your larger relationship to food.
You're right that a single workout isn't going to burn a huge amount of calories, but it will increase your metabolism, which will keep burning faster for a day or two after. I've always taken the post workout hunger as my body gearing up for burning more calories. If I'm doing more it ramps up and then levels out eventually at the new normal.
You drank coffee and couldn't sleep. Not trying to be rude or anything, but what do you think caffeine does? You also don't mention anything about WATER. Instead of getting up to fry something, try drinking a large glass of water first.
I mean I didn't mention it because A it's something I do everyday anyway and B it didn't appear relevant to my point about diet and exercise, but yes I do keep a 1L bottle of water next to my bed for this reason. I used it to take my melatonin with. I also don't really feel much of an effect from coffee, I suspect because I take it in (oat) lattes.
Right on.
Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean it isn't doing exactly that, keeping you awake.
Edit: If I drink coffee any time after noon. I'm not getting to sleep before midnight.
Insomnia associated with caffeine is quite variable, some are hardly affected. In this case it sounds more food related, but I guess it depends if it happens other nights when they drink coffee but don’t restrict eating.
@Hollow
Well, is multiple lattes in the evening an everyday thing?
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matcha
I mean come on dude... lower your evening caffeine intake and you might be able to fall asleep before needing another meal.
The solution is not to eat less, it’s to eat better. A bagel and cream cheese is not a quality meal. It has an extremely high GI because the bagel is made of refined wheat flour, and there is no fiber to help slow it down. That means that you will be hungry very quickly. You might have felt more full if you had eaten them together.
As a general rule of thumb, the answer to most dietary questions is to eat more vegetables. Elsewhere in this topic, people mention fiber. They are likely correct to think that, but the best source of fiber isn’t psyllium husks, it’s vegetables. Vegetables are great at keeping you full for a long time and that will prevent you from eating more.
Another thing I would recommend is to move your workouts to the morning - before you eat, if you can. There are scientific reasons why it’s a good idea to do morning workouts that I can’t recall at the moment, but anecdotally I find that it improves my whole day both in terms of energy and mood. If you are worried about eating too much, the good news is that working out before your first meal helps burn more calories.
Hey. I ate a chia seed bagel, plain, with an oat milk latte. I also ate a bagel with a matcha filling, with a second latte. Like I appreciate your advice but please don't make assumptions.
I apologize for misreading the cream cheese part, but the fact that you are eating nothing but bagels is kind of worse. I also misread “some bagels” as “a bagel”, so it seems more clear now that you are having way too many simple carbs in general. You need to eat balanced meals. The chia seeds help a little, but it’s still very heavy on carbs. White flour used in bagels are made up of simple carbohydrates and those are just a short hop away from being sugar. You are likely feeling hungry because you are having sugar crashes, basically. The simple carbs get digested very quickly and then you get low blood sugar, which your brain sees as a cue for hunger.
Of course you can still eat bagels, but make them part of a meal instead of making them the meal. Consider switching to a 100% whole wheat bagel and add on some protein. Hummus is ideal because it’ll also have some more fiber, but you could also try nut butters, ham, or lox.
As a side note, the only “matcha filling” I have ever seen in baked goods here in the US have been made up of green tea powder mixed with some form of dairy, so I would be surprised if they didn’t use cream cheese in that bagel. But of course you would know what you’re eating better than I would.
Don't try to game your brain, it may just be smarter than you are. :-)
If you feel hunger in your stomach, rumbling, etc, you really do need food.
If you aren't sure, drink a small glass of water and wait 8 minutes. Get distracted. If you have forgotten about, no longer crave eating ___, you weren't truly hungry.
Keep a food diary, like on cronometer.com ( there is an app for it too ). Make it a game to get as close to 100% of your DVs as you can. Good nutrition helps prevent binging. So does eating a reasonable amount of calories and not cutting back too hard. You don't want to lose more than 1lb a week. That doesn't require harsh calorie restriction.
Consider checking out The Hacker's Diet tools.
Seconding psyllium husks. When I was going through some psychiatric medication withdrawals, one of the common withdrawal symptoms was insomnia. It was horrible; I couldn't sleep and my brain would be super active and all that thinking my brain was doing and overall restlessness caused me to be extremely hungry, which made the insomnia feel even worse. I would get out of bed and go drink a glass of psyllium husk powder mixed in water. It helped my stomach feel full, so it would relieve some of the pain of the whole situation. Sometimes I would drink a glass of chia seeds in water instead, but the psyllium husk was lower calorie, so I preferred the husks since I was supposed to be sleeping at that time anyway, not eating. Chia seeds was less gross texture/taste, psyllium husk was lower calorie.
What does psyllium husk taste / textured like? Is it possible to pair it with something else calorie free to be less disgusting?
I have gained about 5 kg since spring and been trying to lose it for the last month through intermittent fasting and trying to remove any and all soda, candy, chips, cakes, etc. I haven't actually lost weight yet, but I also haven't gained more. It's only been a month and last week I started very rigorously counting calories. I found that I've been at about 1800 calories per day this past month and so I am cutting it down to at least 1500 to get some more progress. I don't eat very healthy but even with greasy pizza or fast food, you're going to lose weight if you just keep the portions small enough that you are always at a calorie deficit.
Weight loss is really difficult. The worst is the beginning stages of it - in my experience, the first 2 weeks is the hardest part. But after that, my body started getting the message and/or I've become used to feeling hungry for a few hours a day. Go the route of a window of at least 16 hours fasting and at most 8 hours of eating, count calories, and be strict to yourself with as few cheat days as possible. You will get used to it but it's definitely hard in the beginning. But look at it this way, you sleep for 8 hours and if you just wait 2 or 3 hours to eat in the morning, it's already 10. 8 hours later is 18 and you won't get hungry more than an hour or two before bed - this way, at least for me, it's very much been doable. But you do need to be hard on yourself about trying to never eat outside of the 8 hours window - even on cheat days, try to keep treats and snacking within this window.
Like you said, 15 minutes of running and 15 minutes of weights doesn't burn very much. It gets repeated a lot but weight loss really does happen in the kitchen first and foremost.
@mycketforvirrad Is "dieting" the tag that you use consistently for posts like this? I ask because I currently have "diet" and "weight loss" already in my tag filters and I expected them to catch posts like this. I can add "dieting" to the list as well but since you're the undisputed tag king I wanted to ask in case there were other tags/variants that you think would be useful to block as well.
Good shout.
dietingis only attached to five posts. I will deprecate it.I get something similar, especially after dieting for some time. It’s not hunger, but a different strong urge to eat to satisfaction that is so hard to ignore. The way I’m currently trying to address it is eat different things, I wonder if my restrictions are not getting some micro nutritions I need, or maybe sufficient protein.
Bear in mind you brain has a set weight for you that gradually goes up as you get older. This is what keeps your weight reasonably stable usually. It’s hard to drop your weight below this level, and this is a mechanism the body uses to prevent weight loss. It’s hard!
What helped me was tracking my nutrition for a few months. I used Macrofactor because its UI and philosophy worked best for me, but there are many other options as well, both paid and free. In addition to finding out that I likely wasn't getting quite enough of certain micros, I learnt that I certainly wasn't eating as much protein as I had assumed. Once I adjusted that, cravings largely went away, and my sleep quality improved as well.
Speaking of deficiencies, getting a comprehensive blood test done (if you haven't recently) might also reveal something, or rule things out.
Also, like others have suggested, it might be a good idea to test whether coffee actually affects you or not. I always thought that it didn't affect me, but after monitoring it for some months, I learnt that I was likely wrong and the cut-off point for me seems to be around 6-ish hours before bedtime. If I drink coffee after that, it seems to affect my sleep quality and patterns, even if I don't really feel any less tired in the evening. But you may well be different.
Also also, there is some debate whether exercise close to the bedtime can affect sleep. I suspect that as with caffeine, this can be a personal thing. When I was younger, I used to go for runs just before going to sleep, but I can't really do that any more. A walk or some yoga is fine, but anything more vigorous close to bedtime seems to affect my sleep negatively these days.
Good luck figuring this out! It's annoying that human beings don't come with a user manual. Or firmware updates.