Hippocrates – “All Disease Begins In The Gut” or
Physiologie du Gout, ou Meditations de Gastronomie Transcendante, 1826:
"Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es." [Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are].
I too struggled with carbs, sugar, salt for many years. The reason you are hungry may be as simple as these three things. Eliminate these and you will begin tasting your food again. When your diet consists of a lot of carbs and sugary things, they spike your blood sugar, this gives you a lot of energy relatively quick for a short period of time but as your blood sugar peaks and begins coming down you start feeling more lethargic and more tired, your body now thinks it needs more food because your energy levels are draining. It does not need more food, what is happening is your out of balance and your coming down from a blood sugar spike. Your body is tricked into thinking it needs to eat more to maintain an artificially high blood sugar level. This is not to say all carbs and sugars are bad and evil but you really have to limit them and find the ones that break down more slowly to avoid this. Brown Rice is a good example. Whole grains are a good example.
Sodium/Salt throws your body way out of balance, hormone levels and water levels, it also makes you crave salty foods. You also may feel bloated and because salt makes you thirsty many times thirst and hunger are confused. Salt may make you eat even more because of this. Keep this in mind as well. Lots of baked goods like bread have a lot of salt. High sodium items include deli meats, bacon, ham, bread, pasta, cheeses, milk. Sure you can buy the low sodium versions of these but then they sneak in other possibly even more harmful preservatives. Remember this, salt is to preserve shelf life of the product as long as possible. Eliminate this as quick as possible. You will begin tasting things as they should be again.
What I did was set up goals for myself. I eat 5-6 meals a day, small ones. I went low carb and low sodium. I aim for less than 1500 mg of sodium a day and less than 100 g of carbs a day of which I try to eat less than 37g of sugar. As another rule I try to be there when my wife does all the shopping. Make a list, plenty of fruits and veggies and nuts and eggs. We shop once a week. We do it this way so that we always maintain fresh food. I remember when we used to shop month to month and stock our freezer and pantry with canned goods and freezer with frozen processed foods. Shopping once a week prevents this, and keeps us from overbuying foods that expire more quickly like fruits and veggies. Try to stay out of the middle of the store. When you read the label what I do is see how much a serving size is and picture it in the palm of my hand. I ask myself will this really make me feel full? I also look closely at the ingredient listings. Anything that has more than 3 ingredients I pull my phone out and start typing them in. I question every ingredient on the label once an item has over 3 ingredients.
