8 Reasons You’re Still Hungry—Even After You Just Ate!

Do you sometimes feel ravenous, even though you just polished off a tasty lunch, a full dinner, or a midnight snack? Some food ingredients can trick our bodies into not recognizing when we’re full, causing “rebound hunger” that can add inches to our waistlines. But these simple tweaks can help quiet your cravings for good.

You Drink Too Much Soda

Sodas, iced teas, and other sweetened beverages are our biggest source of high-fructose corn syrup—accounting for about two-thirds of our annual intake. New research from Yale University showed that when 20 healthy adults underwent MRI sessions looking at their brains while drinking liquids, high-fructose beverages reduced blood flow and activity in brain regions that regulate appetite, and ratings of satiety and fullness were lower when compared to drinks that just contained glucose.

And a previous study from the University of California at San Francisco indicates that fructose can trick our brains into craving more food, even when we’re full. It works by impeding the body’s ability to use leptin, the “satiation hormone” that tells us when we’ve had enough to eat, researchers say.

Your Dinner Came Out of a Can

Many canned foods are high in the chemical bisphenol-A, or BPA, which the Food and Drug Administration stated was a chemical “of some concern.” Exposure to BPA can cause abnormal surges in leptin that, according to Harvard University researchers, leads to food cravings and obesity.

Your Breakfast Wasn't Big Enough

After following 6,764 healthy people for almost 4 years, University of Cambridge researchers found that those who ate just 300 calories for breakfast gained almost twice as much weight as those who ate 500 calories or more for breakfast. The reason: Eating a big breakfast makes for smaller rises in blood sugar and insulin throughout the day, meaning fewer sudden food cravings.

Another breakfast tip—add protein. One recent study shows that eating a breakfast that had 30-39 grams of higher protein items like sausage and eggs curbed hunger throughout the morning, compared with a low-protein breakfast that had items like pancakes and syrup.

You Skipped the Salad

Most Americans don’t eat enough leafy greens, which are rich in the essential B-vitamin folate and help protect against depression, fatigue, and weight gain. In one study, dieters with the highest levels of folate in their bodies lost 8.5 times as much weight as those with the lowest levels. Leafy greens are also high in vitamin K, another insulin-regulating nutrient that helps quash cravings. Best sources: Romaine lettuce, spinach, collard greens, radicchio.

You Don't Stop for Tea Time

According to a study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, people who drank one cup of black tea after eating high-carb foods decreased their blood-sugar levels by 10 percent for 2 and a half hours after the meal, which means they stayed full longer and had fewer food cravings. Researchers credit the polyphenolic compounds in black tea for suppressing rebound hunger.

You're Not Staying Fluid

Dehydration often mimics the feeling of hunger. If you’ve just eaten and still feel hungry, drink a glass of water before eating more, and see if your desires don’t diminish.

You may even lose weight if you make sure you have a glass of water handy during each meal while dieting. One Virginia Tech study found that older people who had two cups of water before a meal ate between 75 and 90 fewer calories. And over the course of 12 weeks, those dieters who drank water before meals lost about 5 pounds more than dieters who did not increase their water intake.

You're Bored

Researchers in Australia found that visual distractions can help curb cravings. To test yourself, envision a huge, sizzling steak. If you’re truly hungry, the steak will seem appealing. But if that doesn’t seem tempting, chances are you’re in need of a distraction, not another meal. Or another handy distraction when your belly rumbles:

Your Cereal Leaves You Cold

If you regularly have hunger pangs soon after a bowl of cereal for breakfast—or as a late night snack—then make a swap to oatmeal. A recent study from Louisiana State University found that when 46 adults had either a 363 calorie bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios cereal or oatmeal, feelings of fullness and hunger were lower when participants ate oatmeal compared to the ready-to-eat cereal. The increase in satiety could be attributed to the viscosity of the oatmeal, researchers wrote, and also the fact that it has more soluble oat fiber than most cereals.

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9 Weird Things Killing Your Gut

In a recent breakthrough study, U.S. scientists discovered that gut microorganisms not only influence immune cell function, but actually support the production of immune cells that form the first line of defense against infection. Your gut is your immune system—two-thirds of your immune system, to be exact.

In fact, the gut is so complex and regulates so many bodily functions it's often called the body's "second brain." About 80 percent of the neurotransmitter serotonin is produced in the gastrointestinal tract—not the brain. Since large quantities of neurotransmitters are manufactured in the gut, that means your GI tract is largely responsible for your general physical and mental wellbeing. 

"The bacteria that are in our gut help regulate metabolism, they talk to our genes," explains Elizabeth Lipski, PhD, CCN, academic director of nutrition and integrative health programs at Maryland University of Integrative Health. "When that's in balance, we have energy and our brain works better."

A few other fun gut health facts:
• We have 10 times more bacteria in our digestive system than cells in our body.
• 99 percent of the DNA our bodies are made of bacterial DNA.
• As a result of the Human Genome Project, scientists discovered we have fewer genes than a fruit fly, carrot, or pineapple! Instead, the genes we have are always talking to the microbes in our gut.
• Your gut lining is only one cell thick—much thinner than your eyelid—and replaces itself every few days. 

It's clear a healthy gut is essential for happiness and health. But as it stands, about one-third of people today have some sort of digestive problem on a weekly or monthly basis.  As it turns out, a lot of conveniences associated with modern date life are actually killing gut health. 

New to Nature Foods
Foods developed in labs, like denatured, industrialized fats and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), are still somewhat of a mystery to our bodies. "Food is information. These new-to-nature foods give different information to our cells and microbiome," says Lipski, also author of Digestion Connection "Intuitively, we know that different foods have different effects on us; some make us feel energized, some drain us."

HFCS has been shown to require more energy for gut absorption, leading to possible gut leakage and widespread inflammation. Natural oils are important to build the structure of our cells, but denatured, industrial fats stripped of antioxidants and vitamins don't give cells the nutrients they need. "It's the life in food giving us life," Lipski says. "Most people are eating mostly dead foods." 

Carrageenan
Carrageenan seems innocent enough. Derived from seaweed, it's commonly used as a thickening agent in ice cream, yogurt, soymilk, and sour cream—even organic versions. It's completely unnecessary for use in food and dietary doses have reliably caused inflammation in the GI tract, triggering an immune response similar to that your body has when invaded by pathogens like Salmonella.

Wheat

There's emerging research suggesting that wheat is bad, especially for susceptible people. But even if you don't suffer from celiac disease, wheat could be triggering acid reflux, inflammatory bowel disease, and other ailments. Why? We're not eating the same wheat our grandmothers did. Wheat has been so intensely and unnaturally crossbred in the last 40 years that significant changes in amino acids and gliadin protein, which could be making you hungry and damaging your gut health.

GMOs (Maybe)
A 2013 study published in Journal of Organic Systems found pigs fed genetically engineered food were much more likely to suffer from severely inflamed stomachs. So is that happening to people, too? 

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, is the go-to chemical nonorganic farmers spray on GMO crops. So much is applied and taken up inside of the plant that the U.S. government keeps increasing the limits allowed in our food. That's bad news for your gut because glyphosate also acts like an antimicrobial, acting like a potent bacteria-killing in the gut, wiping out delicate beneficial microflora that protects us from disease. What's left? Harmful pathogens like Salmonella and E. coli. 

NSAIDs
According to Lipski, taking nonsteroidal drugs (NSAIDs) like Advil, aspirin, and Motrin on a regular basis damage the gut lining, allowing microbes, partially digested food particles, and toxins to enter the bloodstream. (This is known as "leaky gut.")

NSAIDs block pain by blocking eicosanoids and cytokines that promote inflammation. "But they also indiscriminately block the ones that also promote healing," Lipski says. "By doing this, the body doesn't allow for the health maintenance, growth, and repair of gut cells."

Expert Tip: Lipski says NSAIDs are OK for occasional pain, but if you're suffering with chronic pain, look at the root causes. "Interestingly enough, leaky gut often plays a huge role in systemic pain in the body," she adds. "Many clients who have arthritis or autoimmune conditions, when they improve gut health or go on an elimination diet, often the pain just disappears, and often in just a couple of weeks."

Alcohol
Alcoholic drinks contain few nutrients but take many nutrients to metabolize. The most noteworthy of these are the B-complex vitamins. In fact, alcoholic beverages contain substances that are toxic to our cells. When alcohol is metabolized in the liver, the toxins are either broken down or stored by the body, according to Digestion Connection. Alcohol abuse puts a strain on the liver, which affects digestive competency, and also damages the intestinal tract.

Antibiotics
There's no denying that antibiotics have saved millions of lives. Still, they don't give your beneficial microbes a free pass when they enter your GI tract, so the drugs often kill off the "good bugs" in your gut, too, damaging your immune system and gut health.

Expert Tip: While you're on antibiotics, take a product containing saccharomyces Boulardii, like Florastor, and then continue for two weeks after ending antibiotics, Lipski suggests. It's a cousin to bread yeast and helps prevent yeast overgrown while re-establishing the gut microbiome. The end result? It helps reduce the risk of developing diarrhea and other complications arising from antibiotic use.

Chronic Stress
Stress really is toxic. Chronic stress causes your body to produce less secretory IgA, one of the first lines of immune defense. It also eases up on producing DHEA, an antiaging, antistress adrenal hormone. Your body also responds to stress by slowing down digestion, which reduces blood flow to digestive organs and produces toxic metabolites.

Sleepless Nights
Depriving yourself of sleep deprives your body of the repair time it needs. Lack of sleep leads to stress and higher cortisol levels, which has been linked to leaky gut. Getting less than 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night also deprives us of the parasympathetic/relaxation sleep cycle to fully repair high-energy gut tissue, Lipski says. 

Expert Tip: Keep your thermostat below 70 degrees to keep your bedroom at sleep-friendly temperatures. Without a nighttime cool-down process, the release of sleep hormones melatonin and growth hormone is disrupted. Avoid these 9 other common hormone disruptors that could lead to low-quality sleep.  According to government surveys, most of us get one hour less sleep than is optimal. Add one more hour of sleep per night for 2 weeks and see if it makes a difference in how you feel.

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10 Things That Slow Your Metabolism

Need another reason to love your body? It burns calories all by itself—as long as you don't get in the way. See, every cell in your body plays a role in energy metabolism—the process of turning the food you eat into energy that keeps your heart beating, lungs pumping, and muscles moving. The faster your metabolism, the more calories you burn. And just like there are ways to speed it up—by working out, for instance—certain habits can hit the brakes on your natural calorie-churning engine.
Here are 10 things to avoid in order to keep your metabolism humming.

A Weird Eating Schedule

In a 2012 Hebrew University study, mice fed high fat foods sporadically gained more weight than mice that ate a similar diet on a regular schedule. Researchers suspect that eating at the same times every day trains the body to burn more calories between meals.

Pesticides in Produce

Organochlorines (chemicals in pesticides) can interfere with your body's energy-burning process and make it harder to lose weight, according to a Canadian study. Researchers found that dieters who ate the most toxins experienced a greater-than-normal dip in metabolism and had a harder time losing weight.

Skimping on Sleep

A 2012 study found that people who sleep less move less the next day, which means they burn fewer calories. But it gets worse: Sleep deprivation actually reduces the amount of energy your body uses at rest, according to the German and Swedish researchers.

Your Period

You lose iron during your period every month, and iron helps carry oxygen to your muscles. If your iron levels run too low, your muscles don't get enough O2, your energy plummets, and your metabolism sputters, says Tammy Lakatos Shames, R.D., author of Fire Up Your Metabolism: 9 Proven Principles for Burning Fat and Losing Weight Forever.(Guys you are lucky on this one)

Eating Too Little

When you skimp on calories, your body switches into starvation mode, slowing your metabolic rate to conserve the fuel it's got.

Sitting Too Long

It takes only 20 minutes in any fixed position to inhibit your metabolism, according to Carrie Schmitz, an ergonomic research manager for Ergotron.

Jet Lag

Your internal clock directly controls the part of your cells that keeps your metabolism chugging along. But when you disrupt your so-called circadian rhythm—by crossing time zones, for instance—your cells don't function the way they should and your metabolism suffers, according to researchers at the Center for Epigenetics and Metabolism at University of California - Irvine.

Not Getting Enough Calcium

Another reason to drink your milk: Calcium plays a key role in regulating your fat metabolism, which determines whether you burn calories or store them as fat. A diet that's high in calcium could help you burn more fat, according to research conducted at the Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Dehydration

All of your body's cellular processes, including metabolism, depend on water. If you're dehydrated, you could burn up to 2 percent fewer calories, according to researchers at the University of Utah.

Skipping Breakfast

When you miss breakfast, you don't just set yourself up to overeat at lunch. You actually tell your body to conserve energy—which means it burns calories more slowly. That's one reason a study from the American Journal of Epidemiology found that people who skip a morning meal were 4.5 times more likely to be obese.
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