[LeilaJey]

I drink a lot of herbal teas. Some sweet fruit ones are great and make me feel pretty satisfied if I'm craving something. Also lots of peppermint (a minty mouth will put you off a bit) and fennel (an appetite suppressant). It's hard I know. I'm always trying to really check if I'm actually hungry and keep reminding myself that I don't need to eat something if I'm not.

[ghlover]

I went through periods where I felt the same in the beginning but your body gets used to it and as I gave myself routine, it helped a lot.

[JossFit]

Originally Posted by sontaikle

If there is no room in the calorie count, it doesn't get eaten...

Ditto. I plan out all of my meals for the entire week (yep, WEEK) and then check them off as I go each day. Not planned? Not eating it!

[cornellchick]

I agree with folks who have suggested keeping yourself busy. I am a boredom/habit eater and it is tremendously helpful when you can get occupied doing something that doesn't involve food.

- Work out, or just go for a bike ride or a walk
- Needlework
- Chores
- Personal projects (I got caught up working on my personal website last night for hours, with no snacks!)
- Call a friend
- Board games, computer games
- Read
- Jigsaw puzzles
- Work
- etc.

Form new habits to displace your old ones!

[Heather157]

I have a few friends that also struggle with food. I find that reaching out to one of them and talking really helps. i find that often when i reach out to someone else for help, i end up helping them!

[jendiet]

unfortunately some of us are ALWAYS hungry because of our physiology. Some thing that tells the body "we're full" or "you've got glucose for energy" is missing or broken. This leads to genuine hunger outside of the "I just want to eat". It all has to do with hormones.

If you can find a Way of Eating (WOE) that helps you deal with whatever isn't working. This can come by trial and error. For example, I am insulin resistant--reason why I developed gestational diabetes. If I do intermittent fasting, no insulin is released until 1 meal, and that is a low amount because before I ate nothing, and the amount is based on your last meal.

How did I find that out? I was praying for an answer and found the book in a box beside a dumpster. It had christian music tapes in it, which I thought was odd so I picked it up. I found the carbohydrate addict's people sounded just like me! So I tried that WOE. It was really hard though, and I did lose weight. Fasting works really well for me in a fast/eat/fast/eat fashion. The only time I was thin as an adult was from this method. Turns out it increases insulin sensitivity again.

Because of recent research on carb cycling, and fasting while breastfeeding is very hard, I decided to try the new 2 day low carb diet. Research shows it is very beneficial for insulin resistant individuals. It also increases leptin--many of us overeaters DO NOT utilize or make leptin correctly. I find myself not hungry and free of cravings when I eat this way.

So, if you are fighting a monster like insulin resistance which leaves you constantly hungry, this is because the food you ingest IS NOT converted to energy--instead most of it is stored. you just need a little knowledge to get you over that. Once you find a WOE, I absolutely agree calorie counting is the way to go.

[irishcanary]

These are all great tips. I have found that eating until i feel full helps to.
Right now i adore porridge made up with water. Its filling and low in calories

[Kery]

Boredom eater here, so I had to learn to keep my hands busy. Nowadays I don't really pay attention anymore, which is probably a very good thing.

Stuff that worked for me; maybe it'll work for you too?

- Reading while eating. I know, a lot of people, books and articles tell you that you shouldn't do anything else while eating, but the truth is, when you live alone and have no one to talk to, meals are frelling *boring* and you may very well end up shoveling down your food—usually too much of it. At least it was my case. When I've got something to do (reading, eating with other people...), I'm actually a slow eater, and by the time I'm done, I've reached the feeling of fullness without even realizing it.
On the other hand, watching TV (= hands not busy actually holding a book) has the same effect on me as eating alone without a book.

- It's a bit hardcore, and will depend on your personal taste: hot cocoa, the 100%, dark type, like Van Houten's. But not with milk: with hot water. You get the taste of chocolate, it feels quite filling, your mind's tricked into thinking "I got to have chocolate, yay!", yet the caloric intake is much lower. (Of course, it involves liking dark chocolate for starters. TBH, I started doing that out of a genuine mistake only, otherwise it'd have probably never occurred to me.)

My last tip involves having heavy teeth problems, so I won't recommend it.

[eguestx0]

Originally Posted by crazygurl61

Paint my nails, do the laundry, clean my house, chew gum...

I usually drink a bottle of water then another glass of Crystal Light and if I am STILL hungry then I will have some fruit or a bit of protein...its hard to retrain your body away from the food vision.

I do the *water trick* too. I drink a glass of ice water and then another one. If I am still hungry after that then I will eat a healthy snack. Some days I am not hungry and others you would think I have never been fed. I've learned that on days when I am not all that hungry to make sure I am eating a certain calorie amount so that I am not as hungry the next day.

[ilovemo]

Originally Posted by runningfromfat

I think of it like this:

How do people not smoke? How do people not gamble? How do people not drink alcohol? How do people not take drugs?

Point is everyone has something they struggle with, some people more than others. If we're here on 3FC food is at least one of our struggles. But we can steal tactics from others. Obviously, we can't go cold turkey like an alcoholic does but we CAN do that for foods that we struggle with the most. I also CAN make sure that the food in the house either has to be cooked to be tasty or is a snack that I'm ok with eating (like an apple) that I know I won't binge on.

However, I found once I cut out sugar and stopped buying most of the foods that I just can't be trusted around then the temptation ended. There are a few foods that I could easily binge on in our apt but they're all things that need to be cooked/prepared and I'm normally way too lazy to do that.

This post was so motivating to me.

[Sally Pineapple]

I brush my teeth and since I am now brushing my teeth so often my dentist has told me that my check ups just keep getting better
As you get older your gums can start to recede and form pockets between your teeth and gums. This helps keep your mouth healthy and you don't feel like eating when your mouth is so fresh and I forget that I was hungry

[surfergirl2]

I moved my computer from the kitchen table to my bedroom. I used to eat dinner in front of the computer and afterwards would sit in front of the computer and continue to snack. Now, when i'm done with dinner, if i want to use the computer (which i will), i have to go upstairs and away from the food.