how to stop snacking and not have stomach grumble

I snack a lot - on whatever I have in my house. I'm the type of person who eats like one thing at a time. And when I'm done that, I will move on to the next thing. Odd, yes, and not healthy, yes.

The bad thing is if I have junk food in the house then I will eat it all up wayyy too quickly. I know the simple solution is not to have junk food in the house. I do avoid it at time. But sometimes I will have it if I have a friend come over or something. Or when I'm visiting my parents, they have a ton of junk food at their house. It is hard not to snack.

Also the other thing is that I eat a lot in the morning because I am worried that my stomach will grumble/growl at work or school or something (when it does that, I'm just ridiculously embarrassed and I hate it!!). So like I'm trying to lose weight but I eat so much in the morning and at lunch so my stomach won't growl all day. But I want to know how to make it not growl because I'm not hungry then I just eat so that it doesn't growl.

I guess there are a couple questions here. A main question and a semi question? For some info, I'm 20 yrs old, female, very curvy, slightly overweight but not in an unattractive way (I want to lose weight for myself - not others - my bf loves me how I am etc.).

i have the same problem :/ it suckks.

IMO the best way to stop snacking is keep hydrated. sometimes people mistake thirst for hunger.

where do you get the majority of your calories from? cause if your eating abunch of carbs that could be the reason behind why your so hungy. try starting off your day with a protein shake or protein bar.

green tea has been known to help supress appetite too

llama112 said:

I'm the type of person who eats like one thing at a time. And when I'm done that, I will move on to the next thing. Odd, yes, and not healthy, yes.

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Not unhealthy at all. Combining a day's food into two or three big meals is less healthy according to conventional wisdom, AND I've noticed that I personally feel much better eating in "snack mode".

definitely the conventional nutritional wisdom is that frequent, smaller, healthier meals f throughout the day is the optimal way to eat, as it keeps your metabolism up, maintains a regular level of blood sugar, and discourages binge eating.

at the end of the day, its total caloric intake versus total caloric consumption. its unlikely that abstaining from snacking alone will produce the results you want.

snacking/grazing is fine as long as you're cognizant of the total calories you're consuming in a day.

add in some regular exercise (like walking) and you'll get healthier for sure.

its just hard to make fundamental changes.

its likely you dont get proper nutrition from the sorts of foods you eat, and how you combine them. combining foods indiscriminately leads to very poor nutritional absorption, which of course leads the body to craving more of certain foods.

stress also causes you to create certain foods in awkward volumes. meditation and patience alleviate this.

lack of sunlight has been known to cause carbohydrate cravings.

search the web for "food combining" and start your dietary changes today, and see how well you control your appetite 6 months from now.

Snacking is fine. Just don't let snacking become binging.

This seems to me like a 2 part question. How do you stop snaking? Keep junk food out of your house and keep yourself full by eating healthy meals. Chewing mint gum or brushing your teeth after a meal can help with this. As far as staying full goes, choose your meals wisely. Eat food that's filling like lean proteins and fiber. Definitely eat a healthy breakfast every day. Take some time to learn more about nutrition.

If you're trying to lose weight and have a little money to spend, I highly recommend myfooddiary.com It's 9 dollars a month, but the best food tracking website there is, and I have learned a lot about what to eat from it. I also sucsessfully lost 20 pounds (like you said, I was only a little overweight) and currently maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle using it today. Well worth the money for me.

cardio excercise helps alot for some reason imo

ive tried green tea and that didnt help, i just eat a stupid amount of calories though

foxyloxy55 said:

This seems to me like a 2 part question. How do you stop snaking? Keep junk food out of your house and keep yourself full by eating healthy meals. Chewing mint gum or brushing your teeth after a meal can help with this. As far as staying full goes, choose your meals wisely. Eat food that's filling like lean proteins and fiber. Definitely eat a healthy breakfast every day. Take some time to learn more about nutrition.

If you're trying to lose weight and have a little money to spend, I highly recommend myfooddiary.com It's 9 dollars a month, but the best food tracking website there is, and I have learned a lot about what to eat from it. I also sucsessfully lost 20 pounds (like you said, I was only a little overweight) and currently maintain a healthy weight and lifestyle using it today. Well worth the money for me.

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This. is awesome advice. I totally forgot about recommending a food diary!

I used fitday.com for years: It's free, but limited. Some of their foods are off, like zucchini it lists as having so much sodium it's insane. But it's good for gettin' started with keeping track of your intake. It also allows you to track your weight loss and exercise.

There was a link to a "good" free one floating around one of the weight-loss threads, but I found that one to be very limiting to not have a few staples of my diet (rolled oats, brown Basmati rice, ...). If I find it, I'll post back here--It may be beneficial for people who eat a more typical diet.

^ delta_9 here on BL recommended a free, cross-platform, downloadable diet tracker called CRONoMeter. Checked it out a bit, and it seems pretty thorough. It's got brown rice, and Quaker brand instant oatmeal, BTW.

I dunno I kinda have your same problem at the moment. HOw I've combatted it in the past is by eating a lot more protein and filling foods, like smaller meals thorughout the day instead of small empty calories like chips or crackers. Then exercising. And drink lots of water or tea to fill up your stomach in between meals.


Oh and while people are recommending diet journal/food tracker things, I have used a few different ones and I like sparkpeople.com the best. They have a ton of foods in their database or you can input your own, and it usually runs pretty fast and its easy to use. It tracks calories, fat, and any other nutrients that you select.

TheAppleCore said:

^ delta_9 here on BL recommended a free, cross-platform, downloadable diet tracker called CRONoMeter. Checked it out a bit, and it seems pretty thorough. It's got brown rice, and Quaker brand instant oatmeal, BTW.

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Yes! This was the one I was thinking of. I couldn't find regular oatmeal in it the last time I checked, but I just found an entry for "Cereals, oats, regular and quick and instant, not fortified, dry", so that makes me feel better about this tool. Can't find "steel cut oats," but I could find "oats"... Hrm. Like I said, I think this program would benefit people who follow a more typical diet.

firefighter said:

I dunno I kinda have your same problem at the moment. HOw I've combatted it in the past is by eating a lot more protein and filling foods, like smaller meals thorughout the day instead of small empty calories like chips or crackers. Then exercising. And drink lots of water or tea to fill up your stomach in between meals.


Oh and while people are recommending diet journal/food tracker things, I have used a few different ones and I like sparkpeople.com the best. They have a ton of foods in their database or you can input your own, and it usually runs pretty fast and its easy to use. It tracks calories, fat, and any other nutrients that you select.

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Excellent advice, and awesome website--I used that site for awhile for their daily/weekly tip e-mails. Only used their food journal once or twice shortly before getting a subscription to another for class. It looked promising though.

Thanks for all the advice. Especially on the food diaries. I kept a food diary (like I wrote it out by hand lol) for one of my classes and that's how I found that my problem was snacking! Those little things add up quickly!

I tried Spark People but that website is a pain to get around! Plus, you have to add in a bunch of foods and just trying to find a fruit is crazy hard! I do use that website for tips though

In the mornings, I usually don't have much time so I eat like a fruit or something. I have to eat a lot for breakfast so that I'm not hungry. But then I'm still hungry at lunch. It's weird.

^^^ Fruit definitely won't fill you up for long on it's own. I highly recommend a Clif Bar (or something similar) when you're in a hurry. They're decently filling when you're on the go. I also sometimes make a healthy breakfast sandwich - whole grain mini bagel, morningstar farms fake breakfast sausage, and a tiny little piece of 2% cheese. Think protein and fiber in the morning if you want to stay full.

try eating slower. when you eat fast your not giving the food a chance to reach your stomach yet, thus youre stomach not registering that its full. when you eat slower it gives what your eating a better chance of filling your stomach, thus communicating to your body that your full

theres a lot of healthy snacks out there. just replace all the crap your snacking on for something healthier.

also you can try just eating a large breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and force yourself not to eat inbetween. eventually your body will adapt and you wont get as hungry in between meals

liquids help to fill you up, and there are some foods that fill you up more than others. for example bread and rice expand in your stomach once it makes contact with water, filling you up as a result.

on a side note, for me when i started exercising regularly, (i would eat a larger breakfast lunch or dinner since my body needed the extra energy replenishment) but i found myself becoming less hungry in between meals. i have no idea why this is but exercise actually decreased my appetite. the only logical explanation i can think of is that your body gets used to using stored fats and nutrients while working out since thats what you need to keep going. So in between meals when you get hungry, your body is telling your brain that you need those nutrients, and since your body has already become accustomed to releasing what it has stored up, that process takes over. im a personal trainer but i dont know for sure whether thats right, i have a friend whos a nutritionalist so next chance i get ill ask her

snack on healthier food and exercise. i snack quite a lot, but mainly on fruit and things

foxyloxy55 said:

I also sometimes make a healthy breakfast sandwich - whole grain mini bagel, morningstar farms fake breakfast sausage, and a tiny little piece of 2% cheese. Think protein and fiber in the morning if you want to stay full.

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Morningstar farms fake sausages are AMAZING. I love it. Have you tried the fat free cheeses? I can vouch that they can be totally delicious as well.

^ They are tasty but the ingredients aren't too awesome. Juuuust throwin' that out there--Not trying to turn the discussion into a "processed foods are baaad" discussion. ;) Morningstar Farm's fake meats (like any other processed foods) are what I call a "sometimes" food.

Back on thread: Just snack on vegetables. They're extremely low calorie. You can eat a bunch (no pun intended) before eating more than a couple hundred calories.

drink a whole glass of water before u snack

It's not how you eat or when you eat, but WHAT you eat that counts, btw. Meal frequency does not really matter.