Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - How to Lose Weight Without Restrictive Dieting (HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT!)

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Amazon: The Hunger Crushing Combo MethodThis book teaches you how to build satisfying, blood-sugar-balancing meals and snacks using my signature HCC formula of protein, fiber, and healthy fats. No diets. No guilt. No restriction. Just smart, balanced, deeply satisfying nourishment for any goal.Whether you’re navigating PCOS, ADHD, menopause, weight management, fitness, or feeding a picky toddler, there’s an HCC for you. Inside the book you’ll find: 30 delicious, no-fuss recipes Practical cheat sheets Goal-based strategies Tips for adding nutrition without taking away joyThis episode of Bite Back dives specifically into the weight loss applications of the HCC where we talk about WHY protein, fiber and healthy fats are such essential weight loss superstars, how to combine them for optimal results, and why an additive approach like the HCC helps prevent binging and restricting behaviors that interfere with long term weight management success.I would LOVE if you would pre-order The Hunger Crushing Combo Method at one of the links below. By doing so, you make a massive difference in the success of the book and my ability to spread this evidence-based additive nutrition framework to the masses! As a token of my appreciation, folks who pre-order will get a free HCC Holiday Survival Guide with tips on how to build balanced meals and snacks this festive season.Thank you from the bottom of my fiber-loving, protein-packing heart.See you next time on Bite Back with Abbey Sharp. Here’s where you can pre-order and read more about my latest book:The Hunger Crushing Combo MethodAbbey’s KitchenBarnes and NobleBooks A MillionBookshop.org Amazon Kindle Apple BooksBarnes & Noble NookGoogle Play Kobo Apple Books (Audio) Audible Kobo (Audio) Libro.FM Audiobooks.comGoogle Play (Audio) Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider.If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com.   🥤 Check out my 2-in-1 Plant Based Probiotic Protein Powder, neue theory at www.neuetheory.com or @neuetheory and use my promo code BITEBACK20 to get 20% off your order! Don’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. ✉️ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTERS ⤵️Neue Theory newsletterAbbey's Kitchen newsletter 🥞 FREE HUNGER CRUSHING COMBO™ E-BOOK! 💪🏼 FREE PROTEIN 101 E-BOOK! 📱 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchenTikTok: @abbeyskitchenYouTube: @AbbeysKitchen My blog, Abbey’s Kitchen www.abbeyskitchen.comMy book, The Mindful Glow Cookbook affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3NoHtvf If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review with your thoughts and let me know who you want me to discuss next!

How the heck could I ever lose weight if I'm just thinking about what I'm adding to my meals and not taking away? Let me explain. Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abby Sharp, where I dismantle diet culture rules, call it the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. Today is a very, very, very exciting episode for me because I finally get to spill the beans on something I have been building for almost a decade. And it is finally here. My long-awaited book, The Hunger Crushing Combot Method, will be landing on your doorstep and in bookstores across the nation on January 13th. And it is for pre-use. order as of today. For years, you have been sharing how much the hunger crush and combo framework

has helped you with your nutrition goals and your relationship with food. And you have been begging for a full book for years. So you need to know that this would not have ever been possible without you. It has been quite the journey getting here, but I promise you, I am so proud of this thing, it is so, so worth the weight. But if you're new to the framework, let me give you the TLDR. The hunger crushing combo is an additive gentle nutrition framework designed to serve as an evidence-based alternative to all the rigid diet rules that have failed you in the past. Rather than focusing on a laundry list of what you need to remove from your diet, it shifts the focus onto what we can add. Namely, our hunger crushing compounds, fiber, protein, and healthy fats.

I know this seems so simple, but I promise you the results are pure magic. Cravings disappear, hunger and fullness cues are restored, you have space in your life to think about things other than food, and you're able to fuel your body for your goals without deprivation or denial. Part of the reason why my hunger crush and combo has been such a game changer for so many people is that it can be utilized and adapted to suit any and every lifestyle preference and goal. And in the book, I have specific chapters on tips to use the framework for managing insulin resistance, diabetes and PCOS, fitness and sports goals, paramedopause and menopause, feeding a healthy family, and as we are going to discuss in this episode specifically, reaching and maintaining

a healthy body weight. If you've been on and off the diet wagon for years, cycling through weight watchers, keto, intermittent fasting, and like juice cleanses, you probably are well acquainted with the experience of feeling deprived. It sucks, to be honest, and our brain and our body typically aren't so chill about it. The more you tell yourself you can't have something you want, whether that's just enough calories to not feel hungry or specific foods that you love, the harder your body fights back. Eventually, the willpower runs dry, the hanger overtakes you, and bam, you binge. Cue the crushing guilt, the tightening of the restrictive rains even harder, and a repeat cycle a week later.

It is truly exhausting and ultimately hugely ineffective long term. The HCC is not another restrictive diet. In fact, I don't like to call it a diet at all because it's not designed as a set of strict rules with a singular goal of dropping LBs. It is a 180 mindset shift that can effortlessly fuel your body, in ways that feel good, both physically and emotionally, without dipping into that scarcity mentality that fuels a binge. With the hunger-crushing combo, you are not giving up the foods you love,

so you got that emotional satisfaction, and you're eating in a way that prevents gnawing hunger, aka you've got physical satiety. And this is obviously critical if you're on a weight loss journey, but it's equally so for any and every other circumstance or goal. But let's focus on its potential use for folks who do desire weight loss. And if this is you, I know what you're probably thinking. How the heck could I ever lose weight if I'm just thinking about what I'm adding to my meals and not taking away? Doesn't weight loss always require a calorie deficit? it? Yeah, it does. But it doesn't have to leave you feeling deprived. Let me explain.

When we start to allow ourselves permission to incorporate the foods that we love, we stop obsessing over and then eventually binging on the quote, quote, bad foods that we are not supposed to have. This is the first step in understanding how food makes us feel. What keeps us fuller longer. What makes our workouts or our work days feel easier? What gets us through that 3 p.m. slump without raiding the communal candy dish. In my book, I call foods like candy and other refined carb foods, naked carbs, because they are stripped of the hunger crushing compounds that help you feel full. But when you add hunger crushing compounds that are inherently filling and that feel good to your body,

you naturally start to edge out the less nutritious, high-calorie, naked carbs that tend to leave you hungry for a snack again soon after. Without that extra snack or extra serving of white pasta, you naturally and effortlessly create a calorie deficit. The hunger-crushing combo therefore crushes the emotional cravings and the physical hunger, so you never find yourself polishing off a quart of ice cream saying diet starts again tomorrow. Let's go over the three hunger crushing compounds and why they are so

critical to supporting your healthiest, happiest weight without restriction. Let's start with protein. Protein is what I call king of the satiety hierarchy, making it a key nutrient to prioritize during weight loss. Research suggests that changes to protein intake has the biggest influence on sustainable fat loss, and there are a number of reasons for this. The first has to do with how protein is digested. Unlike refined carbs or naked carbs, protein takes hours to digest, which stimulates a bundle of our nervous system called the vagus nerve to tell us that we are full. It also burns more calories to digest protein than any other macronutrient. About 20 to 30% of the calories in protein are actually just burned up by digesting it. Protein is also really good at pumping out

key satiety hormones like peptide YY and GLP1. And yes, we are talking about the same GLP1 hormone that drugs like Ozempic work to boost that helps secrete insulin to help lower blood sugar levels, slow digestion, and reduce appetite and hunger. And it's not just physical hunger, but higher protein diets also help to reduce food cravings and food noise for less nutritious high sugar foods. We also know that when you're in a calorie deficit, protein needs are significantly higher because we don't want to just lose any old weight. We want to preserve our muscle while losing body fat. In other words, we want our muscles to be preferentially fed with adequate protein to prevent cutting into our metabolism boosting muscle mass.

In the hunger-crushing combo method, I go into a lot more really cool details about the science of the power of protein. I also break down evidence-based ideal protein targets in ratios for meals and snacks, and I give loads of examples of how to meet your protein needs without tracking, weighing, or counting. Next, let's talk fiber. There is a reason why most diets, both the good and the bad ones, recommend eating more plants. And fiber is kind of a big deal. Unfortunately, nearly 95% of adults are not meeting the minimum targets for good health. Never mind, for supporting weight loss. Like protein, fiber adds bulk to the gut and digests really slowly, while also slowing

down the absorption of other foods, including naked carbs, to keep you fuller longer. It pumps out satiety hormones and feeds our good gut bacteria, which actually play their own important role in body weight management. I actually get into some super, super cool science on why 100 calories of naked carbs, isn't the same as 100 calories of hunger crushing compounds in the book, so definitely want to look out for that. But perhaps the biggest reason why fiber is such a weight loss food staple is because it has the lowest calorie density of anything we can eat. In other words, you get a lot of food, but not a lot of calories per bite. This concept of calorie density

helps explain why highly processed foods like naked carbs are generally associated with weight gain, but a whole food unprocessed diet packed with fiber-rich fruits and vegetables is linked to weight loss. In the book, I give some strategic guidelines for what to aim for at meals and snacks, as well as loads of visual cues of what that even would look like without having to count, so that you can reap all of the fiber rewards. And then there's healthy fats. Fat is finally having its moment after years of us all being told that we have to eat fat-free cheese and jello to avoid gaining weight.

But in stark contrast with fiber, which offers very few calories per gram, and protein, which offers four, fat is the highest calorie density macro, with nine calories. calories per gram. That said, fat is super slow digesting. It stimulates the tidy hormones and reduces the hunger hormone graylin. And perhaps most importantly, it brings the satisfaction factor. Fat enhances the flavor, texture, and the sensual experience of eating so that we feel like we actually ate something good. I mean, just try to eat a bowl of lettuce without any kind of dressing or nuts or cheese or avocado. And you tell me how satisfying that rabbit food is. It's not. So in the hunger crushing combo method, I give lots more detail

on best practices and specific tips on how to capitalize on fat superpowers for supporting a healthy weight without adding so many calories that it prevents a calorie deficit necessary for weight loss. So let's go over a few examples to show you how the hunger-crushing combo could play out. Let's just start with the old dieting version of you. Maybe this month you are intermittent fasting, so you are probably physically hungry, and you're cutting back on all carbs, so you're emotionally deprived. And on one particularly stressful workday, your co-worker brings in a box of white chocolate cranberry scones from your favorite gourmet bakery.

By the time the clock hits noon and your feasting window begins, you say, F it! Dide starts again tomorrow and you dive head first into a scone the size of your head. Sure, the craving is crushed, but you also took in like 500 unexpected calories and now you're feeling physically. uncomfortable from the sugar rush and emotionally tormented by your quote-quote failure. Now, I want to make it absolutely clear here. You are not a failure. Of course you're going to want to eat the whole scone in one go and you haven't had a damn carb in a month. I am also not demonizing scones or any naked carbs. They are delicious. They bring us joy. And I want you to include foods that bring you joy. But nutritionally, scones are mostly naked carbs without any real hunger crushing compounds to anchor them. So they're just not very satiating. It's therefore not a

surprise that like an hour later, you're poking around the cupboards again for an energy boost. You've already, quote unquote, ruined your diet, so you eat a chocolate-coated granola bar, pound back a few handfuls of cheese crackers, and wash it down with a sweet, sweetened coffee drink. And then of course, by mid-afternoon, you feel that familiar energy slump creeping back. You can see how easy it is to rack up the calories without ever actually feeling full. So let's try this again using the hunger crushing combo framework. The smell of those sugary scones hits your cubicle, so you go over to take a look. You know how good they are, so you're not going to deny yourself a taste, but you also have some experience that tells you

that just having a monster scone for like breakfast doesn't always feel so good. Let's be real, we're no spring chickens over here. So you slice yourself off a chunk to crush the craving, and you pair it with a protein shake made with a scoop of protein powder for protein, a handful of berries for fiber, and a little spoonful of almond butter for healthy fats. Adding those super satiating hunger crushing compounds slashed around 75 calories from what you'd consume if you had had the naked carb scone alone, but more importantly, it kept you satiated longer to also make the 400 calories of follow-up snacks completely obsolete.

And that is how you create a calorie deficit without denial. You quite literally can have your cake or muffin or scone or chips and feel good eating it too. And if you're thinking, well, what if I feel deprived only eating like a third of the scone? And that is where the mental mind shift comes in. When we focus on how building balanced plates make us feel both physically and emotionally, we begin to see the scone plus shake, not as another portion controlled diet, but one that innately feels like self-care. And I might add that sometimes that self-care is going to mean not having any hunger-crushing compounds in your meal at all. Sometimes it's going to mean just eating the

naked carbs in their birthday suit because that is what you need in the moment. And that permission is absolutely essential to the sustainability of this mentality shift. But I promise you, once you feel the difference of balance, you will very quickly find yourself exiting the bench or strict roller coaster ride for good. Now let's talk some examples. And the most important thing that you need to know here is that a lot of foods don't neatly fit into one of the three categories. A lot of foods are what I call dual citizens because they offer fiber and protein or protein and fat or fat and fiber. Some, like a lot of nuts and seeds, offer relative amounts of all three. If you're fussing over where foods quote belong, you are totally overcomplicating the process. All of those foods

are great choices, so just eat more of them and you'll be in great shape. But let's start with my personal go-to, no-think, no-cook breakfast. I do a big bowl of cottage cheese for protein, a handful or two of berries for fiber, and a heaping spoon or two of hemp parts for healthy fats and protein. Want to make it more fun? Add in a handful of your favorite naked carb sweet cereal for crunch. Yes, my friends, you can have lucky charms at breakfast and still reach your health goals. Lunch could be a veggie and wild rice loaded salad for fiber, grilled salmon for protein and healthy fats, and some diced avocado for fiber and healthy fats. See all those dual citizens? They are key for getting the best nutrient bang for your caloric buck.

Dinner is also easy to conceptualize within the framework. We could do some quinoa for protein and fiber, a tofu and vegetable curry for protein and fiber, and a sprinkle of cash. shoes for healthy fats. And let's throw some more naked carbs in the mix for dessert. Rather than plowing through two rows of Oreos and going to bed on a sugar high sure to disrupt your sleep, how about we crumble a cookie or two on top of a bowl of chocolate chia pudding loaded with fiber, protein, and healthy fats. Then I top it off with some berries and almonds for some more fiber and fats respectively. Honestly, it is so, so, so good. And the possibility, here are truly endless. In the hunger-crushing combo method, I give you cheat-sheets of the best

sources of protein, fiber, and healthy fats in order of their hunger-crushing combo potential, creative combos to get you started, fun ways to turn quote-unquote unhealthy foods into balanced meals and snacks, along with 30 different fully adaptable and customizable recipes. And as I said at the top of the show, while I chose to focus today's episode on its application for healthy weight management with a subsection for those on GLP-1s. The framework is truly appropriate for everyone, and the book offers specific chapters on insulin resistance, diabetes, and PCOS, fitness and sports nutrition goals, paramenopause and menopause nutrition, and how to use the framework to help feed your family without a fight.

And on that note, that's it. Honestly, it has been a ride to get to the this point and I just want you to know how amazingly grateful I have been of all your support and enthusiasm about the hunger crushing combo and just how it has changed your life. I love to hear these stories. I'm telling you, this book would never have happened without you. And as I said at the top, pre-sales are so critically important to the success of a book. So it would mean everything to me if you would check out the link. and pre-order yours today. Signing off with Science and Sass.

I'm Abby Sharp. Thanks for listening.