Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - 4 Ways to Improve Hunger Control and Weight Loss

Episode Date: May 15, 2018

The #1 weight loss problem that I help people with is, by far, sticking to their diet.This is especially the case with people that are new to a healthy weight loss regimen, which requires that you remain in a caloric deficit for many weeks, as opposed to a crash diet that you suffer through for a short period of time.The overall experience of being in a caloric deficit varies dramatically. For some (lucky bastards), it causes little-to-no uncomfortable symptoms–no hunger issues, no cravings, no energy lows. For others (the rest of us mere mortals), it can get quite tough due to hunger pangs, intense cravings (usually brought on by simple hunger), and a lingering lethargy (which can be particularly bad when you go low-carb).What gives? And what can we do to stave off hunger and stick to our diets? Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for men, bigger,, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 350,000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands and thousands of guys build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that are keeping you from achieving the lean, muscular, strong, and healthy body that you truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate male body, then you want to read Bigger, Leaner,

Stronger, which you can find on all major online retailers like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audiobooks. I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend doing stuff like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth, so much more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, then simply go to www.bitly.com slash free BLS.

And that will take you to Audible. And then you just click the sign up today and save button, create your account. And voila, you get to listen to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for free. All righty. That is enough shameless plugging for now, at least. Let's get to the show. Hey, Mike Matthews here from Muscle for Life and Legion Athletics. And in this video podcast, we're going to talk about how to better control hunger when you're dieting for fat loss. This is a very important aspect of dieting because a number of studies

have shown that the number one reason why most people's weight loss efforts fail is lack of dietary compliance. They just can't stick to their diets. Now, of course, part of that is due to the fact that many of the weight loss diets out there, especially many of the mainstream weight loss diets, are inherently very hard to stick to. They're usually very restrictive, so they don't let you eat many of the foods that you like to eat and force you to eat foods that you don't really like to eat. They're also often very low calorie, which just comes with more side effects. So the fewer calories you eat, the faster you can lose weight, but also the faster you can lose muscle and generally the worst you're going to feel. Many mainstream weight loss diets are also too low in protein,

which generally means less fat loss, more muscle loss, and more hunger. Now, before we get to the four specific ways to improve hunger control, you should know that hunger is just a natural consequence of dieting. No matter how well you are doing everything in and outside of the kitchen, you probably are going to be generally hungrier than usual when you are dieting. I don't want to dive too deep into the weeds here, but the long story short is your body's natural appetite is regulated primarily by three hormones, insulin, leptin, and ghrelin. Now when you eat food, insulin levels rise to help your body process and absorb the food that you ate. Leptin levels also rise, telling your body that it is fed. And then as your body processes and absorbs the food that

you just ate, insulin levels fall, leptin levels fall, until settling into a low baseline level. And then as time passes, ghrelin levels slowly rise, which makes your body hungry. So ghrelin turns on hunger. Leptin turns off hunger. Insulin helps your body process and absorb the food that you are eating. Now, studies show that when you are in a calorie deficit, and especially when you're in a calorie deficit over a longer period of time, your circulating levels of leptin go down and your circulating levels of ghrelin go up. So what that means is you are generally just going to be hungrier because generally what that is doing is that's sending a message to your body that it is being underfed. It needs to get more food, which is of course what you are doing when you're dieting. It's mild starvation. Research also shows that circulating

leptin levels decrease even further as you get leaner, which is why dieting does get harder as you get leaner. You've probably experienced that before. In the beginning of a cut, things are pretty easy. The first week is maybe a little bit rough because it takes a week or two to adjust to the lower level of calories. But from there, it's pretty much smooth sailing. But toward the end of the cut, especially if you're going from lean-ish to really lean, you start to notice the effects more. So what you need to know here is some level of hunger and discomfort is normal when you're dieting. For me personally, even when I'm cutting to get very lean, I would say that my general hunger level doesn't really change, but I start to get hungrier in between meals, whereas

normally I don't. I'll start to notice it. I like to eat every three to four hours or so. It's just how I prefer to eat. Also, from a muscle building and muscle preservation perspective, it is probably best to have 30 to 40 grams of high-quality protein every four-ish hours. And so what I'll notice though is as I am getting leaner and leaner, especially when I'm starting to get down into the 8% body fat range and below, I do feel hungry as I'm approaching my next meal. So every few hours or so I am feeling hungry. Okay, so let's get to the four tips that I want to share with you for controlling hunger. The four best ways to mitigate hunger as much as possible when you're dieting. So the first one is to get 30 or 40% of your daily calories from protein and ideally include some protein in each meal that you eat.

The long story short here is protein is simply your best friend when you're dieting because not only does it help you maximally preserve muscle, research has shown time and time again that a high protein diet is best for regulating appetite. Now there are several reasons for this, but one of them is that a high protein diet appears to increase leptin sensitivity, meaning that your body literally becomes more sensitive to leptin and therefore you generally feel fuller and more satisfied by the food that you eat. feel fuller and more satisfied by the food that you eat. mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness.

Twitter at Muscle for Life and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Okay, so tip number two is don't heavily restrict your carbs. Do not follow a very low carb diet like the ketogenic diet, for example, which is super trendy these days. Now, I've worked with thousands of men and women over the years and time and time again, I hear from people who are trying to follow some form of low carb dieting because they think it's going to help them lose fat faster, which it will not, but they simply can't stick to it because they get too hungry. Now, this isn't exactly surprising because studies have shown that dietary fat is not very effective for increasing leptin levels, which again, remember, that's what tells your body that it has energy. It doesn't need food. That's what makes you feel

full. And research also shows that a low carb, high fat diet also reduces circulating leptin levels, which of course just makes you generally feel hungrier. Now, of course, science deals with averages. Remember that. So what I just said is not going to be true for everyone. There are some people who actually do generally feel fuller and just do better on a low carb, high fat diet when cutting. But if you're like most people, you're going to do better the other way around. You're going to do better with a higher carb, lower fat diet. And one of the reasons for that is studies show that carbohydrate is very effective at increasing leptin levels. In fact, it is the best of the three macronutrients that we pay the most attention to, protein, carbs, and fat, for increasing leptin levels. And studies also show that the more carbohydrate that you generally eat, the higher your leptin levels generally are.

And this is why I generally recommend a high-protein, high-carb diet for people that are cutting. It is very satiating, it is very satisfying, and it just works very well for most people. This has been shown in a number of studies as well, including studies where people were allowed to eat as much as they wanted in each meal. To quote researchers from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, in conclusion, a low-fat diet high in protein and fiber-rich carbohydrates, mainly from different vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, is highly satiating for fewer calories than fatty foods.

This diet composition provides good sources of vitamins, minerals, trace elements, and fiber and may have the most beneficial effect on blood lipids and blood pressure levels. Okay, tip number three is to increase your fiber intake. Now, of course, fiber is an indigestible portion of food that absorbs water as it moves through the digestive tract and it makes for good poops. But research also shows that it increases satiety. It increases fullness. Now, most people do not get enough fiber in their diets, especially when they're cutting and especially insoluble fiber, which is particularly important for gut health. The Institute of Medicine recommends 14 grams of total fiber per 1,000 calories eaten, and many people do not get even close to that.

Now, the easiest way to increase your fiber intake is to simply eat enough fruit and vegetables, two to three servings of fruit and vegetables per day and particularly fibrous fruit and vegetables if you really want to micromanage. But if you just eat fruits and vegetables that you like, if you eat a good variety of fruits and vegetables, colorful fruits, green vegetables, and plus others, you'll be fine. Okay, the fourth and final tip for mitigating hunger when you're dieting is to avoid high glycemic carbs, but not for the reasons that most people give, which is that they are just inherently unhealthy, which is not true, or that they interfere with fat loss, not true, or cause fat gain, not true. Now, in case you're not familiar with the glycemic index, it's simply a scale that shows how quickly a carbohydrate is

digested and impacts your blood sugar levels. So for example, table sugar, quite high on the glycemic index, broccoli, quite low. Now, just so you understand this tip, when I say eat mostly low glycemic carbs, when you're cutting, what I'm saying is stick to carbs that are below 55 on the scale. Anything 55 and below is generally considered a low GI carb. And then you have a kind of middle from 56 to 69, and then 70 and above is considered high. And the reason why I'm recommending this is research shows that the rapid absorption of glucose that occurs after you eat a high GI carb, and especially if you eat a lot of high GI carbs in one sitting, it causes hormonal

and metabolic changes that result in the desire to eat more. It also doesn't help that many of the high GI carbs that people like to eat are highly processed, nutritionally bankrupt junk foods, so to speak, that are usually low, not just in nutritional value, but also fiber. Oh, and bonus tip, tip five, get enough sleep. Big, big part of controlling hunger because when you restrict your sleep, when you don't sleep enough, your leptin levels drop and your ghrelin levels rise. Your body says, feed me. Case in point, in one study, people who slept five hours had 15% lower leptin and 15% higher ghrelin levels than people who slept eight hours. That's a lot. That's significant because that's a 30% swing in terms of percentage points in an absolute sense. You're going from a baseline and you're going 15% lower on the good

and 15% higher on the bad. You're going to feel that. And that really helps explain why research shows that people who sleep less are generally fatter than people who sleep more. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified

when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for men, Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. Now,

this book has sold over 350,000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands and thousands of guys build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that are keeping you from achieving the lean, muscular, strong, and healthy body that you truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate male body, then you want to read Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which you can find on all major online retailers like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audiobooks.

I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend doing stuff like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth so much more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, then simply go to www.bitly.com slash free BLS. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just click the sign up today and save button, create your account, and voila, you get to listen to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for free.