An Unusual Way to Manage Your Appetite

So many people are looking for ways to control and manage their appetite. From pills to meal plans to elaborate exercise routines, the diet industry has made a big business claiming to help people suppress their appetite, yet the number of people who struggle with this never seems to go down. Some are afraid to give in to their desires with food because they don’t know if they’ll ever be able to stop, while others just wish they craved more of what’s good for them and less of what’s not. So if you’d like to have a breakthrough with your appetite, you won’t want to miss this eye-opening new video from IPEtv. Marc David, Founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, explains why the most common ways to control our appetite simply don’t work, and offers a surprising, doable approach that will help you transform your appetite like never before.

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Here is a transcript of this week’s video:

Greetings, friends. I’m Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. Let’s talk about an unusual way to manage and control your appetite.

Now, so many people these days are trying to figure out, “How do I manage this thing called my appetite? Because if I manage my appetite, I manage my weight. I manage my body fat. And I can have the perfect body. And I can just be the person I want to be.” I get it.

It’s a beautiful thing.

And it seems like we’re faced with this crazy epidemic of out-of-control eating. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this conversation. The number of people who are dealing with weight gain or the inability to lose weight seems like it’s due to this appetite that has kind of run wild on us.

So in a moment I’m going to share with you—give me a few minutes—I’m going to share with you what I’ve discovered after a helluva lot of time, 30+ years in the clinical space in nutrition and eating psychology, what I think is the most foolproof way to regulate your appetite and how it can be at its most natural and ideal state.

But first, I’m going to tell you what doesn’t work when it comes to regulating your appetite because we’ve got to detoxify from the nonsense that’s in here that simply doesn’t work.

So here’s what does not work for regulating your appetite.

Number one, willpower. No one can use the power of their mind to defeat appetite because appetite is necessary for life. Think about that. You can’t use the power of your mind to stop breathing. You can use the power of your mind to maybe stop breathing for two minutes. But that’s pretty much about it for the average person. You cannot limit what is real and natural to your biology.

Next what doesn’t work is endless dieting, people who are constantly calorie restricting, food restricting. When you restrict the amount of calories in food unnaturally in your diet, the brain doesn’t like it. And the brain screams, “Hungry!” So constant dieting, it deregulates appetite.

What doesn’t work is trying to skip meals and hold off from eating when you’re hungry because that’s the brain telling you it’s time to eat. It’s going to make you even more desperate for food. And then it’s going to look later on like binge eating or overeating.

What does not work is eating a lot of junk food. Why? Because junk food is very low in nutrient density. Your body is scanning the meal. Your brain is scanning the meal looking for nutrition, micronutrition, minerals, vitamins, macronutrition, proteins, fats, carbohydrate. If your body is not getting what it needs, it screams, “Hungry!”

Next, what doesn’t work is eating really low, low, low fat, because EFAs, essential fatty acids, they’re essential for life. If you try to go low-fat, you are cheating the body of what it needs. It’s like trying to cheat the body of oxygen. What do you do when you can’t breathe? You go [inhales deeply]. So when you’re not getting enough fat, your body screams for healthy fat.

Okay, there’s a few more things.

But let’s get down to business.

Here’s the one thing that does work when it comes to regulating appetite. And I want to tell you this has been a well-kept secret. But it should be headline news. The best way to regulate your appetite is to eat. And I really mean that.

And let me tell you what I mean. It’s to eat. Stop trying to fight your appetite. Stop making food the enemy. Stop trying to deny your body food. The brain, the central nervous system will literally scream louder for food. Stop the dieting. If it could have removed weight from your body permanently, it would have done so a long time ago.

Ask yourself, “How long have I been dieting?” And if it’s more than two years and it hasn’t worked for you, then your strategy doesn’t work. We have to learn to eat. You have to learn to get in right relationship with food, with your body, with the rest of your life. Have regular meals. Make friends with food. Call off the dogs. You need to be nourished by food.

Let go of the anxiety, the stress chemistry, because when we’re fighting food, when we’re fighting our appetite, we’re creating stress chemistry. More insulin, more cortisol signals the brain to store weight, store fat, not build muscle, just the opposite of what we want. And those hormones will deregulate appetite. They’re going to cause us to eat more. Eating is this beautiful, natural affair. And when we learn to relax into it and not come into it with all our fears, life gets good.

So that’s your goal.

Here’s an analogy that might be useful. Imagine you were in a relationship one time and you got really hurt. Well, you could try avoiding people and avoiding romance again and try to make sure no one comes around who can hurt you. But your life would kind of be a bit silly and a bit lonely and a bit miserable if it didn’t have people and it didn’t have love and it didn’t have intimacy.

And maybe someplace along the lines, your relationship with food got a little hurt. Maybe somebody told you, “You’re too fat. You’re too this,” whatever it is. Just as we need to learn how to get back into relationship with other humans, we need to learn how to get back into relationship with food.

Start dating food again, but in a way where you fall in love with it, where you fall in love with your body, because food is life. It’s life. Your body is life. Your relationship with food is life. And when you learn how to trust food and trust your natural instincts, your natural appetite emerges. And it’s a wisdom. And it takes over. And it regulates for you. And you feel good.

And that, my friends, is the magic of life.

Warmly,
Marc David