That's Fit

When I was in junior high, my best friend's mother swore by an appetite suppressant with the unfortunate name of Ayds. (It's no wonder that product went off the market!) Funny thing is, by the time I graduated from high school, my friend's mom didn't seem to have lost any weight during those years. Hmm...

While that particular product has long since vanished, there are plenty of odd-sounding options to suppress your appetite. Everything from lozenges to nasal spray to pickle pops to little "shots" that look and taste like coffee creamer. Women's Health reviewed some of the options and surprisingly found that some of them actually work.

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather just opt for a small, healthful snack to curb my hunger.

Are you practicing these five weight loss tricks?

• Do you use a covered, opaque dish to house your candy? Do you keep your candy bowl off your desk top?
  
• Do you refrain from eating while multitasking to cut down on mindless consumption?
  
• Are you in touch with your own hunger, able to stop eating when you're no longer hungry?
• Have you downsized your dinnerware so you can downsize your portions?
• Are you talking more so you eat less?

If you answered in the affirmative for all five questions, pat yourself on the back. If not, that's OK. But if you want some simple techniques for tricking your body into dropping a few pounds, you ought to give a few of these a try.

There's been all kinds of stories circulating around lately on what a ridiculously huge amount of calories Olympic athlete Michael Phelps consumes every day while still managing to be totally ripped and toned. Talk about efficient calorie-burning! But you don't have to be on a crazy athletic training schedule and headed for the Olympics to learn how to burn calories better (although that certainly helps, I'm sure!), just try these 5 tips:

• Eat breakfast
• Tune in to your body's hunger cues
• Drink plenty of water
• Encourage healthy bacteria (take probiotics, eat yogurt)
  
• Go heavy on the spices (cayenne pepper, paprika, chili peppers)

After a booze-fueled night out, you'll probably find yourself gorging on junk. But don't let a few too many shots derail your diet.

If you've been eating (or feeding your kids) oatmeal for breakfast with the understanding that it's one of the healthiest choices you can make, you need to rethink your strategy.

While oatmeal can provide good nutrients, a recent study showed that kids who only ate instant oatmeal for breakfast experienced increased appetites and calorie consumption throughout the day. In fact, when compared to having a vegetable omelet and fruit, oatmeal increased appetite and calorie consumption by more than 80%. Steel-cut oats didn't have as drastic an effect as instant oatmeal, however.

The researchers attributed their findings to fluctuations in blood sugar resulting from a meal of processed grain products. Adding some protein at breakfast is essential in keeping blood sugar (and appetites) from fluctuating wildly throughout the day.

I hate a growling stomach. Well, my own growling stomach, anyway. Other people's grumbling bellies don't bother me at all. When it's mine, though, I want it to stop. Real Simple magazine (August 2008) offers two tips for people like me who wish to silence the screams.

• Eat. Our stomachs are constantly churning, and they churn more when hungry.
• Don't chew gum -- swallowing air only exacerbates the sound.
  
  

And here's my two cents: Carry around portable, healthy snacks wherever you go so you can buy some time between grumblings and mealtimes. Try some popcorn, whole wheat crackers, or a handful of nuts.

When emotions run high, a lot of people run for the fridge. Emotional eating is a complex habit. For many people, it's a habit that they've practiced for years and years -- maybe even since their childhood. Many people who eat due to emotions such as sadness, anger, depression, boredom, stressed, or loneliness, are fully aware that they are emotional eaters. Even though they're cognizant of their eating habits, in the heat of the moment it's sometimes hard to tell the difference between real hunger and emotional triggers. But knowing your body and finding healthier outlets for your emotions is important for health.

Everyday Health shares some tips on determining real, physical hunger from emotion-based hunger:

• Physical hunger builds gradually, causes your stomach to growl, isn't accompanied by a sense of compulsion, occurs hours after you last ate, and goes away after eating.
• Emotional hunger develops suddenly, is a more mental craving (when you "get a taste" for something), makes you feel like you urgently need to eat, is unrelated to the last time you ate, often has specific cravings, persists even when you're full, and leaves you feeling guilty after eating.
  

It's fairly well known that exercise can reduce hunger, which is one of the reasons that it's a mainstay of any weight loss program (in addition to building fitness and burning calories, of course). But a recent study questions that long held belief.

When researchers compared postmenopausal women in an exercise study, those who were lean did experience a drop in hunger when they exercised. But those who were obese did not. Researchers found that obese women had a higher level of a hormone called leptin in their blood, and leptin plays a role in hunger. In obese women, leptin levels did drop during moderate exercise, but not during high intensity workouts.

This is a small study, but the findings are interesting. Even if exercise doesn't reduce hunger in the obese, the many benefits of exercise make it essential to good health. But if you're obese and trying to lose weight, it might be helpful to know this information and to prepare for it as part of your diet plan.

Each week, we'll be naming a Super Food and offering unique ways to use those Super Foods that pack nutritional power. After all, you are what you eat -- make it count!

This week's superfood is not technically a food. It's a beverage. But it's the mightiest of all the beverages out there. It's refreshing, calorie-free, inexpensive ... and essential for life. Are we talking about Diet Coke here? No way. This miracle drink is, of course, water -- you know, that clear stuff that comes out of your tap and is sold in plastic bottles on stores.

I've never been a craaaaazy drinker, but I definitely had my fair share of times when I threw back one ... er, make that four or five too many. And, I've been to enough ragers to know that I'm not the only one. But it's usually around four o'clock in the morning -- when you're stumbling around, looking for someone to hook up with ... only to realize that your ride has left you and the only people left are you and a few stoners who fell asleep on a coffee table -- that you know you're in for it the next day.

Fortunately, as we get older we tend to make smarter decisions. This is especially helpful since we also fare much worse with hangovers as the years pass. One thing that doesn't change, however, is the ravenous appetite a long night of drinking can leave you with the following day. Even as your head pounds, the earth spins, and your throat burns like the Mojave desert, many times you're still in the mood for some chow (save for the times when your stomach doesn't exactly find that plan to be copacetic).

This is largely due to dehydration and low blood sugar levels. Hunger is your body's way of calling you an idiot and telling you that it needs to be replenished with fluids and nutrients. Do give into this craving; take sips of water throughout the day and eat foods high in protein and vitamins and minerals. That should at least curb your appetite. As for your hangover, well, I can't help you there.

Trying to take off the pounds? I have a trick that's worked well for me and several of my friends: Drink up. I'm not talking about calorie-laden drinks like soda, cocktails or juices. Rather, you should fill up on healthy, low-calorie liquids. We're talking water, tea, vegetable juice, soup, even diet soda and juice from time to time.

You see, sometimes when we think we're hungry, we're mostly just thirsty, and having a tall glass of water can curb your hunger and keep you from binging on junk food. So try this: Next time you feel hungry and find yourself craving something unhealthy, either chug a low-calorie drink or have a small bowl of soup. Wait 20 minutes, and if you're still hungry, have something nutritious to eat.

Go to the grocery store hungry and you're bound to crave everything in sight. Blame your "Mmm" hormone, says new research that names the natural molecule ghrelin the responsible party.

Why ghrelin? Because it improves perception and memory when it comes to food. When hunger strikes, watch out, because ghrelin makes the brain find just about every food appealing, sending us on a path to diet destruction.

Researchers have long known that ghrelin, a hormone secreted in the gut, rises and falls before and after meals. Now they're learning that this "Mmm" hormone has even more power -- it causes hunger and encourages eating.

God created appetites as a way to make sure we wouldn't forget to eat and starve to death, but somehow over the years it's turned into almost the opposite -- instead of helping us live our appetites are contributing to one of the biggest killers of our generation: obesity.

Although many work to retrain appetites and are successful, many people (me included) fight it on a pretty much daily basis -- I'm not so much training myself not to be hungry for certain things as I'm training myself to recognize when that hunger is legitimate and when it's not.

But sometimes it gets the better of me.

Here's something Sarah Jessica Parker recently said at an interview:

"Forgive me for eating potato chips in front of you, but I'm hungry. I'm always hungry. My metabolism just marches through everything."

You know, I can relate. I love food so much that I think sometimes that I could eat all day without taking a breath, but of course, I don't. What I can't relate to is having that kind of metabolism--the kind of metabolism that lets you eat potato chips at will without gaining the dreaded love handles. It kind of makes you want to hate her, huh?

Ok, so we're not all blessed with fabulous metabolisms, but all we can do it make the best f what we've got, right? And, there are things we can do to change how our body burns off calories and fat. Check out these excellent tips:

• Muscle Up, Metabolism Up
• 11 tip to help jumpstart your metabolism
• Eat more to lose more

Carbs are generally considered the enemy when it comes to weight loss, so we fervently avoid pasta, bread and potatoes, usually without seeing the results we wanted. What's behind the notion that carbs are a no-no for weight loss? And is there any truth to it?

Evidence shows that at least one carb--potatoes--isn't counter-productive to weight loss, and in fact can even help you lose weight. How so? Here are the reasons you shouldn't give up on 'taters:

• They can boost your metabolism
• They help curb hunger hormones
• They can prevent cancer and heart disease
• They can help boost your immune system.
  

Want to know more? Click here. But remember, French fries and potato chips don't count. When eating potatoes, stick to ones cooked with as little fat as possible.