Carbs Make You Hungry?

Q: Are there any foods that can help control appetite when dieting?

A: There are two ways I know of to help control appetite naturally. One is to be extra careful about blood sugar fluctuations. The other is to eat high-volume, low-calorie foods.

The enemy of dieting is cravings, and nothing fuels cravings like the blood sugar roller coaster. You know what it feels like: You eat something high in carbs, your blood sugar goes up to the roof, insulin comes along and shuffles all that sugar out of the bloodstream 'till it's lower than it was when you started, and now you'll kill someone if you don't get a bagel.

Interesting how you never get cravings when you eat steak and broccoli, isn't it?

So choosing really low-glycemic foods is important. I've had breakfasts based around beans, and I can tell you I haven't been hungry for hours. Anything low-glycemic — vegetables, eggs, beans, buffalo burgers — should do the trick.


And make sure there's enough fat in your meal. It keeps you full longer, a sure-fire way to control your appetite (who wants to eat when you're full?). Eating really low on the glycemic scale should go a long way towards helping control diet-busting cravings and turbo charged appetites.

High-volume foods are foods that fill up a lot of space for very little calories. These foods usually have a lot of water in them — honeydew melon, canteloupe melon, and, the dean of appetite busting foods — soup. For some reason not fully understood, the combination of the liquid and the food in the typical hearty soup is an appetite killer.

You can get the best of both worlds — low-glycemic and high-volume — by choosing soups made from stock and loaded with vegetables, meat, or beans. Other appetite-busting high-volume foods include pumpkin and guava, both of which are loaded with fiber and will fill you up like nobody's business.

Finally, there's no great science to back this up, but green tea sipped throughout the day may help as well. In addition to being thermogenic, there's some anecdotal evidence that about five cups a day really helps with weight loss.

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