Aggressive Appetite?

Hello,

This week it seems that everybody has the same question: Why am I so hungry?!

If your appetite has grown recently, here are a few common causes & solutions:

1. The weather. Being cold increases appetite, so bundle up and keep your favorite teas on hand.

2. The holidays. Holiday scents, stress and sleep deprivation can all increase appetite, so make sure to get to bed earlier, schedule some relaxation and throw out any tempting leftovers.

3. TV. Did you watch the football games over Thanksgiving? Next time, use Tivo and skip the ads. Watching tv commercials for snacks and restaurants makes you want to eat more. Interestingly, it also contributes to unrealistic body image issues. What a bummer to want to eat more while simultaneously wanting to be more unrealistically lean and buff!

4. A few “cheats”. Did you have a few extra sweet, savory or salty treats for Thanksgiving? Maybe eat ’til you were stuffed? Unless you are a food-saint, probably so! Unfortunately, it only takes one of these “cheats” to increase your appetite, either because your taste buds were de-sensitized or because you stretched your stomach. If this is the case, you’ll have to ride this one out and wait for your body to return to it’s normal state. It’s worth it–you don’t want to keep your stomach in it’s post-Thanksgiving stretched state.

Two other solutions are peppermint tea and red cayenne pepper. They’ve both been shown to reduce appetite.

If that doesn’t work, just stick your tongue to a frozen pole. Just kidding! Anyone who has ever done this, as I have, knows it isn’t nearly as funny as it sounds…

Have a good week,

Jill