Your Biggest Healthy Eating Struggles: Part 4, Hunger Problems
In our private group, you shared some of your biggest struggles for keeping up healthier eating habits and this week we are sharing our weapons so you can combat them too and make real, lasting changes.
We recently talked about finding healthy foods boring, today we are talking about feeling deprived whilst trying to eat healthily. Know the feeling? Read 
on…
One of our members commented;
“Feeling satisfied with what I am eating, not feeling deprived.”
I feel like this is a big problem among women who want to lose weight. We have been taught to eat less and exercise more if we want to ‘shape up’, so we focus on doing that and it becomes ridiculously hard!
One of my main missions with Size HH is to take the attention away from eating less, and focus only on eating the foods that will collaborate with your body in such a way, that it does most of the work for you. The results will be far greater and the journey is much more fulfilling. It is totally possible to lose weight without dieting, although we do not encourage focusing on weight at all.
So, instead of focusing on diet meals and foods you ‘shouldn’t’ have, only think about filling yourself up on delicious fresh foods, from each of 
nutrition groups, and wash it down with plenty of water. If you do this first and foremost, your body will be in a good state to cope with anything else you may throw its way.
That is your mission – to find and eat plenty of awesome foods that your body will welcome, rather than work to get rid of, or counteract. This will start you off with a different approach and mindset to your meals.
You won’t be looking at it like ‘oh I can’t have my favourite dish tonight as I’m on a diet’, instead you will be looking at it like, ‘Mmmm this meal is going to work wonders inside my body and help me to feel and look my best.’
Plus, when you are fueling yourself like this, treats are there to be enjoyed! You don’t have to completely cut out sweet foods, just make sure you feed yourself enough of the nutrients you need first.
The image above shows the nutrients we need each and every day – Proteins, healthy carbs, good fats, fibre, vitamins, minerals, and water. So, these are the foods to be filling yourself up on at each meal time. You can find examples of each in the Size HH book.
All these nutrients need each other to do their own job correctly, so it’s no use skipping any of them. Some people think if they just cut back on food altogether, even fruits and veg, then they will end up with the body they want. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. I know from personal experience!
Your portion
Then comes portion size, every body is different with varied lifestyles, so the ideal portion sizes for you will vary, but there are easy ways to judge the right portion sizes for you by using your hands as rough measuring guides. The palm of your hand size for protein, a cupped hand of starchy carbs, one/two fists worth of non starch vegetables/salad and a thumb size of good fats. If your regular dinner plates are large, try using slightly smaller plates so that you are not looking at empty spots thinking you don’t have enough on there to fill you up.
Take your time
Devour your meal and chew each mouthful well. It may sound ridiculous in an article about how to feel satisfied from healthy meals but the slower you eat, the more satisfied you will feel from any meal. The quicker you eat, the more likely you will want something else afterwards. Don’t forget your water.
Last but not least
Gratitude – be grateful for every meal in front of you, whatever it looks like and whatever its size. If you were forced to eat nothing but bugs and shrubs on a desert island for a week, you would sure be thankful for any food after that, so be thankful now as you eat it. It creates a whole new vibe in your mind and a new type of satisfaction.
Remember it’s not just the food we eat it’s how we eat it and how we think about it that keeps us satisfied.