Weight-loss tips for men: Listen to your body

　　I wrote, “Eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full – a simple piece of advice”. But is it that easy?
A reader commented on that tip which I included in the June 2009 issue of Healthy Food Guide magazine.They said this wasn’t good advice for weight-loss because it’s near impossible to trust your appetite when you are trying to lose weight.
When I was over 130kg, if someone had told me I should “eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full”, there’s no doubt I would have had a similar reaction – in fact I still feel that way sometimes! But if you ask a bloke who has never struggled with weight and body image issues, this tip is just commonsense.

The difference is in the function of a person’s appestat (that part of your brain that tells you when you are hungry and full). In my view, this ‘appestat’ is both physical and psychological: although we have physical hunger and fullness cues, we can confuse physical hunger with some other type of desire – favourites for men include relieving boredom, anxiety, anger or frustration. The function of the physical side of the appestat is the basis of the normal ‘portion control’ weight-loss advice as this will give your body a chance to physically register the food and respond with a physical signal of fullness.
This can work but it’s not ideal advice for everyone as portion control will certainly not satisfy psychological hunger. This is not to say I don’t attempt to control portions – it’s just that sometimes I don’t have enough food and other times I have too much, and these days I try to let my body tell me which is which.
Recognising feelings of hunger and fullness is a fraught business, and it can be tricky explaining to those trying to lose weight what people who have never had weight issues experience. By allowing your body to call the shots I think you can reinstate the function of your physical and psychological appestat (most of the time) and develop a relationship with food that feels more natural.