Appetite management is the holy grail of diet success. With it you don’t have to rely on willpower.

Everyone can get a sixpack once they understand the role of appetite and hunger. Look deep into theirselves and know what the body and mind really needs. This without the reach to a needle and injecting Ozempic. Just becoming a slave to pharmacy and hooked onto it like a meth addict.

Most failed diets come down to this:

• yo-yo back up, regaining even more weight than they lost very quick;
• losing motivation because they begin to feel lethargic, lose their drive and strength;
• or newest phenomenon, people sharing how addicted they’ve become to Ozempic or similar. Experiencing side effects and scared to ever come off…

Perhaps you’ve seen the starved looking unhealthy Ozempic transformations. Shit gets injected so high that it completely nukes your appetite. Might sound great at first, until your body lacks nutrients and goes catabolic. Looking like a zombie.

You need to know that dieting, and ultimately appetite control, is not only about “willpower”. The biggest money pot in the fitness industry is in believing you that and monetizing off of it. Hooking you onto the shortcuts. Selling pills, peptides and mostly other scam.

You don’t need to get rid of appetite and hunger signaling. Much like you don’t get rid of a depression taking pills. It is an interplay of biology, psychology, and habits.

I speak of ‘control’ cause it is your portal to the flow state. It’s what makes dieting seem effortless, driving your internal connection up with each day and week. You adhere so good — leading to better results, further feeding into the positive feedback loop.

That’s a long intro. To get you fired up and let you know you can actually ENJOY a diet. THIS ALLOWS YOU TO STAY SHREDDED FOREVER. A lean body doesn’t nuke your hormones, doesn’t make you feel drained, is not impossible for you to maintain NO MATTER YOUR STARTING POINT.

WHAT DRIVES APPETITE AND HUNGER

I like to split it. Hunger is to signal your body true need for energy and nourishment. It’s physiological. Appetite is hedonic, just pure cravings for pleasure and distraction. Make the distinction between both. Get mindful during a diet.

Hunger gets experienced because of low blood sugar, empty stomach, or nutrient deficiencies. Sometimes it could also just be you being dehydrated. An electrolyte mix and big glass of water can make a huge difference.

Appetite comes from emotional uprise or your environment. Like going to a party with open buffet, having too many sweets at home, or stress-eating. How many people have a sweet drawer at work? It’s poison for your success. This is where most diets fail — you eat for comfort, not fuel.

When dieting you want to make sure to learn the difference. Always ask yourself: do I really need this? When was the last time I drank some water?

Also manage decision fatigue. If you’re out the whole day you’ll likely arrive back hungry at home. This is where people order take out, take something on the go, or start the snacking once the fridge opens. Crucial to know what you’re going to eat before. Prep food or learn to endure the hunger until your meal is ready.

What I do is make myself a salad while food is cooking. Snack on that already. Or knowing that I get satiated from dinner, I sit it out. Sometimes I want to save time, don’t cook. I slice up some mozzarella and tomatoes. Buy myself smoked salmon and have it on crisp bread.

HORMONES REGULATING APPETITE

Key players are Leptin, Ghrelin, Insulin and Cortisol. Understand their function and you get to adjust your lifestyle to control them. To not only achieve fat loss successfully, but keep your shape you worked so hard for:

Leptin is your satiety signal, secreted from fat cells actually. You get too lean, your hunger increases. The mechanism to prevent yourself from starving to death. The key is Leptin sensitivity though. Same with Insulin. If you’re too fat, you become resistant to it. People become fatter and fatter once they are obese because of this. Until you get to starvation territory for it to crush completely you’d need to get close to bodybuilding shape.

Ghrelin connects here right away. It does exactly the opposite. Produced in your stomach, giving you the signal to eat. Food options become very crucial here. It’s always the same: eat clean, whole foods, include fiber and focus on lean protein. I almost sound stupid repeating it. It should be your motivation to finally switch eating habits. Our body knows how to manage itself when reconnected to nature. This lowers Ghrelin signaling. To give you a number: It’s secretion can be reduced by 25% eating the right food.

Insulin next big player. It’s not bad, you need insulin to live healthy. To get your appetite down. You don’t need to suppress it or keep it low. What you want is high insulin sensitivity. Your body works efficient with a very low dose being secreted. Quickly adjusting blood sugar, quickly being cleared, and shuffling nutrients carried from Insulin into the right tissue. With dieting, eating better, controlling meal frequency, moving more and training harder this improves. Effecting Leptin and Ghrelin control too btw. High insulin sensitivity is your key to maintain a lean physique. Once you’re lean the game changes because of this, given you’ve focused on habit change.

Cortisol as last. Our stress hormone. It helps us wake up from sleep, but too much stress is always detrimental. Breaking us slowly down, worsening your body composition and driving appetite up in hopes of getting you out of the fight or flight state.

The solution to control all these is also so simply stupid. You already know the answer. It’s about taking action, showing self respect. Knowing that you should treat yourself better. You deserve it most. Everyone around you benefits from it.

Taking walks, sleeping enough and good, exercising, the food… IT ALL INFLUENCES THEM. Sleep effect is crazy, I notice it right away too. I’m not perfect, I can have messed up sleep. And I notice it the next day directly. My normal meals just don’t fulfill me, it’s tough even for me to stick to my routine.

END GAME OF APPETITE CONTROL

When you start a diet your body will hate you. You’re breaking homeostasis, the balance. Suddenly you eat less (making meal changes slowly) and you avoid snacking and other bad habits. Body and mind want you to get back to the regular used routine.

First 2 weeks are hard, after that your body settles in. I tell that every client when we begin. You gotta first build the new momentum for yourself. Just think about how fast the past 2 weeks went by. Remind yourself each day of your goal and after the few days smooth sailings begin. You enter from negative feedback loop into a positive feedback loop. Nothing great goes without little struggle. Mostly just popping up in the beginning.

BREAKDOWN

Wake up drinking water, hydrating yourself in the AM. Drink water before every meal. Make sure if you sweated a lot to replenish yourself. Even after a workout your body can continue dehydrating.

Throw out everything that could challenge your appetite at home. Make a shopping list, start setting up easy meals and only buy the necessary foods. Speak to your wife, fiancé, room mates. Be open about what you want to achieve. They might even want to join you. If you have kids you lead by example. Your action and lifestyle influences them. It’s a win for the whole family. Be the guy or girl to break the cycle.

Think about what meal frequency is reasonable with your lifestyle. 1 meal, 4 meals, 6 meals. They all have their purpose, but do what you usually have! Most people live with 3 meals a day and it’s the snacking that fucks them up. Stick to 3 meals, clean up the snacks, then clean up the meals.

Calorie tracking will forever allow you more flexibility. Learn the ins and outs of meal sizes. Read ingredients and macros. Make yourself familiar again with food. And be able to stay more flexible when habits aren’t fully ingrained. All meals can be lighter, to still enjoy a small chocolate bar. Or dinner with friends. Or dinner the wife cooks. It’s so easy nowadays, you can take a picture of your food and put it into AI with some text input. This enhances your “eye balling” skill. You’re forming intuition now.

Eat mindful, without any videos playing. Sit down, take a prayer pre meal. Rest between a few bites, drink some sparkling water to a meal. Chew gum between meals to keep you chill. Whenever someone offers you food gain the power of saying “no”. Much easier with gum in too, your mouth is already full.

Weigh yourself daily. Disconnect emotionally from the scale. This gives you direct feedback. Fluctuations are normal, over time you gather information about the size of fluctuation though. Feeding into intuition. I do nothing else. The body weight scale has become my calorie tracking tool. Everything else is in my brain and I know what to adjust to make that weight go down, or stay stable. Or check on myself if I need to tighten things up again.

Believe in the ability of your body to adapt. Knowing that you can change, that you take it rather slower than too fast. Work with the structure you have right now and think of what you can cut out, before changing things up completely. Include the feedback from a calorie counter and your bodyweight scale. Track in together. Within a few months you can transform into a different person.

We’re all gonna make it.

Marcel