Here's a good, straightforward and helpful article excerpt from '98, that time before every person with a grocery cart and a barbell turned into a serious "nutritionist" and chose to paint the town grey with their fussing, fretting and oh-so-important "goals" in life. Let's Lift and Let's Live!
Question: How can I improve a poor appetite? How reliable is appetite for consuming enough calories without force feeding?
Assuming that your poor appetite is only a function of your current dietary regime, the following list of tricks can be used to increase your food intake. Most people don't enjoy the luxury of wanting to eat more after being full, so some of these tricks might seem weird at first, but those with an interest in appetite modification might benefit.
One simple trick is to REDUCE THE FAT IN YOUR DIET. This may seem strange, as fats are the most concentrated source of calories. Unfortunately, fats also induce satiety and can make a small meal feel like a large one. Some diet plans exploit this fact by inducing satiety and thus trick the individual into consuming fewer calories than are needed to maintain their weight. So the dieter loses weight.
People who have poor appetites may be unwittingly following diets which induce satiety prior to having prior to having taken in sufficient calories for growth.
The response to fats is not uniform among all people. There are three distinct degrees of taste sensitivity: insensitive, normal, and hyper sensitive. The demographic distribution of taste sensitivity is something like 20% insensitive, 60% normal, and 20% hyper sensitive.
Taste insensitive people may consume much more fat before the sensation of satiety is felt, while tasty hyper sensitive people may respond to small amounts of fat. Try to eat the less satisfying "light" versions of recipes and see if this doesn't have you looking for more food.
Cutting out desserts can have the same effect -- like desiring another meal and sooner than you might ordinarily eat it.
Note: A very simple way to eat more, and this is only one example, is to choose white rice over the heavier, much harder to digest brown version. You see where this is going, I'm sure. Not whole milk, skim. Lower fat yogurt, cottage cheese and sour cream. You get it. Don't just look at the caloric content of an individual food, try to look at your total instead. And the lighter versions will allow you to eat more often, and get that total up to where it oughta be.
A second trick is to MAKE A GREAT VARIETY OF FOODS AVAILABLE AT ANY MEAL. [See photo above]. Go to an all you can eat place and only put small portions of EVERYTHING on your plate. Keep track of how much you eat and then ask yourself if you could have eaten that much of just a few items.
A third trick is to eat healthy snacks between meals. It is not difficult to consume a small amount even when you are not really hungry, but after a while you will develop a craving hunger for that snack.
Avoid eating candy, junk food and soda, all of which take up digestive tract space (and thus fill you up too early) for little nutritional return.
A fourth trick is to EAT A BIT MORE AT EACH MEAL. Treat the food just like weights in the gym -- slowly and gradually increase the amount consumed. After a few months you will be surprised at how much you are eating.
Note: I call this "microloading" food. That should put the right pic in your head and all that.
Obviously not all these tricks will work for all individuals, but experiment with them and see which works for you.
Enjoy Your Lifting
and Your Food!
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