Hunger Hormones — Can the Right Diet Help?

Ghrelin is a hormone that spikes appetite, food intake and fat storage. Leptin, however, blocks hunger. You want to lower ghrelin and allow leptin to do what it needs to.  

The great news is — diet can help! 

That’s why we put together these 5 tips to a healthy hormone diet that can assist us in our body-weight goals. 

1. Power your meals with protein, starting with breakfast 

Even though ghrelin may seem like a diet destroyer, in our caveman past ghrelin aided survival by helping people store enough body fat.  

The more ghrelin we have, the hungrier we are. The less ghrelin we have, the more full we feel, meaning we eat less. If we want to lose weight, dropping ghrelin levels can help. 

Enjoying breakfast helps keep hunger in check for the whole day. Amino acids and protein — like what we find in Almased — lower ghrelin levels the best, and help keep leptin working the right way, too.

2. Choose ghrelin-lowering foods 

Great sources of ghrelin-suppressing foods are: soy, skinless poultry, eggs, fish (especially halibut and oysters), lean beef, and fat-free Greek yogurt. These food items can lower ghrelin levels and keep you feeling full longer. 

Carbohydrates high in resistant (nondigestible) starch are helpful, too, such as oats, sweet potatoes and lentils, which can also help boost satiety hormones, such as PYY (peptide-YY) and GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1). 

Other examples of ghrelin-lowering foods include: red apples, apple cider vinegar, Jerusalem artichokes and nuts. 

3. Go macro! 

What is eating a macro diet? The idea is this: Instead of being stuck with a calorie limit, you focus on eating X grams of macronutrients — protein, fat and carbohydrates — per day. 

Protein is best at increasing the levels of leptin, but carbs and fat are great for stimulating certain satiety hormones, like GIP (glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide) and GLP-1. 

The Almased Diet gives you an ideal balance of macronutrients.

4. Consume more omega-3s 

Omega-3 fats — from fish and certain seed oils — can increase levels of the brain neurotransmitter hormone, dopamine, also referred to as the reward hormone.   

If we eat dopamine-promoting foods throughout our day, we should have less cravings, feel increased energy, and have more motivation. 

And if we make sure to have soy protein and amino acids, in particular the amino acid tyrosine, our bodies then produce extra dopamine. 

Omega-3s are also anti-inflammatory and can help with insulin and leptin sensitivity. 

5. Get enough Zs 

You want to make sure you’re getting enough sleep, which is preferably seven to eight hours.  

When we get less sleep than what our bodies need on any one night, the levels of ghrelin will be increased the next day.  

Not getting the right sleep can also negatively affect leptin and insulin levels. Plus, people who sleep less also dine at irregular times, eat out and snack more, to boot.