Foods to Keep You Full

Assuming you can resist those cravings — though I suppose the point of many of these foods is to keep those cravings from cropping up in the first place.

15 Foods to Help You Lose – Goodhousekeeping.com:

Thirty billion a year — that’s about how much Americans spend on slim-down products, many of which don’t even work. A better way to get real weight-loss results? Go grocery shopping. New research points to more than a dozen foods, from beans to beef, that can help you fight hunger, kick your candy addiction, boost your metabolism — and ultimately shed pounds. And some of these superfoods deliver health bonuses too.

Basically, all of the foods on the list are the sort of nutritious foods you should be eating anyway as part of a healthy diet, with a few appetite-suppressing seasonings thrown in for good measure. Nutritional science can be hit or miss, but a lot of the foods listed on Good Housekeeping’s list (including beans and fruit) have definite nutritional benefits beyond any weight-loss claims.

Given that, it’s possible that the studies are right about how foods affect your blood sugar and digestion. Those foods might make you crave simple carbs less and keep you feeling full longer, so that you don’t binge and you thus don’t take in excess calories. And like I said, plenty of protein and fiber is just plain healthy!
Still, I don’t give much credence to any claims about foods that “boost the metabolism” or whatever, though, as I haven’t seen much non-anecdotal evidence that metabolism is really a factor in how much weight we carry. Plenty of people manage to stay fit as they age because they exercise (far more than I do, that’s for sure).

As we get older, we just get better at staying still and thus not burning calories. It’s easier for jumping-bean kids and constantly walking students to stay thin than for sedentary office workers. Add in the sleeplessness that makes so many adults drag themselves through the day and you get “fading metabolism.”

I certainly felt that last one as a teacher. Even though I should have gotten a good deal of exercise walking the classroom all day, I took every opportunity I could to sit very still and have kids do any grunt work as I was so exhausted. Another contributor to my 25 extra pounds!

So maybe it’s the jitters from the caffeine in tea that gets people losing weight rather than any special chemicals. Of course, we can’t all jump on the Starbucks Diet to take advantage — certainly all the cream and sugar in their drinks would counteract any benefit!