Are you still hungry even though you eat a lot? This is most likely a disease.

There are times when you feel the urge to eat even after you’ve eaten enough to feel full. Normally, a balanced meal including carbohydrates, protein, healthy fats, and dietary fiber won’t leave you feeling hungry. A balanced meal tends to make you feel full even if you eat a bit less.

Let’s find out some easy tricks to increase satiety and reduce appetite in daily life.

Firstly, ask yourself, ‘Am I really hungry?’ and start with a glass of water before a meal.

Our brain often confuses hunger with thirst. So, when you feel hungry, try drinking a glass of water before reaching for a snack. You may find that once you’ve replenished your hydration, your appetite surprisingly diminishes.

Especially, having a habit of drinking a glass of water before meals can also help prevent overeating.

Eating with chopsticks instead of a spoon can also be helpful. If you want to feel full with a smaller amount of food, you need to slow down your eating speed. Eating with chopsticks makes you concentrate on picking up food, which subsequently slows down your eating speed.

The same goes when eating soup dishes. Soups contain a large amount of sodium, so if you eat the solid parts with chopsticks, you can reduce your sodium intake.

Drinking warm tea as a dessert after meals can also be helpful.

Just as drinking water can control your appetite, tea can also serve the same purpose. Certain ingredients in tea can help suppress your appetite.

For example, ‘phytonutrients,’ a plant-based nutrient found in green tea, increases the level of hormones that make you feel full. Drinking mint tea after meals sends signals to your brain that you’ve finished eating, instructing you to stop eating.

Menthol in mint stimulates the secretion of dopamine, a neurotransmitter. An active secretion of dopamine can help control anxiety, providing a psychological calming effect. However, it is recommended to limit the amount of mint tea consumed to about 2 cups per day.