Do you find there are some days where you can’t get enough food into your belly? Hunger is the way your body tells you it needs food. However, there may be other reasons why you are constantly hungry.

You are not eating enough protein

Protein plays a vital role in appetite control by regulating hunger hormones. Eating protein with each meal or snack, rather than all at once, may help keep appetite steady throughout the day.

You are not getting enough sleep

As you’ve heard me say many times, sleep is essential for our overall health. Sleep regulates ghrelin, our appetite-stimulating hormone. Lack of sleep leads to higher ghrelin levels, which explains why you may feel constantly hungry when tired.

You are eating too many refined carbohydrates

Refined carbs lack fiber and cause blood sugar fluctuations, which are the primary reasons why eating too many of them may leave you feeling hungry.

Your diet is low in fat

Fat plays a role in slowing digestion and increasing the production of fullness-promoting hormones.

You’re not drinking enough water

When you are dehydrated, you will feel hungry. Often we mistake dehydration for hunger and reach for food instead of water.

Your diet lacks fiber

Fiber plays a role in reducing your appetite and keeping you full. High-fiber foods will take longer to digest than low-fiber foods.

You eat while distracted

Eating while distracted makes it difficult for you to recognize feelings of fullness.

You exercise a lot

Individuals who regularly exercise at a high intensity or for extended durations tend to have larger appetites and faster metabolisms. Thus, they may experience frequent hunger.

You drink too much alcohol

Alcohol is well known for its appetite-stimulating effects. Alcohol may inhibit hormones that reduce appetite, such as leptin, especially when consumed before or with meals.

You drink your calories

If you consume many liquid foods, such as smoothies, meal replacement shakes, and soups, you may be hungrier more often than you would be if you ate more solid foods.

One reason for this is that liquids pass through your stomach more quickly than solid foods do. Also, liquid foods do not have the same effects on keeping you full and satisfied as solid foods do. For this reason, you may feel hungry frequently if liquids are a significant part of your diet.

You are over-stressed

Stress increases cortisol levels, a hormone that is known to promote hunger and food cravings. During fight or flight mode, cortisol floods your body, which convinces it to eat, even if you don’t need the calories.

You’re taking medications

Certain medications cause increased appetite as a side effect. In turn, they may cause you to experience frequent hunger.

The most common appetite-inducing medications include antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, corticosteroids, and antiseizure drugs.

You eat too fast

Eating too quickly doesn’t allow your body enough time to recognize fullness, which may promote excessive hunger. It can take upwards of 20 to 30 minutes for your brain to realize you are full.

You have a medical condition

Medical conditions like diabetes, hyperthyroidism, hypoglycemia, depression, anxiety and premenstrual syndrome may cause excessive hunger.

If you suspect that you may have one of these conditions, talk with your doctor to receive a proper diagnosis and discuss treatment options.

You are on a calorie-restricted diet

Consuming fewer calories than the body burns can cause the body to produce a hormone called ghrelin, our “hunger hormone.” A low-calorie diet can increase ghrelin production and cause hunger, even if you have just eaten.

You consume a lot of sugar

A high-sugar diet may cause the body to produce more ghrelin and affect activity in specific brain regions to make a person feel less full.

You are bored

Some people may confuse boredom with hunger, causing them to eat more.

You are going through menopause

A decline in estrogen during menopause may lead to an increased appetite.

You are obese

Leptin is a hormone that tells the brain when the stomach is full. Leptin levels usually rise after a person eats a meal. Overweight or obese individuals may develop leptin resistance, which can make them feel hungry more often.

You Drink Diet Soda

Soda is one of the sugariest foods you can consume. And while you may know sugar makes you crave sugar, artificially sweetened products, and sugar alternatives can ramp up your appetite even more than natural sugar, causing increased calorie consumption over time.

You skip meals

Skipping meals can make you feel hungrier when it’s time to eat. When you don’t eat, your body can deplete its blood glucose stores, promoting an uptick in the hunger hormone ghrelin, ramping up your appetite.

Your Gut Health Is Off

Unhealthy eating or meals centered on saturated fats and sugars can disrupt your digestive system. As a result, an increase in harmful bacteria in your gut may inhibit the good bacteria from regulating your hunger hormones.

Now that it’s getting cooler out, I’m starting to crave soups and stews. A base for many soups and stews is a good bone broth. It’s easy to make from scratch using the bones of a cow, chicken, turkey, and even fish.

There are so many health benefits to bone broth:

It’s nutritious

Bones are rich in vitamins, including calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus. Bone marrow contains iron, vitamin A, vitamin K, selenium, and zinc.

It helps your joints

Bone broth is a source of collagen, which is so essential for our joints. Our cartilage tends to wear down over time through continuous use, which adds stress to our joints. Adding collagen to your diet will help protect the joints from constant wear and tear.

It may help fight osteoarthritis

A 2016 study in the Nutrition Journal found that type 2 collagen (from the connective tissue of chickens) helped improve pain and stiffness in people with osteoarthritis.

It may help reduce inflammation and heal the gut

Not only is bone broth easy to digest, but an amino acid also called glutamine found in the gelatin of bone broth can help maintain the function of the intestinal wall and is known to prevent and heal leaky gut. Gelatine can also bind with water to support the healthy transit of food through the intestines.

It may help you sleep better

The amino acid glycine found in bone broth may help you relax, and multiple studies have also shown that this amino acid helps promote sleep. You may fall asleep faster, maintain a deeper sleep, and wake fewer times during the night!

It may support weight loss

Bone broth is high in protein, which helps the body feel full longer. It’s low in calories but can still satisfy hunger.

The holidays are a time for celebration and festivities, but they can also mean weight gain, stress, and total overwhelm. Thankfully, my 6-Week Happy Healthy Holidays challenge will give you strategies to maintain a healthy lifestyle while also enjoying the magic of the holiday season.

Let this be the year you "maintain, not gain" while enjoying some planned indulgences. We begin on November 26th. Click the link below to learn more and enroll in this 6-Week challenge.

Join me as I welcome guest speaker Amber Jenson who will show us how to put ourselves first in our lives.

Does your life feel out of balance? Are you tired of being tired? Are you willing to embrace the fact that taking care of YOU is NOT selfish and that taking care of you will actually allow you to give more to others? If you said yes, then this workshop will inspire you to start taking action to re-balance your life to feel energized and happy.

In this 1-hour experiential workshop you will:

• Clearly identify where your life is out of balance so you can figure out where to put your focus first

• Discover how to let go of feeling guilty for taking time for YOU

• Create a clear plan of how to start taking care of YOU so that you can start having more energy and joy in your life

Amber is a certified Life and Health Coach and speaker helping busy professionals finally take some "me time" without feeling guilty so they can get their energy back and feel happy again. With a background in Human Resources, a master's degree in Psychology, and experience with many energy techniques, including a certification in Reiki, Amber has a keen sense of human behavior and habit change. Amber loves being in nature and hiking with her family.

Daylight Saving Time is the practice of setting the clocks forward one hour from standard time during the summer months and back again in the fall to make better use of natural daylight.

Moving the clock forward one hour in the spring and back one hour in the fall doesn’t just affect your schedule — it can throw off your body’s internal clock, too.

That hour of sleep that’s lost or gained can leave you feeling groggy and irritable. It can also be dangerous. Studies have found that heart attacks and fatal car accidents increase after the spring shift to Daylight Saving Time.

Why is the change of one hour so hard?

Moving our clocks in either direction affects how daylight resets our 24-hour sleep-wake cycle. Our internal clock, or circadian rhythm, becomes out of sync with our current day-night cycle.

In the fall, when you’ve gained an hour of sleep, you might not feel tired, but you may notice to change when you’re waiting an extra hour to eat or to leave work at the end of the day. When the clocks move forward in the spring, you’ll “lose” an hour of sleep and may have trouble falling asleep an hour earlier. In turn, you won’t get as much quality sleep as you need.

How long will it take you to adapt to time changes?

The rule of thumb is that it takes about one day to adjust for each hour of a time change. However, there are a few things you can do to prepare for the shift.

Tips for Adjusting to Daylight Savings Time

Make Gradual Shifts

About a week before falling back, go to bed and wake up approximately 15 minutes later each day.

Reverse for the spring and go to bed and wake up approximately 15 minutes earlier each day.

If you need more time to adjust, start earlier and gradually increase/decrease 15-minute increments every few days.

Keep your schedule

Stick to your schedule. Be consistent with eating, social activities, and exercise times during the transition. Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, even on the weekends.

No long naps

Avoiding naps is critical for adjusting to the time change. Long naps will make it harder for you to get a quality night’s sleep. If you can’t get through the day without a nap, make it short and earlier in the day to avoid disrupting your nighttime routine.

If you feel sleepy the Sunday after the time change, take a short 15- to 20- minute nap in the early afternoon but not too close to bedtime.

Use light to regulate your internal clock.

Light suppresses the production of melatonin, our sleep hormone. It’s important to expose yourself to light as soon as you wake up and as much as possible during waking hours. Conversely, do not expose yourself to bright light when it is dark outside.

Did you know that adults who sleep fewer than 6 hours a night are at higher risk for dementia and cognitive decline?

Here's why:

Our brains accumulate various kinds of metabolic "gunk" throughout the day. The worst is beta-amyloid proteins. These are metabolic waste products that build up as plaque around neurons and interfere with how they transmit information to each other. It's thought that a greater beta-amyloid "burden" in the brain is a precursor to Alzheimer's disease.

The good news is that deep and REM sleep flushes out the waste particles. We get most of our deep sleep in the first half of the night, so even if your sleep is cut short, the brain will still clear some of the waste.

When you are sleep-deprived, your first full night of sleep will include more deep and REM sleep.

This explains why getting too little sleep may be linked with Alzheimer's.

Things to consider:

1. Aging changes your body clock. As we age, we typically go to bed and wake up earlier, and spend more time awake during the night, resulting in less sleep overall

2. Physical changes can disrupt sleep. For example, prostate issues will have men wake during the night to pee

3. A suboptimal diet may cause poor sleep. Too many calories, fats, and sweets and too few fruits, vegetables, and whole grains can lead to weight gain and obesity, which can cause sleep apnea. In turn, poor quality sleep can lead to hormonal changes linked to appetite and satiety, cause you to eat more with less inhibition

If you would like to learn more about sleep, I’m launching my new sleep course in November. Click below to get on the waitlist and receive 30% off the introductory price when registration opens. If you want more information please DM me and I’d be happy to chat with you.

Join me as I welcome guest speaker, who will speak about Fierce Inner Growth.

Rachel has a passion for empowering women and helping them find their unique voice. She believes that all women are worthy and deserving of self-love and healthy relationships. Rachel values making this journey accessible and fun so that her clients can achieve their highest potential. Her own journey of self-work makes her an open, understanding, and supportive coach. It’s all about fierce inner growth!

If you’ve watched any of my workshops, you’ll know I’m a geek when it comes to sleep. I love understanding the science behind sleep and why it’s essential to our overall health. I wear a health tracker mainly to track my sleep at night. I know health trackers aren’t very precise at monitoring sleep patterns, but it’s better than nothing, and I can at least track how consistent I am over time. As I get older, I’ve found that my sleep patterns seem to change more frequently than I like. Lately, I’ve noticed that I’m not getting as much deep sleep as I used to.

Deep sleep is critical for restoration, allowing for bodily recovery and growth. It plays a key role in keeping our hormones balanced, and experts believe it may bolster our immune system and other key bodily processes. There is also evidence that deep sleep contributes to insightful thinking, creativity, and memory processing.

How can you increase the amount of deep sleep you get each night? The most important thing you can do is increase the total amount of sleep you get each night. Doing so allows the body to go through more sleep cycles, making it possible to obtain more deep sleep. Other activities you can try include:

• Exercise early in the day

• Lower carbohydrate intake and increase fat intake

• Warm your body in the bath or shower before bed

• Keep a regular sleep cycle, even on the weekend

Sleep issues are common for women our age, but we have options! If you have trouble sleeping, reach out to me. I’ve had my share of sleepless nights and have learned what works (and doesn’t work) for me. Getting a good night’s rest is vital for our overall health, and no one should suffer through a sleepless night.

Join me as I welcome guest speaker Dawn Berry who will speak about taking single-parent empty nesters from where they are to a place of empowerment, living the life they truly desire.

As a single parent at 25, Dawn was challenged to bring her daughter up in an environment where she wasn't labeled as coming from a single-parent household. When her daughter left, it was like a part of her heart left, too, especially when Dawn found out she was in an abusive relationship. It has taken a great deal of willpower for Dawn to allow her daughter to make mistakes and still be there for her. It has been a very enlightening journey that she knows everyone can emerge from.

Register in advance:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/1616294641663/WN_uy4_X8yMSnKKw5JTjK0VpA

Did you know that hormones can wreak havoc on our sleep patterns?

As we age, changes in our sleep-wake cycle cause us to feel tired earlier and wake up earlier in the morning, leading to less sleep overall. In addition, sleep issues are common in women going through perimenopause or menopause.

The most common sleep problems reported by women going through menopause include:

Hot Flashes

Hot flashes are sudden and unexpected sensations of heat all over the body accompanied by sweating. They can last as short as 30 seconds or as long as five minutes. Hot flashes that occur at night are also known as night sweats.

Insomnia

Insomnia is typically described as a chronic difficulty falling or staying asleep that occurs more than three nights a week. Some may experience restless sleep, wake up early, and often feel sleepy and tired during the day. Sleep deprivation from insomnia can increase feelings of anxiousness and irritability, impair focus and memory, and increase headaches and inflammation.

Sleep-Disordered Breathing

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is known as temporary pauses in breathing, leading to gasping, snoring, choking sounds, and lowered sleep quality. Research suggests lower progesterone levels may contribute to the development of sleep apnea.

If you are experiencing sleep issues related to perimenopause or menopause, consult your doctor. They know your personal medical history and can recommend appropriate medications and lifestyle changes that may improve your sleep.

The following sleep tips may also help:

• Maintain a healthy weight

• Avoid nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol, especially in the late afternoon/early evening

• Avoid drinking liquids a few hours before bedtime

• Reduce stress as much as possible

• Develop a bedtime routine

• Develop a routine for falling back asleep if you tend to wake during the night

• Keep the temperature in your room cool

• Follow a regular sleep/wake schedule and avoid late afternoon naps

Sleep issues are common for women our age, but we have options! If you have trouble sleeping, reach out to me. I’ve had my share of sleepless nights and have learned what works (and doesn’t work) for me. Getting a good night’s rest is vital for our overall health, and no one should suffer through a sleepless night.

Join me as I welcome guest speaker Melissa Rohlfs who will teach us how to break free from emotional or stress eating and find freedom from food.

Melissa is a certified holistic health and life coach helping busy women break free from sugar and stress/emotional eating so they can be calm, confident, and in control. Around food. Around sugar. In stressful situations. In their bodies. In their life. She is committed to empowering women to break free from dieting, emotional eating, and self-image issues so they can ditch the diet mentality and feel empowered in their own skin.

After her own tumultuous history with food {withholding and then later in life, bingeing}, she learned how to deal with the core issues around her broken relationship with food. As a result, she felt called to go to school and learn to teach other women how to do the same. She graduated from the Health Coach Institute as a Holistic Health and Life Coach in 2018 and is the proud owner of Free 2 B Coaching. She is a proud Boilermaker alumna living in Tucson with her husband, Chad, and two kiddos.

No matter what your body shape, excess fat isn't good for your health.

In most people, about 90% of body fat is subcutaneous, the kind that lies in a layer just beneath the skin. If you poke your belly, the fat that feels soft is subcutaneous. The remaining 10% — called visceral fat — lies out of reach, beneath the abdominal wall.

Research has shown that fat cells — particularly visceral fat cells — are biologically active. The fat cell is considered an endocrine organ that secrets hormones and molecules affecting other tissues. Researchers have identified a host of chemicals that link visceral fat to a wide variety of diseases.

As women go through mid-life, the proportion of fat to body weight tends to increase — more than in men — and fat storage begins favoring the upper body over the hips and thighs. Even if you don't gain weight, your waistline can grow as visceral fat pushes out against your abdominal wall.

The good news is that visceral fat responds more efficiently to diet and exercise than fat on the hips and thighs. Here are some approaches that may help:

Move. Visceral fat responds well to both aerobic and strength training. Spot exercising does nothing to visceral fat.

Eat a balanced diet and avoid food that encourages belly fat, such as simple sugars, like sweetened foods, beverages, and alcohol.

Don't smoke. The more you smoke, the more likely you will store fat in your abdomen rather than on your hips and thighs.

Keep your mood in check. Middle-aged women who show more hostility and depressive symptoms tend to have more visceral fat — but not more subcutaneous fat.

Join me as I welcome guest speaker Ana Ruiz as she explains the four pillars of having a long-lasting romantic relationship.

After years of failed relationships, while being successful in her career and financially independent, all she could see was more of the same in her future. But she was determined to change that, so she found Jayson Gaddis to teach and mentor her. She went back to school for the fourth time in her life and became a founding student at The Relationship School®. This work transformed her relationship with herself and others, inviting a whole new way of relating that feels better than anything she ever dreamed possible. Her heart became open to love in ways that invite even more love into her life.

Then something wonderful happened. She met a great man, and together they have been creating an amazing life partnership based on trust, safety, love, fun, passion, and full acceptance of each other, and it occasionally shines the light, uncomfortably, where she needs to grow. This is what she’s been wanting most of her life! She couldn’t imagine not sharing this kind of deep transformation with other people. This led her to become a Certified Relationship Coach to help both couples and individuals and share this whole new way of relating to themselves and each other.

Her mission and life purpose are to help people live healthier lives through amazing relationships with themselves and others. Her life experiences, combined with her long journey of healing, have allowed her to access her wisdom, power, courage, resilience, and deep compassion to hold others in their journey. As she continues to do her own inner work, she continues to reach higher levels of her personal human potential. she looks forward to helping you with yours.

Selenium is a micronutrient that cannot be produced by the body and must be obtained through food or supplementation. There are several reasons to ensure we are getting enough of this nutrient. We don’t need a lot of this micronutrient and the recommended daily allowance for adults is 55 mcg/day. If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, you’ll need 60 – 70 mcg/day.

Here are a few benefits of Selenium:

• It’s an antioxidant and can help reduce and protect against oxidative stress

• It strengthens the immune system and reduces inflammation

• It supports our thyroid function (the thyroid gland contains the highest amount of selenium compared to any other organ in the body)

• It may reduce the risk of cancer and increase the quality of life/decrease side effects in patients undergoing radiation

• It reduces cognitive decline

• It may protect against heart disease

If you are looking to boost your Selenium intake, consider the following foods:

• Brazil nuts (one of the highest and most well-known dietary sources of selenium)

• Eggs

• Oat Bran

• Tuna

• Brown Rice

• Beef Liver

• Chicken

• Sardines

• Sunflower Seeds

• Grass-Fed Beef

• Oysters

• Halibut

• Shiitake mushrooms

Join me as I welcome guest speaker Sherry ‘QueenShe’ Burden where she will help us understand how clutter blocks us from living heaven on earth and easy steps on how to remove those blocks to make room for more of what you want in life.

Sherry is a creative health and wellness expert who delivers high-energy keynote presentations that challenge audiences to pay attention to what matters most in life. Audiences love her stories, energy, tools, and strategies they can apply personally and professionally. Women over 40 love being coached by Sherry, often describing her as the energizer bunny and easy to talk to.

Sherry earned her Health and Life Coach certifications from Health Coach Institute. She has helped her clients lose weight, find purpose in life after a loss, love themselves, attract more of what they want in life and create their own reality. She has created and held health panel discussions, workshops, and online challenges. Her strong background in learning, development, and inspiring people of all ages makes her the perfect fit for any group that wants to live a better life and is ready to develop themselves. Groups or individuals hire Sherry because of her passion to help others and strategies that can help her clients avoid unnecessary stress, guilt, sadness, feeling too old to try new things, distractions, and say ‘NO’ to requests that steal time from personal goals and priorities.

Oh, did we mention that Sherry is ‘Your Creative Health Coach’? Why does that matter? Well, it means that she is continuously providing new ways of approaching situations in life in a healthier way. Here are some other reasons she has this other name: She is a published author, recording artist, blogger, photographer, and video creator. She considers herself a Queen… and really scared of those ‘Queen Bees’.

Have you ever heard someone say they can’t lose weight because they have a slow metabolism? Well, it is true that metabolism is linked to weight but having a slow metabolism is usually not the main cause of weight gain.

By definition, metabolism is the body’s process that expends energy and burns calories. It works 24/7 to convert the food we eat into energy so we can breathe, circulate blood, grow, and repair. Your metabolism controls how much of that energy your body uses.

Metabolism is broken down into two processes: anabolism and catabolism. Anabolism is the storing of energy, supporting new cells, and maintaining body tissues. Catabolism is the breaking down of energy to move, heat, and energize your body.

How fast or slow your metabolism works is determined mostly by your genes, however, there are things you can control that affect your metabolism.

Read on for more information.

Join me as I welcome guest speaker Janine Williams who will go over three ways to connect with yourself on a deeper level and end with a guided visualization meditation, which will connect you back home to yourself on a deeper level. Everyone's experience will be different.

Janine Williams is a certified Empowerment Coach and Energy Healer who specializes in working with moms, teachers, nurses, and other front-line heroes who are[beyond] exhausted and have lost their sense of themselves. She guides her clients back home to self, where they will regain their energy, love for life, inner peace, and inner power while opening the channels to their intuition. Having to overcome life-altering challenges of her own and learning how to create the life she desired by going deep within. Janine decided to go back to school in 2019 to become a certified Health and Life Coach, and earning her Mastery as an Empowerment Coach, and Energy Healer has given her the tools to help others do the same. Today Janine offers individual services and is creating group programs where she will be able to assist even more people in coming back home to themselves.

Personal facts: Janine lives in Valrico, Florida, and is married to her soul mate, Mike, for the past 17 years, and they have 2 sons, Alexander and Adam.

Join me as I welcome guest speaker Rachel Greb, who will speak about Fierce Inner Growth.

Rachel has a passion for empowering women and helping them find their unique voice. She believes that all women are worthy and deserving of self-love and healthy relationships. Rachel values making this journey accessible and fun so that her clients can achieve their highest potential. Her own journey of self-work makes her an open, understanding, and supportive coach. It’s all about fierce inner growth!

Join me as I welcome guest speaker Morena Protti who will speak about arms and shoulders self-care when working from home.

Morena is a health coach with a background in 3D animation since 2003. Through her health challenges, like endometriosis and work-related repetitive strain Injuries, she has spent the last six years diving into all health-related studies to help herself and others restore her own health and regress her symptoms. She got certified as a Yoga Hatha and Restorative instructor and a health and life coach, and her main focus is on Computer-bound workers who want to improve their health so they can do more in less time and still enjoy things they love.

Join me as I welcome guest speaker Morgan Fazio to discuss how to build a better body image. Did you know that body image has very little to do with how you look and EVERYTHING to do with how you think? Your relationship with yourself? Join this chat to learn how to start ditching body drama (for good) and to start living your life as a fully embodied HUMAN, rather than an object on display.

Morgan is a Certified Holistic Health Coach, Personal Trainer, and Intuitive Eating Specialist that works with women to resolve digestive issues, heal hormones, fall in love with exercise, and feel their best WITHOUT diets or militant exercise programs. Her clients find food and body freedom by practicing intuitive eating - an approach that gives us permission to let go of food rules, fear, and guilt that so many women struggle with.