Do you know about the Soup Secret?

If not, read this, because it might be the easiest, tastiest way to keep your weight in check.

Losing weight takes place when you consume less calories than you expend.

So, if you eat less and are more active you should lose weight.

It sounds simple enough but is often very hard to achieve.

Though for long-term weight loss you also need to exercise and be more active, we’ll concentrate here on the ‘eating less’ side of things.

Use Your Body’s Natural Hunger Regulation System…

What could make you eat less? Will-power? Calorie counting? Starving?

How about simply using your body’s natural hunger regulation system?

One key to not eating too much is to not feel hungry so much.

So what makes you feel hungry?

The size of your stomach (your stomach expands when full of food and shrinks when empty).

If your stomach is empty, you’ll feel hungry. If you’re stomach is full, you won’t feel hungry. Your body knows whether your stomach is full or not through an hormone called ghrelin. When your stomach is empty, the stomach walls release the hormone ghrelin in your bloodstream. As soon as this hormone reaches the hypothalamus, it makes you feel hungry.

So, to reduce hunger, we have to reduce the release of ghrelin. To reduce the release of ghrelin, we have to keep our stomach full for longer after each meal. How? By eating food that fills up the stomach and takes longer for the body to break down.

One way to achieve this is to make sure that, at each meal and snack, you eat more proteins (lean meat, fish, tofu, beans and nuts) and fibres (pulses, cereals, lightly cooked vegetables, fruits). Proteins and fibres take longer to break down than carbohydrates. Ingested together, the whole meal will take longer to digest leaving the stomach full for longer.

So What About Soups?

Another way to fill-up your stomach for longer is soup. Soups contain plenty of water, fibres, carbohydrates and sometimes proteins. The water helps the water-soluble fibres (oat, beans, peas, nuts, barley, flax seeds, fruits, vegetables such as carrots) form a gel-like substance that increases in volume and slows down the emptying of the stomach.

Choose soups that are not too high in calories. Make sure you add soluble fibres to your soups. Add some proteins as well (to further increase digestion time). If you like to have bread with your soup, choose wholemeal (more fibres).

For people on slow-carb or carb-free diets such as the 4-hour body or Paleo diets, soups are a great option as a base for a quick meal.

A Little Taster…

Make your soups tasty with your favorite veggies and spices.

Here’s a nice recipe:

For a quicker option, buy a nice ready made soup and add a few flax seeds!