I have to emphasize 5-6 smaller meals instead of 3 larger meals. Helps prevent blood sugar from going into boom-bust cycles during one. Also try to plan your meals for the day and keep track of what you ate, when, and how you sometimes feel. You will detect patterns of when you tend to be hungry, and then you can plan to eat something healthy at that time. That leads to a closely related point: don’t wait until you’re very hungry to eat.
The 5-6 smaller meals will help with this, but if you feel like you’re hungry, you need to address it before it starts to trigger your junk food cravings. First, drink a glass of water. Sometimes thirst can make people think they are hungry and will set you up to make what you eat digest more slowly and make you feel fuller. Then eat something healthy and then wait a bit for it to take effect before deciding if you need to eat something else.
In satiety, in addition to fats, foods high in water and fiber are the best, since they fill you up physically (hence the emphasis on vegetables, which fit this requirement). While a low carb diet is recommended, any meal should have at least some complex carbohydrates with the fiber still in the food to help slowly raise your blood sugar so this doesn’t keep sending messages to your brain about the need to eat. While your body breaks down protein for this, it takes longer to work.
A low-glycemic piece of fruit (an apple or a pear, for example), with a little more greens than a single slice of lettuce and a little celery in that tuna salad, or even a single whole wheat cracker or a partial slice of whole wheat bread. to start the meal / snack will be enough to raise your blood sugar levels if they have dropped.
Cut carrots, celery, green pepper, broccoli, etc. and storing them in a sealable container with some water that you keep in the fridge or just without water in a sealable bag if you don’t have a cooler available it can be something to chew on if you can’t get a small meal in or have trouble breaking the habit eating sandwiches.
Get some high-quality olive oil to dip them in, or even spice up the oil by crushing a clove of garlic and putting it in the oil. A small portion of the oil will stay fresh for a couple of days without refrigeration, but avoid storing it in a plastic container, as they can leach toxins into the oil.
Another “trick” is to get some soluble fiber capsules (gluconnaman, psyllium, oatmeal) and take one or two at the beginning of the meal / snack. This will help you feel fuller, but soluble fiber also helps slow blood sugar spikes from foods to avoid triggering insulin spikes. In other words, it helps to get a gradual, longer and not too high increase in blood sugar.
Again, this must be accompanied by a little water. You may experience some gas if you haven’t already been on a high fiber diet, but you need to adjust in time.