Weight Loss Tricks: 7 Bizarre ways to reduce your appetite

Shedding Pounds: 7 Bizarre ways to reduce your appetite

Angela Goh

29 Nov 2016

These tricks might just be your ticket to losing the belly fat.

1/7
Serve your meal on blue plates
Sounds strange, we know, but research has shown that the colour blue can naturally suppress your appetite as the colour is almost never present in natural foods. As such, our body isn’t programmed to have a natural appetite response to blue.
2/7
Get some vanilla scented candles burning
It is widely known that certain scents can keep your appetite under control. For example, the scent of grapefruit is an excellent appetite suppressant. There are other scents too. In fact, one of the best smells for reducing your hunger is apparently vanilla. Vanilla scented candles are a very convenient way to keep the hunger at bay - just light one up in the office or at home and let the fragrance do its work!
3/7
Pinch your nose or earlobes
Wait, what? Yeah, it’s weird but apparently could work! This ancient acupressure secret requires you to put pressure on your nose or earlobes for 10 seconds to kill your appetite. Apparently those who practice acupuncture believe that the technique of activating these pressure points can restore the balance of your energy. An imbalance or blockage of energy can cause cravings.
4/7
Brighten your dining room with extra lights
Apparently the dimmer your surroundings, the lower your inhibitions, making you feel better about eating more. Shine a few more lights at your dining table and you’ll be less likely to binge on that extra serving of fried rice or reach for the dessert.
5/7
Add some vinegar to your diet
You may have heard that downing a couple of spoonfuls of apple cider vinegar can kill cravings and prevent your hunger from spiking. Well, any vinegar will do - in fact, vinegar helps prevent blood sugar spikes after your meals, so you don’t feel the need to grab a bar of chocolate just 30 minutes after you’ve had lunch.
6/7
Load up on magnesium
If you’ve been having mad chocolate cravings recently, it’s probably a sign of magnesium deficiency. Eat plenty of dark green vegetables as they’re full of magnesium - doing so will aid in fending off stress and those intense chocolate cravings.
7/7
Brush your teeth (or use mouthwash)
The minty taste of your toothpaste or mouthwash can cleanse your palate, killing the taste of what you crave. Also, you are definitely less likely to start snacking if you’ve just cleaned your teeth - things will taste much less appetising with the flavour of toothpaste still sitting strong in your mouth!

For some of us, it can be really difficult to keep intense cravings for high calorie foods at bay. Why do tasty things always have to be so bad for our waistline?! Fortunately, there are a few tricks that we can use to kill off unwanted cravings. Yeah, you’ve probably heard of the more common tricks, such as “drink more water – you’re probably dehydrated” or “eat foods that are low-GI”, but there are some very weird tricks out there too that might work just as well, if not better, from sniffing on something vanilla-scented to eating from a blue plate.

For anyone in need of a handful of quick and easy ways to shed some extra pounds, we’ve rounded up 7 simple (and bizarre) ways to suppress your raging appetite. Head up to the gallery to check then out. We’re pretty sure you’ve never heard of some of them!

Angela Goh

Photos: Getty Images

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