Don’t Skimp on These 3 Things at Mealtime if You’re Managing Your Weight
A balanced eating approach backed by RD Abbey Sharp.
Do you regularly find yourself daydreaming about Hershey bars dipped in peanut butter an hour and a half after eating?
If so, there’s a good chance it’s because your meal wasn’t satisfying enough.
Popular YouTuber and Registered Dietitian Abbey Sharp’s Hunger Crushing Combo ™ can help you boost your satiety factor at every meal so you don’t find yourself bingeing on unplanned snacks or overeating at dinner.
But before we get into the specifics, this is not a diet that runs on rules or restrictions. In fact, it’s not a diet at all. This approach is all about optimizing for satiety at mealtimes to help achieve dietary balance and stave off hunger throughout the day.
Rather than eating as much spinach as you can in that 30-minute lunch window, her approach is about eating a variety of foods that have more of what your body needs to feel satisfied for longer.
Whether you’re looking for weight management tips or general healthy eating advice, you really can’t go wrong with this approach.
The 3 Nutrients to Include at Every Meal
So, am I going to tell you to start choking down apple cider vinegar shots or reishi mushrooms at every meal? Nope. Celery juice detox? Definitely not.
Here’s the secret: Start building your meals around healthy fats, fiber, and protein.
Abbey Sharp trademarked the term Hunger Crushing Combo to refer to this trifecta. Here’s what her website says about it:
“Abbey’s Hunger Crushing Combo ™ is a revolutionary approach to balanced meal and snack planning that doesn’t involve counting, tracking, or restriction of any kind. The goal is to create meals that feel physically satiating and emotionally satisfying by combining two or more Hunger Crushing Compounds: protein, fibre, and healthy fats. The result is a meal or snack that is delicious, interesting and keeps you fuller longer.”
— Quote from the Abbey’s Kitchen website
The emotional satisfaction we get from eating a balanced, healthy, delicious meal is just as important as physical satiety, especially when we’re working on managing our weight.
We’ve all found ourselves overeating at dinner or raiding the snack cabinet an hour after a meal or snack. Getting the right combination of nutrients that makes our bodies and our minds feel satisfied at every meal will help prevent that.
Healthy Fats, Fiber, and Protein
Include 2–3 of these nutrients every time you sit down to eat a snack or meal. By prioritizing foods that are healthy and make you feel physically and emotionally satisfied, you’ll be able to get ahead of unplanned snack attacks and binges.
Protein
There have been tons of fad diets over the years that have boasted the benefits of protein for fullness and weight loss. Turns out they were right!
Protein helps with fullness by boosting our satiety hormone and reducing the hunger hormone, called ghrelin (which I love to say because it sounds like “gremlin.”)
Protein intake has also been shown to help us burn more calories throughout the day, so if weight management is your goal, that’s one major benefit of increasing your protein consumption.
Protein can be found in foods like tofu, beans, meat, dairy products, nuts, and seeds.
Healthy Fats
We’ve all heard that mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, but you may not know that they also help keep us fuller longer. This is partly due to the fact that they take longer than other nutrients to move through our digestive tract.
Healthy fats can be found in things like avocados, olive or avocado oil, seeds, olives, and nuts.
Fiber
According to Abbey Sharp, fiber “slows the pace of digestion and nutrient absorption in the body, which allows for more gradual blood sugar release and stable energy levels throughout the day.”
As a result, fiber-rich carbohydrates can keep us feeling full longer, which may prevent that hunger gremlin from raiding the fridge at 2 pm.
Good sources of fiber include cereal, fruit, vegetables, whole grain bread, nuts, and seeds.
Meal & Snack Planning Tips
When planning a meal or a snack, it’s important to consider how balanced it is alongside its satisfaction potential. Including fat, fiber, and protein is an easy way to ensure it meets both of those criteria.
Here’s some inspiration:
Snack Ideas
Celery or apples (fiber) with nut butter (healthy fat & protein)
Hard-boiled egg (protein) with raw veggies (fiber)
Avocado (healthy fat) on whole-grain toast (fiber) with brie (protein)
Greek yogurt (protein) with berries (fiber)
A handful of your favorite nuts & seeds (healthy fat, fiber, and protein)
TIP: Nuts and seeds include healthy fats, fiber, and protein, which makes them a great snack by themselves or an easy way to round out a meal or snack that may be less nutrient-dense.
Meal Ideas
Chicken (protein) and veggie (fiber) stir fry with cashews (all 3)
Hummus bowl with olives (fat), chickpeas (protein), and quinoa (fiber)
Salmon (protein & healthy fats) with asparagus (fiber)
Black bean (protein) tacos with whole wheat tortillas (fiber) and avocados (healthy fat)
Sushi (it’s got it all)
TIP: Beans are high in both fiber and protein, but to boost their satiety factor they can be eaten with an avocado or a handful of seeds.
Additional Tips
Once you’re comfortable with which foods fall in each category, this approach should require very little thought and effort on your part.
This approach shouldn’t be restrictive. Though it can help you meet your health goals, it’s not a weight loss diet. If you want to have a brownie, have a damn brownie. Maybe throw a handful of nuts on the side to keep you satisfied if you have a long way ’til dinner.
As accepted nutrition guidelines state, proteins should be lean or plant-based whenever possible and whole grains are preferred over refined grains. That said, the approach listed above is likely to be most beneficial when following general nutrition guidelines.
Takeaway
We could all try to think a little more like dietitians when planning our meals to get the most out of the food we eat.
Weight management and a sustainable, balanced diet are within reach as long as we’re physically and emotionally satisfied with what we’re putting in our bodies. Anything less will never last.
Abbey Sharp’s Hunger Crushing Combo ™ is one tool that may help guide us toward our health goals in a simple, non-diety way. What’s not to love?
Disclaimer: I am not a dietitian. Please consult a dietitian or doctor about your daily nutrient needs and allergies before significantly altering or adding to a diet.
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