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The Skinny, written by Dr. Aronne, a weight loss doctor in NYC, is a diet book recommended to me by my neighbor. The book includes a long scientific explanation of why certain people have increased appetites and super complicated hormone responses to food.
A lot of the book is typical of most diet books–suggestions to eat a whey or soy protein shake (which seems kind of old school and not at all cutting edge to me.)
The most interesting part of The Skinny was the recommendation for eating food in a specific order to increase satiety! If you are trying to lose weight or curb hunger hormones always eat lunch and dinner in the following order:
1) salad
2) vegetable
3) protein
4) starch/carbs
I have noticed that eating my meals in this order–and never skipping the salad and vegetable portion at lunch and dinner–does make me feel more satiated. Now when I go out I always make sure to order a salad to start and a side of vegetables and I always eat these items first. I notice that by the time I get to my sweet potato fries/rice/pasta finale I am surprisingly full. (I do make myself eat a small portion of healthy carbs because I don’t do well on a low carb diet!)
Weight loss is not something I recommend focusing on too much because it is so hard to achieve meaningful weight loss and studies tend to report people gain weight after losing weight–but the health benefits of eating more vegetables and not craving sugar/carbs/desssert is certainly undeniable–and I have actually shifted my weight five pounds toward my lower set point weight very effortlessly by making a point of eating food in this order.