“I can’t lose this weight because I am always too hungry.”

Have you ever said this to yourself? Hunger is a signal the body gives you to remind you to add some fuel to the furnace. It is in place so you don’t forget to eat and get too low on energy. Hunger is a good thing yet you might find yourself getting upset about being hungry when you are on a diet. There is a way to work with your hunger to make weight loss a lot easier. Below I have defined 3 steps you can take today to use hunger to your advantage.

1. Know Your Hunger Number:

A new study published online today in the British Journal of Nutrition found that timing of dietary protein intake affects feelings of fullness throughout the day. The study concluded that when people ate high-quality protein foods, from sources such as eggs and lean Canadian bacon, for breakfast they had a greater sense of sustained fullness throughout the day compared to when more protein was eaten at lunch or dinner (i).

“There is a growing body of research which supports eating high-quality protein foods when dieting to maintain a sense of fullness,” said Wayne W. Campbell, PhD, study author and professor of Foods and Nutrition at Purdue University.

Parents and educators concerned about the childhood obesity epidemic now have a new ally that’s helping them apply tough love in the school cafeteria: fingerprint biometric readers linked to point-of-sale (POS) systems and home internet connections that help them monitor and restrict kids’ unhealthy lunch purchases.

Over twelve million kids the in U.S. are overweight. As obesity has doubled for preschool age kids and teens and tripled for pre-teens since the 1970s, a growing number of obese kids are now at risk of typically adult weight-related conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, and heart disease.