Does a growling stomach/hunger actually means you SHOULD still eat more??

Options
2»

Replies

  • shiftynj
    shiftynj Posts: 103 Member
    Options
    PeachyPlum wrote: »
    Do you actually know how many calories you should be eating daily?

    Any recommendations for working this out? MFP has me at 1730 calories due to my "sedentary" job. Then I work out and it's like "No, eat 2300!" by which point it's late in the day and hard to catch up.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    Options
    shiftynj wrote: »
    PeachyPlum wrote: »
    Do you actually know how many calories you should be eating daily?

    Any recommendations for working this out? MFP has me at 1730 calories due to my "sedentary" job. Then I work out and it's like "No, eat 2300!" by which point it's late in the day and hard to catch up.

    If you know you're going to work out later on in the day, eat a little more with each meal.
  • Hypsibius
    Hypsibius Posts: 207 Member
    edited June 2015
    Options
    I'll defer to some of the actual nutritionists on the forum, but this is part of my beef with calorie counting forcing folks into an OCD and mathematic relationship with food... not healthy.

    Kudos to you for being a proponent of clean eating, which doesn't get much love on this forum for some reason. My advice (and feel free to take it with a grain of salt) is to listen to your body, eat when you are hungry -- and try not to stress about 600 calories here or 500 calories there. You seem to have a general sense of where you stand and you're eating quality foods -- so take the stress out of it and try removing the regimen for awhile.

    When I'm looking for satiety, peanuts are an awesome high-calorie food. A handful of peanuts or pistachios and a good drinking yogurt are my favorite when I'm hungry after dinner.
  • PeachyPlum
    PeachyPlum Posts: 1,243 Member
    Options
    shiftynj wrote: »
    PeachyPlum wrote: »
    Do you actually know how many calories you should be eating daily?

    Any recommendations for working this out? MFP has me at 1730 calories due to my "sedentary" job. Then I work out and it's like "No, eat 2300!" by which point it's late in the day and hard to catch up.

    I have a super-accurate tracker. MFP was severely underestimating my calorie burns and had me under eating by a lot (I was literally light-headed when I first started).

    I'm not saying MFP's not accurate, but it works off the average person at your weight and activity level. If you're different from average, you'll know because you'll either feel like crap or gain weight on their recommendations.
  • Charlie003
    Charlie003 Posts: 1,333 Member
    Options
    I get that. I just ate a big ommlet an hour ago, but am starving.
  • vgrezzy
    vgrezzy Posts: 31 Member
    Options
    a lot of times what happens is that you're eating enough in calories but not enough as far as volume. try to limit foods that are calorically dense, and try to fill up on fruits and veggies in addition to your fats and proteins :)
  • chelsy0587
    chelsy0587 Posts: 441 Member
    Options
    Maybe your goals on MFP should be adjusted... do you know your LBM %?? If you do they you should be able to figure out how much protein your body really does need rather than a goal set by an "average".
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Options
    pumpkinpocalypse wrote: »
    I only started trying to eat 1500 cals daily this week (I was on 1300 before for a loooong time and rarely needed anymore food than that at the end of the day), and tonight i was topping 1400 calories. Pretty much enough in my opinion, i didn't feel like giving in to a 100 cals dark chocolate mini bar ''just to reach my calorie goals'', it didn't seem smart to me. Would it have been?

    What is your goal? If to maintain, then yes, it would have been a good idea, or simply working in more calories during the day if you prefer not to eat at night. But you aren't trying to lose more and are trying to find you maintenance, right? You want to figure out a way to eat where you are able to eat your calories and also aren't feeling hungry.
    Is hunger really supposed to mean you can and should take in more food, whatever it is, because you need it? Would it have been good for me to eat the chocolate, or should I have tried to eat something else that isn't dessert (so like, another mini meal???), or is it normal to ignore hunger from time to time if you've already eaten plenty?

    Hunger can be misleading for some of us, both thinking we are hungry when we likely are not and thinking we aren't hungry when we need food. If you've not been eating normally for a while--overrestricting or dieting or gaining or losing weight--it's very common to not be in touch with what is hunger and what isn't, and it would likely be good to try and figure out what your maintenance is, how many calories you need, and then eat in a way that gets in those calories and makes you feel satisfied.

    IME, the rumbling stomach often is not really a sign of hunger (although I can be for people), so if I'd just eaten and eaten plenty during the day I'd ignore it. BUT you said you'd only had 1400 calories and that's quite low for maintenance at your age even at your size, so I think eating more would have been smart, or maybe simply trying to work it into your day. Your post made me worry a bit that you are having trouble convincing yourself that it's a good idea to raise the calories.
  • pumpkinpocalypse
    pumpkinpocalypse Posts: 104 Member
    Options
    shell1005 wrote: »
    I am wondering why the idea of tracking macros would be such a burden? MFP tracks it anyways, so it is just looking at the info.

    I don't log food on MFP for various reasons, I do it by the good old way in a small notebook, by hand. I don't like searching in the repertory on MFP...especially sicne i often use f*cked up, improvised measurements for food when i cook, it's a burden to register like, 1/8 cup of something when i can calculate it more easily and play around with numbers and stuff by myself. I got very very efficient at estimating, and weight food as well so it's no use for me.
    Machka9 wrote: »
    Does a growling stomach/hunger actually means you SHOULD still eat more??


    No. Not necessarily. If you haven't eaten in hours it might be, but if it is happening shortly after you eat a big meal, then no.

    You might try things like ... tea, a mint, or perhaps visiting the Dr just to make sure everything is OK, especially if there is pain involved.

    But chances are it is just digestion.

    I see, glad to know, it's reassuring! Thanks. Yeah, I do drink a looot of water all day long so maybe that fastens up digestion and empties my system more quickly?
    shiftynj wrote: »
    My long-time trainer told me "never wait til you feel hungry to eat, and never wait til you feel stuffed to stop". He believed in steady but moderate consumption all day. By the time you feel it, you've waited/eaten too long.

    I know, but I try to stick to a precise eating schedule because it's less of a hassle to plan my day around that, like lunch at 12, snack at 4, etc. Dinnertime varies since my workouts aren't always at the same time...in that case I was home at 6, I had no choice but to wait to eat since I was away, starving or not! But i kno i've heard that waiting for a big hunger signal isn't the best idea of all because we might end up making ''bad food choices on a hurry'' etc.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
    Options
    I personally don't think 500 calories is a lot of food or volume myself...perhaps that's why you're hungry...it's actually not that much.
  • pumpkinpocalypse
    pumpkinpocalypse Posts: 104 Member
    Options
    lemurcat12 wrote: »

    What is your goal? If to maintain, then yes, it would have been a good idea, or simply working in more calories during the day if you prefer not to eat at night. But you aren't trying to lose more and are trying to find you maintenance, right? You want to figure out a way to eat where you are able to eat your calories and also aren't feeling hungry.
    Hunger can be misleading for some of us, both thinking we are hungry when we likely are not and thinking we aren't hungry when we need food. If you've not been eating normally for a while--overrestricting or dieting or gaining or losing weight--it's very common to not be in touch with what is hunger and what isn't, and it would likely be good to try and figure out what your maintenance is, how many calories you need, and then eat in a way that gets in those calories and makes you feel satisfied.

    IME, the rumbling stomach often is not really a sign of hunger (although I can be for people), so if I'd just eaten and eaten plenty during the day I'd ignore it. BUT you said you'd only had 1400 calories and that's quite low for maintenance at your age even at your size, so I think eating more would have been smart, or maybe simply trying to work it into your day. Your post made me worry a bit that you are having trouble convincing yourself that it's a good idea to raise the calories.

    I'm in the process of transitionning to maintenance, so i'm upping my calories by 100 a week or so. This week's goal is 1500. I'm going very gradually even though i'm on the edge because I find it hard to hit a high number of calories in one day so suddenly so I'm being realistic, meaning that it stays a bit low for now, so i have a chance to reach my goal.

    But yes, you're right in your second paragraph, it has gotten a bit harder to tell appart when I'm hungry or not actually hungry! I had been on low 1200 calories for several months (around 6 or more) so now i can feel hungry almost all the time...But there are times, like at my scheduled eating hours, where I KNOW that *that* particular hunger signal is ''real''. Other ones during the day are mostly just ''eh i could use a snack since i thought of food a second ago/saw a food pic/etc''. I think the whole intuitive eating part of maintenance is gonna be the hardest to manage when it will have been a long time (thinking months/years on maintenance), hopefully without needing to track precisely haha.

  • punkrockgoth
    punkrockgoth Posts: 534 Member
    Options
    In my experience, I have found that I am happier and healthier if I let myself eat when I am hungry. I have a tendency to get boredom munchies and I combat that with water and sugar free gum, but sometimes I am hungry. So I eat something small. I try to lean towards a low calorie clean snack, but sometimes I do reach for the 100 calories of chocolate. If I go over my calories, it's not the end of the world. Everything is going to be just fine. Some days, I'm just hungrier than others.

    If I find that I am hungry a lot, tired and cranky, then I readjust my calorie goal, bumping it up by 50 or 100 calories until I am not feeling starving, but still losing weight.
  • pumpkinpocalypse
    pumpkinpocalypse Posts: 104 Member
    Options
    chelsy0587 wrote: »
    Maybe your goals on MFP should be adjusted... do you know your LBM %?? If you do they you should be able to figure out how much protein your body really does need rather than a goal set by an "average".

    My BF% is 18.73... so that brings LBM to 81.27%. Any recs on how much protein that requires?
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited June 2015
    Options
    Multiply .81 with your weight and that's your protein goal in grams.

    You probably don't need that much, but many people find protein satiating, and if you want to build/maintain muscle it certainly can't hurt.
  • shaumom
    shaumom Posts: 1,003 Member
    Options
    pumpkinpocalypse wrote: »
    Does anyone have tips and tricks on how to make tracking easier, simpler and faster? So it can be intuitive enough and not require a constant access to a phone/notebook? I already write often enough in my food diary...
    OR in that case would it be fine to just track macros ''on average'' without being especially precise, while still improving the surprise hunger pans problem?
    Thanks a bunch!!

    This is something I did that I found helpful. There is a site called http://nutritiondata.self.com
    If you get a free account there, you can enter your own recipes and if you enter the foods in them (you can write them AND log the foods), the site will tell you the entire nutritional make up of your recipe for you.

    What I did, instead, was to get typical meals I eat, or even sometimes a day's worth of meals that I might typically eat, and I entered the entire thing in as one 'recipe' and checked to see how it stacked up.

    It was really useful to see what I was low in, or high in. And pretty quickly, I could look at the meals I was eating a day and I'd know what extra foods I should add in that day, to make up for whatever shortfalls there were, you know?
  • shiftynj
    shiftynj Posts: 103 Member
    Options
    I used to use Daily Burn's tracker and I found it was more accurate/reliable and had fewer entries with wildly disparate amounts for the same food. However, there was not the community aspect of MFP. Maybe I should food and exercise track over there, and just copy the aggregate numbers here.

Categories