Normal to feel hungry while on diet?

algernon4231

Hi all,

I've been eating at a deficit while following IIFYM and I frequently end up feeling pretty hungry by the end of the day. I can't tell if this means I might be at bit too high a deficit. I follow the whole "don't eat back all of your exercise calories" thing, if that helps. Is this normal? I've been more lethargic too, so I'm considering upping my intake.

Thanks!

CassidyScaglione

Stats? Current intake?

It's also possible that you are eating lots of calorie dense foods and need to find more filling ones... Or that you are eating everything too early in the day, and need to save room for a snack in the evening.

xtina315

What are your stats, and how many calories are you eating? I know personally for me when I was eating too few I was hungry all the time, but when I upped them I am satisfied.

Joanna2012B

Definitely need your stat and calories to answer wisely. I upped my calories a few weeks back because I was feeling hungry and I wasn't losing weight. As soon as I upped it to 1500 I was satisfied and I started losing weight!!

moto450

If you are eating below maintenance then you are essentially eating less than what your body needs to maintain its current state, so being hungry to an extent is to be expected, however, if you are lethargic, and miserable then you are probably too far below maintenance.

Listen to your body, because if you push it too much you'll find it very difficult to maintain.

Maybe just up your intake by 200 for a week and see how you feel, and adjust from there if necessary. As long as you are still below maintenance you will continue to lose weight.

AnnPT77

MFP is designed to have you eat back your exercise calories, so I recommend doing that, at least (you can start with 50% of them, if you're worried about over-estimating them, and see how that goes).

How big is your deficit, and how much weight do you have to lose? If you have a very large amount to lose, it's OK to have a bigger deficit, i.e., if you're 60 or more pounds overweight, say. If you only have a little to lose, then a 1 pound a week deficit, or even 0.5 pounds per week, is more sensible.

If you're hungry and lethargic, definitely try eating more. If just hungry, it can help to experiment with the timing & composition of your eating. By "timing", I mean whether you eat breakfast or don't, which meals are the biggest, whether you eat 3 meals or 5, eat snacks or don't etc. - just how you distribute your calories over the day. By "composition" , I mean what you eat (within a healthy range, of course), such as relatively more protein, relatively more healthy fat, high-fiber foods, etc.

People tend to find different foods and different food timing filling/satiating, so it's good to experiment. I rarely felt uncomfortably hungry while losing, unless it was getting pretty close to meal time. On those occasions when I did, a small protein snack was a good strategy for me, to avoid temptation to over-indulge later.

kommodevaran

I have never felt more hungry when dieting 1) I eat better than before, getting in nore nutritious food, 2) I don't go for a large deficit, 3) my energy needs is taken from both what I eat and stored fat. I don't even have more cravings, because it's the eating of the junk that creates the craving for it

SezxyStef

I didn't feel hungry once I stopped following stupid diets and just counted calories and made sure my macros were in line with my goals.

So no you shouldn't feel hungry if you are at a reasonable deficit and eating filling foods like fats and proteins and fibre.

amusedmonkey

What types of foods are you eating? Maybe if you manipulated your intake a bit to include more low caloric density foods it would give your meals extra volume. Think about it, you can eat a good volume of vegetables for only 150 or so extra calories.

Are there times when you aren't very hungry? Maybe you could manipulate your meal size and assign more calories to meals close to the time where you feel most hungry at the expense of smaller meals at times when you aren't. Maybe even plan for a filling night snack.

It says on your profile you have a good amount to lose. That's to your advantage! You can get away with a higher intake and still lose weight, plus even 30 minute walk at your normal pace (you don't even need to breathe heavy) would give you a good amount of extra calories which you can eat back.

2snakeswoman

So far, I notice I'm hungry about half an hour before the next meal. I think that's normal. However, last night I went to bed hungry and woke up hungry.

Gamliela

Sometimes I go to bed hungry and not waking up hungry! Where does the hunger go?

sympha01

Why on earth would you assume you would NOT be hungry eating at a deficit? That's what hunger is for, evolutionarily speaking. While there's quite a lot of variation between individuals in how we experience "hunger" (I put that in quotes because in my experience there's quite a lot of different feels that we put the h-word on), feeling hungry on a moderate deficit is well within the norm on that spectrum. You might want to put some thought into qualifying what you're experiencing. My hunger cues work something like this (YMMV):

Type 1: Classic hunger. Little discomfort in the abdomen, sometimes with growly stomach noises. For me, that's just a meal timing thing: it just means my digestion system was expecting food and wonders what the holdup is. I can miss a meal and not feel it at all, or I can wake up feeling this way; it's not terribly consistent for me. It's not serious in the least, and can happen to anybody, regardless of whether you're eating the right amount, are in a deficit overall, or even if you are in an overall surplus (think back: if you're on a diet now, you're trying to lose weight from when you were on a surplus. Did you never ever ever feel hungry in your surplus days?). If I ignore it, it goes away on its own in about 20 minutes regardless of whether I eat or not. The sensation is annoying (and for some people it's apparently quite frightening), but it's kind of b*llsh*t in terms of body cues.

Type 2: The shakes. Rarely accompanied by lightheadedness. This is usually just a blood sugar thing for me. I get some carbs in, and the shakes go away pretty quickly. Don't need a lot of food to fix the problem (e.g., <100 calories of fruit is more than sufficient for me). Only happens to me once or maybe twice a year, and when it does happen it's really mild, so I don't worry about it. If it happens a lot and or is quite severe, you really might want to have some blood tests for insulin problems, diabetes or pre-diabetes, etc.

Type 3: Sensation of weakness in my limbs, sometimes accompanied by crankiness. Even though this is my most serious hunger state, I may not immediately recognize it as "hunger" when it occurs. Usually for me this happens if I actually /miss/ a meal or eat a half portion lunch (my lightest meal of the day anyway), not just am an hour late. If I'm in this state when I do eat, if I don't pre-measure my portions before I start there's a very good chance I will stuff in a ton of food pretty mindlessly. Apparently my body goes pretty much on autopilot in this state. Also, if I get to this state it's pretty much too late for me to be able to quickly make it go away by eating. I can and should eat, but no matter how much I eat or the quality of my meal, I'm stuck in this state for at least 90 minutes. Personally, this happens to me even though I'm not currently in a deficit, but I do time my meals a little oddly (I eat a big breakfast late in the morning and a big dinner pretty late in the evening, and only graze relatively lightly for lunch), so it can happen to me late in the afternoon, especially if I had a big workout. For me, I don't worry about this from a health perspective so much as from a self-control perspective: I'm actively experimenting with my diet to see if I can make this happen less, because that out-of-control eating thing isn't helping me with my maintenance goals.

Type 4: BS Hunger. Not a physical sensation at all. I'm bored, or stressed out, or maybe sad, and food sounds good. I could eat! It's b*llsh*t. Obviously, we need to learn to recognize this when it happens and ignore it or re-direct it to better ideas.

not_a_runner

I peeked your profile and diary, (sorry!) and a few things I noticed -
(Without knowing your stats) your goal says you have a lot of weight to lose, and your calorie goal is quite low in comparison. I'm guessing you can eat MUCH more than 1300 calories.
Most of your diary entries appear to be beverage related. Drinking your calories isn't usually very filling.
It looks like you're only eating about one "meal" per day, and it is usually calorie dense. (Not very filling for the calories it cost you.)
Two major things you can try-
1. figuring out how much you should/could be eating right now. I like IIFYM or similar calculators. You enter your stats and activity and it gives you a much more accurate calorie goal than MFP does. I usually take that number and adjust MFP accordingly.
2. "volume foods" - fruits, veggies, fiber, protein. These are all typically filling and don't "cost" you a lot of calories.

SezxyStef

sympha01 wrote: »

Why on earth would you assume you would NOT be hungry eating at a deficit? That's what hunger is for, evolutionarily speaking. While there's quite a lot of variation between individuals in how we experience "hunger" (I put that in quotes because in my experience there's quite a lot of different feels that we put the h-word on), feeling hungry on a moderate deficit is well within the norm on that spectrum. You might want to put some thought into qualifying what you're experiencing. My hunger cues work something like this (YMMV):

this from a health perspective so much as from a self-control perspective: I'm actively experimenting with my diet to see if I can make this happen less, because that out-of-control eating thing isn't helping me with my maintenance goals.

being in a deficit does not have to mean hungry...I don't remember the last time I was hungry, I mean actually hungry.

For example it's 4:40 here...almost time to go home and workout and have dinner.

Not hungry...I will be eating my dinner with a feeling of peckishness but never hunger (unless I've been stupid and not eaten on the weekends)

It's all about what you are eating.

Protein and fats keep you feeling fuller longer.

I eat lots of those.

kgirlhart

You might be a little hungry when you first start eating at a deficit because you are eating less than you are used to, but you shouldn't feel hungry and lethargic. I rarely feel hungry and when I do I usually look up and realize that it is almost lunch time either that or I am just bored and not really hungry. If you are using mfp goals you should be eating some of your exercise calories back. If you are using a TDEE calculator then you may not have your activity level set or you are trying to have too large of a deficit. Plus start looking for foods that fill you up. It helps me to eat lots of protien and fiber and don't try to cut back too much on fats either. You need good fats.

itsbasschick

i found that budgeting calories for a few small snacks (80 to 100 calories) keeps me from getting hungry.

carlysuzanne85

kgirlhart wrote: »

You might be a little hungry when you first start eating at a deficit because you are eating less than you are used to, but you shouldn't feel hungry and lethargic. I rarely feel hungry and when I do I usually look up and realize that it is almost lunch time either that or I am just bored and not really hungry. If you are using mfp goals you should be eating some of your exercise calories back. If you are using a TDEE calculator then you may not have your activity level set or you are trying to have too large of a deficit. Plus start looking for foods that fill you up. It helps me to eat lots of protien and fiber and don't try to cut back too much on fats either. You need good fats.

Seconded.

sympha01

SezxyStef wrote: »

sympha01 wrote: »

Why on earth would you assume you would NOT be hungry eating at a deficit? That's what hunger is for, evolutionarily speaking. While there's quite a lot of variation between individuals in how we experience "hunger" (I put that in quotes because in my experience there's quite a lot of different feels that we put the h-word on), feeling hungry on a moderate deficit is well within the norm on that spectrum. You might want to put some thought into qualifying what you're experiencing. My hunger cues work something like this (YMMV):

this from a health perspective so much as from a self-control perspective: I'm actively experimenting with my diet to see if I can make this happen less, because that out-of-control eating thing isn't helping me with my maintenance goals.

being in a deficit does not have to mean hungry...I don't remember the last time I was hungry, I mean actually hungry.

I personally didn't say you have to feel hungry. But you seem to be saying that a person has to not feel hungry, and I take issue with that. What you specifically feel is not a roadmap for what all other people "should" feel.

I'm saying that given variation among individuals, you cannot make the blanket statement that any individual should be bulletproof from hunger in a moderate deficit based just on macronutrient proportions. Some people might be on the spectrum hormonally where they're just gonna feel hungry sometimes -- even in a surplus, even with plenty of protein, or fat, or fiber or whatever perfect proportion you think is achievable. Yes, fine-tuning macronutrients helps -- a lot. But it's not gonna make everyone immune from hunger.

But moderate hunger, in and of itself, is nothing to worry about. It's foolish and irresponsible to tell someone that if they feel hungry they're doing something wrong, especially without asking them to take some time to think about the quality, frequency, and intensity of that hunger. All hunger is not the same. Some people are simply more sensitive to hormonal cues for hunger, or have slightly hyperactive (but not "broken" or dysfunctional) hormonal responses to calorie deficits, while others of us a less sensitive to the hormones or have suppressed hormonal responses.

eta: To be clear, I'm not denying that someone who feels hungry might be doing something wrong that could be helped by eating more protein, or reducing the magnitude of their deficit, or playing with their meal timing. I'm just saying that we shouldn't assume that. And given the op's question that seemed to be asking "I'm in a deficit but I should never ever feel hungry, right?" it's worthwhile to be upfront with "Well, no. It's possible you will be hungry if you are in a deficit and it doesn't mean there's something wrong with you."

endlessfall16

Does anyone see the OP's photo in her avatar looks very sad, especially when you think about "hungry"?

Please eat if you cannot handle your hunger.

Don't eat if you can. Learn to delay your eating one hour at a time.

(I'm so bored. I want to go to Rubio and get a mahi mahi burrito and a diet coke. I'm not hungry at all. Only have 190 calories today so far. )

chandanista

I feel like this was an important post and wanted to second it.

TresaAswegan wrote: »

I peeked your profile and diary, (sorry!) and a few things I noticed -
(Without knowing your stats) your goal says you have a lot of weight to lose, and your calorie goal is quite low in comparison. I'm guessing you can eat MUCH more than 1300 calories.
Most of your diary entries appear to be beverage related. Drinking your calories isn't usually very filling.
It looks like you're only eating about one "meal" per day, and it is usually calorie dense. (Not very filling for the calories it cost you.)
Two major things you can try-
1. figuring out how much you should/could be eating right now. I like IIFYM or similar calculators. You enter your stats and activity and it gives you a much more accurate calorie goal than MFP does. I usually take that number and adjust MFP accordingly.
2. "volume foods" - fruits, veggies, fiber, protein. These are all typically filling and don't "cost" you a lot of calories.