I am getting hungry more often?

jacki865

I began this diet on January at 235 and now I'm 193. I am on a 1200 calorie diet and I workout about 6 days a week. I do mostly cardio like jogging, elitipcal, or hiking for at least 30 minutes-hour each session. I also incorporate some lifting about 3 times a week and noticed some muscle tone has developed. All of my workouts are in the evening hours after I get off work. I have a fitbit HR and average out about 2000-3000 calories burned per day depending on how hard I hit the cardio.

Usually I eat the same thing every meal which has helped me stay in deficit. I do go out at least once or twice a week. when I know Im going to be going out and eating/drinking I will usually cut back on or cut out a meal just so I can balance everything out. I have never had an issue with this routine and It has worked for me.

Well lately I have noticed hunger is starting to creep up on me. ITs getting to the point where I have no energy for my evening workout and I feel like binging. I usually have dinner after my evening workout. I have no idea if this is because my metabolism has sped up so I need more food, if I am lacking a certain nutrient, or If I am simply getting bored with everything and my mind is tricking me into thinking of starving just to binge? I still need to lose about 60 more lbs so I know now is a good time to have a look at my diet and make changes. Any ideas why I am all the sudden getting this hungry before my next meal?

RuNaRoUnDaFiEld

1200 is not sustainable, you need to fuel your work outs. I'd add 250 calories and see how you get on.

janejellyroll

Are you eating back any activity calories? I was afraid to eat back activity calories when I began on MFP and I did fine for a while. And then I hit the wall . . . exhaustion, cravings, lack of energy, hunger.

MFP is designed for you to eat back the calories you burn through exercise.

MarziPanda95

If you're burning 2500 a day and only eating 1200, you need to eat more. Do you mean 1200 net, or 1200 gross? As in, do you log your exercises and then eat back up to 1200? If not, you might be netting very few calories.

redmaryclare

I read an article that said if you lose 10% of your body weight your hunger hormones increase(ghrelin). I found this true for me and increased my calories for a couple of weeks and ate a lot of vegetables and filling protein and drank a lot of water. My appetite has gone down now, thankfully.

cgrout78

if you're hungry, eat more...add about a hundred to 150 calories to your daily intake per week until your weight loss totally stalls out (stall being more than 4-6 weeks with no change). since you're lifting weights I suggest maybe adding a protein shake, most are around 150 calories per scoop with around 25 grams of protein.

DaniCanadian

Use a digital kitchen scale to weigh all your foods. If you're truely only eating 1200/day then that's probably why you're starting to get hungry. You need more to sustain yourself, especially if you're active. I'd say up yourself to maintence level (use a food scale for everything that goes in your mouth for accuracy) for about a month. Then slowly reduce your Cals (maybe 250/day) and slowly start to lose again. Weightloss isn't a race. I'm 5'3, sw: 177 and I'm at 1610 Cals per day to lose half a lb a week. I also eat back around half my exercise Cals.

Edit: I don't mean reduce 250/day and then another 250 the next = 500 less. I mean if your maintence is say 2000 then eat at 1750 per day.

WBB55

If hunger didn't start for 5 months into the plan, I'd blame it on good old reduction in available body fat. GOOD JOB!

Now for some generalized science about your body fat that I've read. Estimates are that each pound of excess body fat can provide a theoretical 25-30 calories per day of energy. Meaning, if at 235 lbs you had 100 lbs of fat, that fat could at most provide you with 2500-3000 calories of energy to use. So if you were burning 3000 and eating 1200, your body fat made up the difference of 1800 (because you still needed the 3000 calories from somewhere to accomplish whatever you did that day). Since your body could mobilize that 1800 easily from your stored fat, you didn't in particular feel hunger.

But now, you've lost let's say 30 lbs of fat. Now your fat can only provide you with a theoretical max of 2100 calories of energy (and that's only if you're eating all the vitamin, minerals and other nutrients you need to help that chemical reaction happen in your body). If you eat 1200 still, now you can see why you might get hungry if you're still trying to burn 3000 every day. Your body simply can't provide the energy you're asking it to, so you feel hungry and your endurance is suffering. PLUS, your overall BMR/TDEE is lower, so in general it simply takes more effort for you to burn 3000 calories every day. So you have to WORK HARDER to burn that same 3000 calories.

Solution? Up your intake 200 calories or so. Yes, you'll lose slower, but once you're not obese, you have to start losing slower to avoid losing bone and muscle and hair, etc.

(Edit for math is hard)

CharlieBeansmomTracey

so if you are burning 3000 calories is that from just exercise or is that the readout from your fitbit at the end of the day? if the latter then that includes what your body burns without exercise. what are you burning just from exercise? (not counting your bmr). if you have more than 1000 calorie deficit then you definitely need more food. if you are netting under the 1200 calories you need more food. I would put my info into mfp and set it to lose .5-1lb a week and eat those calories for awhile(eat back about 25-50% of exercise calories back) and see how you feel in a month or so.

jacki865

CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »

so if you are burning 3000 calories is that from just exercise or is that the readout from your fitbit at the end of the day? if the latter then that includes what your body burns without exercise. what are you burning just from exercise? (not counting your bmr). if you have more than 1000 calorie deficit then you definitely need more food. if you are netting under the 1200 calories you need more food. I would put my info into mfp and set it to lose .5-1lb a week and eat those calories for awhile(eat back about 25-50% of exercise calories back) and see how you feel in a month or so.

I burn on average a rate of 10 cals per min on my exercises so on a normal cardio day when I put effort in If I'm working out for 30 mins I burn around 300 calories or 600 if I'm working out for an hour. Some hiking days I workout more than an hour and will burn my whole days worth (usually on weekend hiking trips) each workout I make sure to burn at least 300 calories or I will continue until I do so.

sylkates

Eat back your exercise calories. Or at least 50% - 75% of them. It will keep you from feeling tempted to binge as much, and it will still allow you to continue losing weight.

CharlieBeansmomTracey

jacki865 wrote: »

CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »

so if you are burning 3000 calories is that from just exercise or is that the readout from your fitbit at the end of the day? if the latter then that includes what your body burns without exercise. what are you burning just from exercise? (not counting your bmr). if you have more than 1000 calorie deficit then you definitely need more food. if you are netting under the 1200 calories you need more food. I would put my info into mfp and set it to lose .5-1lb a week and eat those calories for awhile(eat back about 25-50% of exercise calories back) and see how you feel in a month or so.

I burn on average a rate of 10 cals per min on my exercises so on a normal cardio day when I put effort in If I'm working out for 30 mins I burn around 300 calories or 600 if I'm working out for an hour. Some hiking days I workout more than an hour and will burn my whole days worth (usually on weekend hiking trips) each workout I make sure to burn at least 300 calories or I will continue until I do so.

how do you know you are burning that many calories per minute?(honest question here)