Eating under cals but wrong foods!!

jessleon1984

Help I was eating so so well and lost 20 kgs or more using this app and Fitbit I'm very active but lately just can't seem to eat well like I used to I eat so much rubbish lately chocolate icecream etc I stay under my cal goal so am still losing but feel yuck how do I get back to eating good real foods more again? I find I'm craving sugar I've never had a sweet toothe until now aged 31

kshama2001

When I do the following, I don't have cravings:

1. Get sufficient sleep
2. Exercise regularly - when I get the happy hormones from exercise, I'm not prone to seeking them from food.
3. Get sufficient protein in relationship to carbs. I'm not low carb, but reducing carbs and upping protein worked for cravings for me. See also http://www.nutrition.org.uk/healthyliving/fuller/understanding-satiety-feeling-full-after-a-meal.html
4. Eat moderate amounts of fruit. This makes me less interested in higher calorie sweets.
5. Take a magnesium supplement. This can be especially helpful for women premenstrually.
6. Save foods like chocolate for after dinner, in small amounts
7. Stay hydrated
8. Have a calorie deficit that is appropriate for the amount of weight I need to lose. An overly aggressive goal can definitely lead to cravings.
9. Eat at maintenance when my appetite goes up premenstrually.

VintageFeline

Stop buying the "rubbish" and having it in the house. Go and do a shop of all the things you would prefer to be the foundation of your intake. Make a promise to yourself that you will only have treats in a single serve and you will not buy more than one single serve a day.

The sleep thing is really important too, if my sleep turns to custard (which it often does) I just crave all the comforting treats.

8 and 9 above are also key.

RoxieDawn

If you feel like crap eating this stuff you call "rubbish", stop doing that. You already know the foods that make you feel the best and the ones that don't..

If something else is going on (stress, lack of sleep, too low on calories, just not paying attention to your diet in general, etc) then search for the cause or trigger.

Spliner1969

VintageFeline wrote: »

Stop buying the "rubbish" and having it in the house.

This. A 1000x this! When my house is full of chips and crap food, guess what I'm going to snack on whether I have the calories or not? For this reason I simply don't buy it. If we have a family gathering and I buy things like chips, I send them home with my family members at the end to get them out of my house. Any time we have Mexican food night we prefer taco salads, and that usually means Doritos. If we have chilli night we buy corn chips. I make sure only to buy as much as we need for that meal and maybe a bit of leftovers, beyond that I won't buy the "family size" or multiple bags of chips. If my grand kids are over, we buy them regular ice cream, and I also send it home with them because I generally prefer the lighter stuff (no sugar added).

Derpy_Hooves

Plan your day. Pre-log your day in the morning including (healthy) snacks.

trigden1991

A further point; it doesn't matter what you eat to lose weight. A calorie is a calorie. Therefore if you eat in a deficit you will lose weight, no matter how un-nutritious the food is.

CasperNaegle

You just have to want to do it more than eat the junk. However you can allow yourself any foods so long as you stay in your macros/calories. I don't cut any foods completely out of my diet.