Cravings and feeling like in a deficit on maintenance

JeromeBarry1

I looked at your food diary and saw high carbs, low protein, and a food total far below your calorie budget.
I suggest you change that. Bring carbs down, protein, fat, and calories up.

skymningen

HDBKLM wrote: »

I also agree with those who said your calorie intake seemed a bit on the low side for maintenance. The 1300 you said you're actually consuming is close to my own suggested calorie intake for weight loss, and we're the same height. I'm glad to see that you've 'gamed your brain' and set your calories a bit higher knowing you'd subconsciously try to keep your numbers within the 'green zone'.

All that said, since your goal is maintenance, and since you said you're up for a bit of experimentation, maybe you could also spend a couple of weeks trying to eat intuitively (what this article calls 'mindful eating': https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/why-you-cant-lose-weight-on-a-diet.html). Some people simply must plan. I'm one of them, and my track record of decades of fatness is evidence of that. You may not have that problem, and—just spitballing here—it could even be that all the structure you're adding to your eating regime (strategising having a peach instead of a meal so you can save calories for later, etc.) is working counterintuitively in your case, and exacerbating that feeling of unsatiatedness and craving. The bottom line is it's better to find a balance where you're not craving than to learn how to learn strategies for fighting cravings (obvs). You could do intuitive/listening-to-your-body/un-preplanned eating for a little while but also track, just to see where your intuitive calorie total leads and analyse accordingly.

The point is, I am not really losing but maintaining on these 1300 calories. I am trying to eat more, but I get stuck between feeling full, thinking I need to fuel my body for muscle gain, trying to lose body fat and stress eating. I am working on balancing things out, but it is a slow progress. In the meantime, in any case, I want to feel (and be) healthy.

I basically never tracked my food before MFP. I even lived alone for around 5 years, so there was nothing holding me back from eating exactly what and when I felt like it (intuitively). It worked for maintaining, but I was maintaining a much higher weight and body fat (I didn't have a measurment of fat back then, but it was visibly more and 13 kg more weight, too). I did not work out. At all. I used to be extremely sedentary, and when I changed that, I realized that I have so far in my life not developed any real intuition for fueling my body during exercise.

The only reason I "save calories" is because I know I will not be satisfied by a small dinner or I plan a lunch out with friends and don't want to have to be picky about it. I am not a breakfast person, so actually having breakfast is more than I would intuitively have. But I cannot go without a good chunk of food for dinner. Not easily, at least. So I try to save up for that. It is also the meal where I have the most options and time to prepare. I have to bring lunch to work most days, together with my gym stuff and normal work stuff that can be a lot to carry. And I walk and/or take the bus, so I do have to be able to carry it. No complicated huge lunches for me. Anything that does not fit in two average lunchboxes I can't do. I try bringing in two days worth of food when I do not plan to go to the gym, but the fridge space at work is very limited, too.

Cravings have gotten better in the last days. On the other hand I suffered from migraine, which does make me want to eat fairly little. But maybe it was also stress and hormones going mad on me that I had those cravings so badly.

I am taking in all your advice and will try to slowly ease myself into more protein and less carbs and also be less strict with fat. That will require me to change my eating habits quite a bit, so I don't want to just jump into it. And I am definitely going to indulge in everything I can get at my friends wedding next monday. No calory counting that day. No "going for the healthy option". Just the food I want to have in the amount I feel having it. (And vodca. It's a polish wedding...)

HDBKLM

Ok then, although I wasn't suggesting you 'return to' intuitive eating but try to instead cultivate it with 'active paying attention', as it were, based on your comments I'll just reinforce my support of the idea to adjust macros. You'd mentioned feeling like your body craved carbs, but note that this is pretty common, and is often less a craving in the 'intuitive eating' sense and more one of wanting more of of the same because we weren't sated the first time around. Everybody's body is different but I think that for most of us we'd say that, relative to carbs, protein is better at getting us full (for the same calories) and fat is better at keeping us full.

Hope you find what works for you.