What do you do if you??

jenniferanderson3888

I’m 190 45 and 5 foot. Mfp gives me 1300 hundred a day to work with. I don’t exercise much. What do you do if you are just hungry? Sometimes 1300 is just not enough and I wind up bingeing because if it. I have it set to 1 pound per week loss. I have 60 pounds to lose. If I feel this way now. I’ll never reach goal. I’m just not happy.

thelandkraken

I find snacks that are really low calorie that I can splurge on. Sugar free jelly has been a godsend to me in particular, because a whole jelly is only like 16 calories when it's made up.

zeejane03

I'm at 1,350 calories a day, for the .5lb setting, currently taking care of some maintenance vanity weight.

I eat at least 7 servings a day of veggies and fruit. I eat a lot of fiber (30+g a day), I hit or exceed my protein goals and then most importantly-I've learned what true hunger is vs wanting to eat for other reasons. This was probably the biggest thing I had to deal with back during my active weight loss phase. Just because I felt hungry didn't actually mean I was truly dealing with hunger. I realized I was eating a lot of times out of habit, the time on the clock, boredom, etc. Once I got a handle on that things started going a lot smoother. Now I eat within my calorie parameters without ever feeling hungry

etherealanwar

Have you tried switching up your macro intake? Perhaps more of either protein,carbs, or fat will be more satiating for you. You can also set your weight loss to 0.5 lb/week so you have more calories to work with.

tinkerbellang83

jenniferanderson3888 wrote: »

I’m 190 45 and 5 foot. Mfp gives me 1300 hundred a day to work with. I don’t exercise much. What do you do if you are just hungry? Sometimes 1300 is just not enough and I wind up bingeing because if it. I have it set to 1 pound per week loss. I have 60 pounds to lose. If I feel this way now. I’ll never reach goal. I’m just not happy.

Perhaps choose 0.5lbs per week if this doesn't feel doable for you, even if it takes longer it might help you stick with it and it's better to get there slowly than not at all.

Also agree with maybe playing around with your macros and/or meal frequency/timing. For example: If you're hungrier in the evening but not so much during the day, have a much lighter breakfast or no breakfast and then you have more calories to play with for lunch and dinner.

cheryldumais

All the above are great answers. The last thing you can do is move more. I know you said you don't exercise but is that because you don't feel well enough for the gym? All I did throughout losing all the weight was walk. I try to walk 20 minutes twice a day on work days and on days off I usually get one 45 to 60 minute walk. That should add some calories for you and can be enjoyable and stress reducing to top it off.

tmpecus78

jenniferanderson3888 wrote: »

I’m 190 45 and 5 foot. Mfp gives me 1300 hundred a day to work with. I don’t exercise much. What do you do if you are just hungry? Sometimes 1300 is just not enough and I wind up bingeing because if it. I have it set to 1 pound per week loss. I have 60 pounds to lose. If I feel this way now. I’ll never reach goal. I’m just not happy.

Quick question. How much water are you drinking a day? The reason I ask this is a lot of the time, we mistake thirst for hunger. And if you are ever feeling really thirsty at times, you are already dehydrated. So with that being said try to stay hydrated throughout the day and it can/will prevent feeling hungry all the time.

Personally I enjoy having more cals towards the end of my days, so besides a few scoops of protein in the morning after my workout, I don't really eat a meal until 12:00. My next meal is then 5:00pm when I get home from work. This allows me to have larger more satisfying meals.

NovusDies

In addition to the macro experimenting suggested above you may also want to experiment with how you deploy your calories through the day. If you are hungriest in the evening try a much lighter breakfast or even no breakfast so that you have more calories later in the day. You may also want to try the other direction by adding more meals or snacks just making them all smaller.

AnnPT77

Another thing you can consider is working to increase daily life (non-exercise) movement. It's hard to estimate those extra calories at the time they happen, but if you make a habit of it, you'll see it in your longer-term weight loss rate and can adjust calories upward to get the same weight loss rate at a slightly higher calorie level.

This may sound trivial and not worth it, but there's been some research showing as much as low hundreds of calories difference between fidgeters and nonfidgeters. I'm not suggesting that you strive to get all twitchy , but there are things others have done here to gradually get themselves to a bit higher daily burn. One thread about that is here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss

MikePTY

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Another thing you can consider is working to increase daily life (non-exercise) movement. It's hard to estimate those extra calories at the time they happen, but if you make a habit of it, you'll see it in your longer-term weight loss rate and can adjust calories upward to get the same weight loss rate at a slightly higher calorie level.

This may sound trivial and not worth it, but there's been some research showing as much as low hundreds of calories difference between fidgeters and nonfidgeters. I'm not suggesting that you strive to get all twitchy , but there are things others have done here to gradually get themselves to a bit higher daily burn. One thread about that is here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss

If you can do enough that you feel comfortable at putting yourself at lightly active vs sedentary, that would give you another 200 calories in your goal to eat everyday. I think more people are lightly active than they think.

cwolfman13

jenniferanderson3888 wrote: »

I’m 190 45 and 5 foot. Mfp gives me 1300 hundred a day to work with. I don’t exercise much. What do you do if you are just hungry? Sometimes 1300 is just not enough and I wind up bingeing because if it. I have it set to 1 pound per week loss. I have 60 pounds to lose. If I feel this way now. I’ll never reach goal. I’m just not happy.

For days like that, it is very helpful to understand the numbers and the math. Your calorie target is to lose weight...so your maintenance calories are higher. Eat to maintenance on occasion.

You also need to look at the long game and don't drown in the minutia of the day to day. While losing, I had maintenance days and I had days when I went over maintenance for special occasions, holidays, etc. In the end, those days made for a small % of total days...what I was doing most of the time was more important than what I did sometimes.

I also found it very beneficial to finally get off the couch and start moving more. I didn't do anything crazy, I just started taking regular walks in the morning or evening and tried to make sure I got up every hour at work to move a little bit. It all adds up.

cmriverside

MikePTY wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Another thing you can consider is working to increase daily life (non-exercise) movement. It's hard to estimate those extra calories at the time they happen, but if you make a habit of it, you'll see it in your longer-term weight loss rate and can adjust calories upward to get the same weight loss rate at a slightly higher calorie level.

This may sound trivial and not worth it, but there's been some research showing as much as low hundreds of calories difference between fidgeters and nonfidgeters. I'm not suggesting that you strive to get all twitchy , but there are things others have done here to gradually get themselves to a bit higher daily burn. One thread about that is here:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss

If you can do enough that you feel comfortable at putting yourself at lightly active vs sedentary, that would give you another 200 calories in your goal to eat everyday. I think more people are lightly active than they think.

^^This all day long.

I would suggest setting your Goals at "Lightly Active" and "Lose one pound." After many years on this site I have to say almost no one should be set at "Sedentary." It's artificially low if you have any kind of job, care for kids or a house, and/or go to school.

1300 is low.

1500 is completely do-able. I know because I lost a lot of weight on 1600, and I'm 5'8". I had to make good choices with my food by adding more vegetables and whole fruit, choosing lower fat meats, small portions of cheese, half portions of nuts and oils, and just finding ways to cut calories here and there.

Keep at it, keep tweaking things, watch to make sure you're hitting those minimum goals on fat and protein and take a walk if you're able! I can't remember if you're able to exercise. (You get more calories and walking may blunt appetite/hunger. It does for me.)

Dgil1975

I would reaearch calorie density. Jeff Novick talks about this quite a bit. Eating 1300 calories of calorie dense foods will leave you hungry. You need to mix in large portions of veggies which are high nutrient but low calorie on all your meals, this will fill your stomach and make you feel satisfied.

kgeyser

jenniferanderson3888 wrote: »

I’m 190 45 and 5 foot. Mfp gives me 1300 hundred a day to work with. I don’t exercise much. What do you do if you are just hungry? Sometimes 1300 is just not enough and I wind up bingeing because if it. I have it set to 1 pound per week loss. I have 60 pounds to lose. If I feel this way now. I’ll never reach goal. I’m just not happy.

When you say sometimes, any chance those times fall around hormone fluctuations? Certain times of the month I feel like I could eat everything in sight.

I found that adjusting my macros helped a lot, as well as tracking my eating patterns for awhile and seeing which foods and food combinations I found filling. It was helpful to be able to identify which foods left me satisfied and which left me feeling hungry after an hour, or could lead to overeating.

Some of it may be behavioral as well - if you are a volume eater, you may want to switch up your diet to some foods that are lower calorie but you can have a lot of them.