Not enough to eat?

neffyworld

What should I eat to stretch my calories out? I feel like I'm starving when I don't get extra calories from walking 10,000-20,000 steps. What threads talk about this?

PrincessMom08

More protein and fiber to help you feel fuller. Also, try eating 3 smaller meals with a snack in between.

cmriverside

Keep carbs lower.

More vegetables, less grains, low sugar. Sufficient protein. Get those steps in. I find if I don't exercise I eat way past my calorie goal. Even a 20 minute walk will blunt my appetite sufficiently. Can you do some at-home calisthenics or resistance work? That will help.

cmriverside

With that said, how many calories a day are you eating? How much weight do you need to lose? You may have it set too aggressively.

amusedmonkey

Are you attempting too steep of a deficit? Maybe try increasing your calories.

Are there foods that help you feel full more than others? Eat more of that. Bread helps me feel full, so does rice, and especially potatoes. That's the exact opposite of what many people experience, so experiment with foods and see what helps you. In general, most people feel fuller when they increase their protein. Try that and see if it works. Some people feel fat is satisfying, others can't feel full unless they eat high volume foods, some are satisfied by starches...etc. Try and see.

Food timing and frequency can also help. Some people are more satisfied with smaller but more frequent meals, others feel better eating fewer but larger meals.

Are you just starting? If so, maybe you'll benefit from going back to basics. Forget dieting for a couple of weeks. Eat your usual foods until you are satisfied at an activity level you feel is sustainable to you and log everything. This will help you a. figure out what foods fill you up and b. notice any calorie trends and cut calories from places that are easiest to cut.

Have you been dieting for too long? If so, take a break. Prolonged dieting can mess up your hormones and increase your hunger.

springlering62

Does your activity level need rethinking?

AnnPT77

It's so individual: Different people find protein satiating, or fats, maybe specific foods (oatmeal, baked potatoes are common ones, but those aren't universal).

Two things I haven't seen mentioned:

1. Volume eating. That can be huge portions of high-fiber low cal veggies, but there are other things people like. This thread runs the gamut:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10563959/volume-eaters-thread/p1

2. A research study about individual foods, surveying people about what they found most filling. Results here:

http://ernaehrungsdenkwerkstatt.de/fileadmin/user_upload/EDWText/TextElemente/Ernaehrungswissenschaft/Naehrstoffe/Saettigung_Lebensmittel_Satiety_Index.pdf

Yeah, it's a scary-looking German link. The actual PDF is largely in English.

Also, some people find that:

A. Slowing down eating makes food seem more filling. This can be things like making it a point to chew more consciously, or eating (for example) frozen grapes instead of regular grapes, or nuts like pistachios that you have to shell vs. regular nuts (bonus: they look bigger in the shell).
B. Crazily, using smaller plates can help psychologically, for some.
C. It's worth experimenting with eating timing, i.e., number of meals and snacks, which are biggest, etc. Different people do everything to one meal a day (OMAD) to all-day small-snacks grazing, and find it best for them.

Also, review your diary on days when you feel a little more hungry or a little more satisfied, at similar calorie intake. What made the difference? Food timing, food choices, exercise types that day or day before, stress levels, sleep the night before, boredom, social triggers related to eating habits, . . . it can be many things.

For me, the satiation formula is a solid breakfast with good protein, protein through the day, having a snack (usually protein) if I start getting hungry very long before the next meal so appetite doesn't get out of hand, at least one meal with high volume (usually in the form of *lots* of veggies). Poor sleep doesn't make me hungrier, but it does deplete my ability to resist temptations. Strength training makes me hungry, but having a snack around the time I do it helps. Your formula will be different: That's just an example.

J72FIT

neffyworld wrote: »

What should I eat to stretch my calories out? I feel like I'm starving when I don't get extra calories from walking 10,000-20,000 steps. What threads talk about this?

What are you currently eating? How many cals, deficit etc?

neffyworld

J72FIT wrote: »

neffyworld wrote: »

What should I eat to stretch my calories out? I feel like I'm starving when I don't get extra calories from walking 10,000-20,000 steps. What threads talk about this?

What are you currently eating? How many cals, deficit etc?

I think I've had my diary open, but I skipped tracking one day and stopped tracking on two days because I felt hopeless. My deficit has been to lose 0.5kg per week, but I'm hoping to lose a bit more than that.

Does the thing set up to lose a certain amount of weight guarantee you will lose that much weight, or will you lose more in the beginning? because I feel like I'd be disappointed if I lost a bit slower but maybe a 250g deficit would work better for me?

neffyworld

I'm wondering if I should practice fasting to give myself a smaller food window, but I've found I'm still hungry during the day.

Lietchi

neffyworld wrote: »

Does the thing set up to lose a certain amount of weight guarantee you will lose that much weight, or will you lose more in the beginning? because I feel like I'd be disappointed if I lost a bit slower but maybe a 250g deficit would work better for me?

Well, there are no guarantees. It depends on how accurate your logging is, how you take into account your daily activity/exercise, but also on how average your metabolism is (the calorie goals are based on statistical averages). You might lose less or more. The only way to find out is to try 🙂

10000 to 20000 steps a day is a lot. How are you accounting for this? What activity level did you choose on MFP? And /or are you logging those steps as exercise?

If you choose the slowest rate of loss, you'll get a higher calorie goal, which could be helpful for you. I chose that rate myself from the start of my weight loss (now 65+ lbs lost so far) and while it lets you eat more, it does require being accurate with logging (weighing foods, making sure to use correct/precise foods database entries,...) and using a weight trending app (Libra for Android, Happy Scale for IOS) is also very useful, to filter out the normal weight fluctuations and determine your weight trend.
It requires patience because it weight naturally fluctuates more than 0.5lbs, so you might not see a loss every week (because it's masked by weight fluctuations). You need to stick to your calorie goal for at least one month/menstrual cycle, preferably longer, to determine the rate of your loss.

Lietchi

PS: having looked at your diary, one thing that strikes me is your drinks. You're spending quite a few calories on them (milk, chai,...) but I doubt they are doing much for satiation. You might feel less hungry if you replaced some of the drinks with more filling foods.

neffyworld

@Lietchi I'm not hitting that many steps per day, it's too hard (not physically, but mentally). I might hit it every 2-3 days. I have my exercise set to sendentary and wear a fitbit, that only seems to sync to the website at the end of the day. I'm happy if I'm able to burn off the calories for one meal. I start to get nervous when I only have 1000 calories left for the day.

I feel like I need to check some of the entries I've been logging. I've been lucky so far and lost weight, but some of the entries, I just pick the one with the green tick. I've been overestimating some foods when I'm unsure by up to double.

I agree with the liquid thing. I feel like I'm addicted to cappucinos, tea with milk and hot chocolates. Its the main way I get my water in. I don't know if I could give up tea or go without the milk. I could try a milk alternative, but those cost up to 8x as much here.

Lietchi

I don't think milk alternatives are necessarily lower calorie. Tea and coffee are fine (just about zero calorie), it's the milk and hot chocolate mix that are doing the 'damage'. You don't need to eliminate them, but perhaps try to find lower calorie alternatives (non fat milk? Smaller portions? Less 'mix'?).

Definitely try to work on the logging accuracy. It's a bit of work in the beginning, but once you have correct entries for your most frequent foods, it's a lot easier to log. Overestimating your food intake is equally bad as underestimating, IMHO.

I think you need to change your mindset a little bit too. Getting nervous when you 'only' have 1000 calories left, not sure why?
Your calorie goal is your calorie goal, taking into account your chosen weight loss rate and your steps (when your fitbit is syncing properly).
You mention being happy when burning off the calories of one meal. Don't forget that your body burns most of its calories by existing (breathing, heartbeat, regulating body temperature, digestion etc), your steps are just extra. When you are active, the result is more calories to consume, since your weight loss rate is already built into your calorie goal.

kshama2001

I suggest you replace Sodium with Fiber here:

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

And work towards hitting your fiber goal every day.

Also, for some meals your protein is very low in relationship to carbs, and you often undershoot your daily protein goal by a lot.

Increasing fiber and protein can help tremendously with satiety.

Before I started paying attention to protein I got the munchies all the time and thought I wanted carbs, when in fact I wanted protein.

You may crave the cappuccinos, tea with milk, and hot chocolate less after upping your protein and fiber.

I agree that milk substitutes may not save you many (or any) calories.

One thing you could try is putting protein powder and a source of fiber in one of your drinks (and cutting back on other drinks.) For example, chocolate protein powder in hot chocolate could be yummy. I would also add soaked chia seeds for fiber. (Note: many protein powders clump if directly added to hot liquid so you may need to "temper" the PP by adding it to a small amount of room temperature liquid first and then add the hot liquid.)

When I add protein powder to coffee I can skip the milk and sugar. I just add a half scoop, but many people add a full scoop.

kshama2001

@neffyworld: it's been two weeks - have you implemented any of the suggestions on this thread?

Please replace Sodium with Fiber here:

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

And work towards hitting your fiber goal every day. Also do make sure you hit your protein goal.

Suggestions for both here:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10247171/carbs-and-fats-are-cheap-heres-a-guide-to-getting-your-proteins-worth-fiber-also/p1

neffyworld

kshama2001 wrote: »

@neffyworld: it's been two weeks - have you implemented any of the suggestions on this thread?

I've looked at the drinks and started to decrease the amount I have, and added some cold water to the teas so they use less milk calories.

Last night I made a salad for lunch to have today, and it had eggs and tuna and lots of protein. I also had a protein shake with breakfast, and some fruit salad. It's halfway through the day, and I still have plenty of calories left.

I also went through my food lists and deleted most of the entries, and inputted food we have at home (about a third of it), then I went onto a fruit and vegetable website and entered as much data as I could for fruit and vegetables you can buy in New Zealand and the nutritional information into this website, so my tracking will be more accurate from now.

I want to go to the supermarket and scan everything I like to eat, but there's thousands of food there. I went onto the website to enter stuff from there, and there was something like 400 entries just for milk. I didn't know where to start. I wish I could go there in the middle of the night and do my thing. I feel like the staff would dislike me loitering and I would possibly get kicked out. I guess building a food database takes time.

cmriverside

I want to go to the supermarket and scan everything I like to eat

Just so you know - scanned items in the database were originally entered by other users, so they are not necessarily correct.

Do you really eat thousands of foods? I eat mostly whole foods and a few staple processed/prepared things.


Luckily with logging food you can do it a little at a time.

westrich20940

I took a look at a recent day that you logged the whole day earlier this week....Did you use MFP to calculate your calorie goal?

If so, the goal it sets is ALREADY at a deficit ... that's why it automatically adds back in your cardio exercise calories, you should be eating at least some of those calories back. Or all of them, you'd still be at a deficit based on how MFP calculates. If you figured your calorie goal some other way, this may be irrelevant.

But, if you used MFP - you are hungry because you have a quite a large deficit. Eat more. The calorie goal is a GOAL, not a limit.