Dinner is when I need help

KimberlyHCreasy

Hey everyone! I do great for breakfast and lunch and can get 30+ grams of protein in each. However, it's dinner that really gets to me. I am usually hangry (which I believe to be more psychological, than realistic being I get so much protein to keep me full longer.) And I tend to go over all my calories and macros because of this. I plan my meals out, but by dinner because of the hangry my dinner seems to never sound good or satisfying... weird I think. How do I stop this? I want to lose weight and have the ambition apparently until dinner in which I crave more and also desserts. Anyone else? What do I do to stop this? What meals do you eat that you find are healthy, satisfying, and fun of protein?

Corina1143

Plan for a small but satisfying snack an hour or so before dinner, so you won't be quite so hungry. Also, is part of it that you're tired at dinnertime? Could you find a way to sneak a 15 minute nap? No thinking about dinner, what happened that day, what's coming up tomorrow.
Just rest your mind, body, and your soul for a few minutes.

Also, how long between lunch and dinner? If it's too long, your body may be demanding a quick fix--craving quick carbs--sugar.

ahoy_m8

Guurl, I feel ya on this one. Word. For. Word. I don't think it's psychological for me, though. I am hungriest in the afternoon. I do best when I eat most of my calories in the afternoon. Big snacks. My meals tend to be low fat, so I depend on my snacks to reach my macro minimum for fat -- nuts & cheese, that kind of thing.

Sounds like you're doing great on protein, but it isn't the only macro to keep an eye on. There is also a fat minimum (and many people find fat satiating). It's ~ 0.35g per pound bodyweight. (Personally, I find macro percentages totally useless. I track grams.) There is no minimum for carbohydrates (30g to fuel brain but keto advocates claim brains don't even need that -- either way, it's so small you couldn't eat too little if you tried), BUT there is a minimum for fiber (ETA: 20g for women, 25g for men), and it also is really filling.

If you want to experiment, I would suggest a slightly different take than the commenter above. I say look hard at the calories at times you typically aren't that hungry. Scrape some of those to give yourself a hefty afternoon snack. And eat dinner earlier, if you can. Most importantly, double check your fiber and fat intake and see if you can make different food choices that boost those.

Good luck!

88olds

How aggressive is your calorie target? The best plan is the one we will actually follow. If your plan isn’t working, fix it. In losing mode I ate a lot of apples. Usually 1 an hour before meal time. Another thing that helped me at dinner was my meals were precooked. Only thing I had to wait on was the microwave. Been maintaining for years now and dinner is still precooked most of the time.

But let’s go back to the calorie deficit. The number one mistake people make in calorie counting is trying to lose fast. An overly aggressive deficit makes for a miserable life which leads to the desire for more speed to end the misery ASAP. It’s maddening loop to be trapped in.
Then the answer becomes declaring the entire project a failure and walking away.

There is a significant calorie counting learning curve. You don’t say how long you’ve been at this but give yourself time to try some of the suggestions on this thread and tinker with the numbers. Try to find the number that you can live with and results in a loss. Any loss. Beware of the voice in your head insisting that your losses are too small. If you can find that sweet spot where you can live with your plan and lose weight, you will find that some weeks you can be more aggressive, some not. Sometimes you can find modifications to what you eat that cuts calories without feeling like you are missing them. Most important thing is to have control of the process. Good luck.

csplatt

Some days I do better if I have already prepped my dinner so I can just warm it up as soon as I get home. Otherwise I snack too much while cooking.

Skyler103

I think it's great that you're getting in so much protein, and I know it's supposed to keep you satiated for longer but that doesn't work for me at all. It doesn't matter which meal it is, if I don't have some carbs I'll be starving in an hour. Maybe experiment a little more with macros and see if you need more fats or carbs with your protein to stay full longer and be more satisfied.

Plasicage

Short term; intermittent fasting. Cuts the eat-o-clock completely out.
Long term; still working on it, but it seems a behavioural/mindset change.

Keep in mind our bodies can produce stress hormones to fool us into thinking we’re hungry when we’re not.

Anniesquats100

I used to eat a lot after my calories ran out, but I finally got my macros balanced ( including a tiny bit of chocolate). Now I'm just not hungry after my last planned meal at about 3 pm unless something unusual happens.

I eat two eggs for breakfast,

A Greek yogurt for morning snack,

overnight oats with added protein powder and blueberries for lunch, and a bit of baking chocolate then

a mango spinach shake with added fiber, along with a tiny portion of fish or chicken in the
afternoon.

Then I exercise about 300 calories a day as a deficit. It's working for me so far. Good luck and don't give up! Keep getting better until you have something that works for you!

Annie