Still hungry

nicy1326

I’m on 1200 calories per day
I had for breakfast coffee’s and a premier shake and I’m still hungry???

pridesabtch

1200 is on the low end. If you put in to lose 2 pounds a week, this often happens. Make sure you put your stats in correctly. Height, weight & age. If you are still truly hungry maybe lower your loss goal to 1 pound per month and see how you feel. Or just raise your calories to 1300 and see how that feels. It's also possible that you are someone who feels better with a larger first meal and lighter lunch / dinner. If it is early in your journey, don't get discouraged. Make a few tweaks and give them a little while to become comfortable. Good luck.

Some people find drinking water when they are hungry helps. I'm not one of those people, but if it works for you that is a great thing to try.

claireychn074

nicy1326 wrote: »

I’m on 1200 calories per day
I had for breakfast coffee’s and a premier shake and I’m still hungry???

Have to be honest, I’d chew my arm off if that was all I had consumed. The advice above about the rate of loss is good - if you haven’t got a lot of weight to lose then it’s better to pick a lower rate of loss and eat more calories. The problem with a low calorie intake is you are more likely to to binge and you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Why not be kinder to yourself, eat food (not just shakes - they wouldn’t fill me up) and reassess your rate of loss? Look at it this way: pick half a pound loss per week and in 6 months you’ll have lost nearly a stone in weight and it will be comfortable. Or you can go all out, not feel great, and risk rebounding, by trying to lose weight fast.

COGypsy

What did you have for breakfast before you started dieting? I'd end up in jail with a case of the hangries if I just had a shake for breakfast.

Do you usually skip breakfast? If you're used to eating actual food for breakfast, a little coffee and protein shake is just going to be a cruel joke. If you usually skip breakfast altogether, coffee and a shake should be pretty filling, if only because of the quantity of liquid you're consuming.

If you're totally dedicated to protein shakes for breakfast, maybe try adding a piece of fruit tomorrow and see if that helps.

HoneyBadger302

Echoing others comments to be sure a) all your stats are entered correctly, and b) consider a less aggressive goal.
Also look at your historical patterns. For me, I generally don't eat breakfast outside of coffee with half and half, and if I workout, I'll have a post workout shake, so for me, your breakfast would be fine.
However, I tend to eat an early lunch (~11 am), and then have a decent sized afternoon snack, and dinner is my biggest meal of the day.
1200 calories, unless you are very tiny, is basically a bare minimum. I will be gnawing my own arm off with that lol.
It might be more productive to track what you would normally eat for a week or two. Then, lower that by 100-200 kcal/day. Give yourself a couple weeks at that level, then drop it again until you are at your targeted loss rate. Allows you to gradually get used to eating a little less, adjust your portion sizes and cooking habits, without the extremes (which generally speaking do not have great long term track records for success).

AnnPT77

Congratulations - really. You've discovered one tactic that doesn't work for you, coffee + Premier shake for breakfast. (Maybe even discovered more than one, even, if the 1200 turns out to be too aggressive, i.e., too low.)

That's an accomplishment. No, really, I mean it. Now you can go on, try something else, see if that new thing works better for you.

IMO, weight management success depends on finding personally sustainable tactics. So much of this stuff seems to be very individual. Other people can suggest things to try, as they've kindly done above. Try something different, see how that works. If it works better, great. If not, try some 3rd way, and so on. Just keep going. You'll find the right approach.

To me, figuring out how to reach and then live permanently - and happily - at a lower, healthier weight is like a fun, productive science fair project for grown-ups. Along the way, not all experiments work, and that's OK . . . as long as we learn from that result, and keep chipping away at the overall goal. It's not a failure, it's an opportunity to find a better, more sustainable plan.

That's a different mindset from "lose weight fast so I can go back to normal". "Go back to normal" is how most of us became overweight in the first place. Going back to normal will do that again . . . and again . . . and again.

What's needed instead? New and different long term routine habits, eating and activity. Reasonably happy habits, or we won't keep them up.

So: Try something different. See if it works better. Keep working at it. It's OK to try things, reject some of them, keep others . . . as long as we keep going. Only giving up altogether fails.

Best wishes: The results are worth the effort!

Corina1143

Hi Nicy!
Remember the story about the tortoise and the hare?
Start where you are. Stop striving for instant perfection and start trying to be a healthier version of Nicy.
A walk around the block is exercise. One swap like 1 glass of water instead 1 cola is an improvement to your diet.
Make it a little easier and you'll succeed! Then you'll get used to success! Then make more goals. Keep succeeding. Celebrate your success! Make it more fun!

staceywilk

Eat fiber rich and high protein foods and drink A LOT of water.

Alatariel75

I'm with the people who a shake would never satisfy, and I agree with Ann - this is a great lesson on what doesn't work for you!

Try some other breakfasts with more substance. I make sure to have veg with mine to bulk them out, and always have protein to fill me up.

ked1970

I usually have a shake and an apple or a banana. Gotta have a little bit of carbs and fiber

springlering62

If it “has” to be a shake, your job is to make that shake satisfying, not just rely on some processed powdered mix or can.

Add ice and make it a smoothie with any of the following:

Add a serving of cottage cheese or Greek yogurt.

If it’s vanilla powder , then add an apple and some ginger root to the cottage cheese.

If it’s chocolate, add that cottage cheese with a little coconut milk powder, malt or chocolate or coconut extract.

Add a spoonful of molasses, or a few grams of uncooked oatmeal. A half or full serving of a nut butter. A serving of peanut butter powder.

I lost my weight eating a satisfying smoothie ever morning for two years. It was delicious and I couldn’t wait to get out of bed to enjoy the next one.

But I agree with the others. I’d be in purgatory at 1200 calories a day. I was sedentary senior starting out, and I never ate less than 1470, and ramped that up quickly as I became more active.

I now “spend” many hundred of calories per day just on breakfast, because I’ve learned that works for me.

Physician heal thyself is one thing, but I wish there was an equivalent Dieter Learn Thyself saying.


1200 seems to have some magical mystique or aura in people’s heads, and it’s just all wrong for most people- unless you’re extremely short or inordinately sedentary.

Slower loss is better loss. Learning is better than jackrabbiting.

totameafox

my meal plan is around 1250 calories today and i accidentally (i think) just tossed my food on the floor because I've been chewing food for over an hour and in 3 hours i get to do it again.

you can still have plenty of food for 1200 calories. you can still feel full on 1200 calories but you can't drink your calories. High protein and fiber is the key.

Before i was diabetic I would eat 4 times a day and my last 'meal' to get up to 1200 calories would be ice cream just to have the calorie count. my meals were usually chicken, rice and vegetables. I ate by a clock because i never felt hungry and i ate ice cream because i was tired of chewing by the end of the day.

now that i have diabetes... I will have to go without the ice cream but today (my new start)

breakfast: 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, little bit of strawberry jello, 2 tbsp of flax seed and 2 large eggs
lunch & dinner: 1/4 head of iceburg lettuce, 1 cup of romaine lettuce, 1 cup of baby spinach, half a cucumber, half a zucchini, half a bell pepper, 5oz tuna, 28 grams of cheese, 2 tbsp of chia seeds, and 2/3 cup of frozen mixed vegetables

the protein gives me energy and the fiber helps with slower sugar absorption and feeling full longer because it slows digestion. Though if you do something like this, i would increase the fiber slowly because if your body isn't used it it, the cramps are awful.

but my point is... you can still eat a lot of food. and even feel better than just counting calories if you are eating the right food.

lisamaroo

If you insist on eating 1200 calories, I would recommend finding high volume, low calorie foods that you enjoy eating. I am all for eating more. My favorite snacks are air popped popcorn or watermelon.