Metabolism and appetite

destinybchavez

Hello!! i’m new to the app and have a decent amount of knowledge regarding fitness and health but i’ve started having some weird problems lately. I haven’t felt as hungry as usual which has led to me eating less. i have a good metabolism but im worried that it will (if it hasn’t already) slow down making it harder for me to lose some of the weight i’ve been working hard to get rid of. even though i haven’t been too hungry lately i try to force myself to atleast hit my protein goal. how can i make sure my metabolism stays pretty fast? thank you in advance!

Lietchi

Appetite isn't necessarily a good indicator of metabolism.

If you're worried about your metabolism, I would recommend this (mostly for preserving muscle):

• A modest rate of loss rather than a fat rate of loss
• Sufficient protein intake, as you mentioned
• Strength training
• Diet breaks might be helpful if you've been dieting for a while

It's hard to speculate about your loss of appetite, but it could be you're getting used to a lower calorie intake or it could be you're undereating (or it could be unrelated to your weight-loss).

If you want more specific advice, perhaps tell us about yourself and what you've been doing to lose weight?

AnnPT77

@Lietchi made a good post up there.

I'd add a further question: How long have you been at it?

For me, and I think some others, it's normal for hunger/appetite to be a perceivable factor at first, as habits changes, then to reduce once eating lower calories becomes habitual. For me, that was maybe a 2-4 week kind of adaptation.

There was also - I think - some adaptation in maintenance, though that took much longer. Obviously, in maintenance I'm trying to average maintenance calories, and that was more calories then I'd been eating while losing. Still, there was some adaptation - not sure if physical or psychological or both - before eating those maintenance calories felt natural and possibly could've become fairly automatic. (I chose to keep counting beyond that time for a variety of reasons irrelevant here, but fighting hunger/appetite hasn't been one of them.)

If you want to take a deeper dive on calorie intake and metabolism, there's some good stuff in these threads here, IMO, including pointers to outside information sources:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks

destinybchavez

thank you very much. last year i weighed about 150-140 pounds and got down to 120 this year. appetite hasn’t been a problem since recently. not sure if it helps but i’m petite (4’11). i’ve managed to get decently lean and a little toned but i’m still not where i want to be yet.