Staying under calories when up very early?

PrettyPearl88

How do you do it? I'm still struggling with this! I tend to go to bed early (sometimes hungry, and it's part of the reason I go to bed early), unfortunately it means I'm often up early too (like 5am), and often hungry by 6am. So, I eat. Then I'm hungry for lunch at 10.30am... After that it's a struggle all day to leave enough calories for dinner (hubby doesn't get home until 6pm).

Of course it doesn't help when it's one of those days when I'm just hungry anyway, but still... man I can't wait for maintenance!

First thing I was going to say right off the bat was more fiber and protein. But I just looked at your diary and you seem to be getting enough of those. You can even afford to lower the protein a bit if you want. You're doing a good job with fiber and protein.

I think your problem is that you're not spreading your calories out evenly enough. If having one big meal and the rest tiny little meals works for you, great, do that then. But it seems to NOT be working for you. So if I were you, I'd try smaller main meals and eating more snacks so that you're eating something every 2-3 hours. You could try something like this:

5:00 am -- Wake up
5:30 am -- Breakfast: 250 cals
7:30 am -- Snack 1: 100 cals
10:00 am -- Snack 2: 100 cals
12:30 pm -- Lunch: 350 cals
3:30 pm -- Snack 3: 200 cals
6:00 pm -- Dinner: 400 cals
8:30 pm -- Dessert: 100 cals
10:00 pm -- Sleep

It's what I do a lot really. I just enter things in my diary depending on the time. Like I had lunch at 10.30am today but it was entered already so I didn't bother changing it, then I had the rest 2 hours later, but it was still technically lunch time.

I need to figure out more filling 100 calorie snacks though.

When I looked at your diary entries during the past 1-2 weeks, I saw large lunches. Most days, your lunches were between 500 and 700 calories and you had 1 or 2 snacks. If your lunches are 500-700 calories on a regular basis...THAT'S your problem. If you're just listing half of that food under "Lunch" but you're actually eating half of the food you have listed under "Lunch" as snacks throughout the day, then that's good (though not very helpful to people other people trying to interpret your diary lol!)

How long has it been since you started eating healthier? Because if you're eating every 2-4 hours and you're eating the right foods (good proportions of protein, fiber, fat, and veggies), you shouldn't be starving unless you're either A) not eating enough, or you haven't been doing it for very long and you're just going to have to suck it up and deal for a bit until your body adjusts.

I started a year ago. I just have days when I'm hungrier, lol. Yes I split my lunches most of the time. I just don't always bother putting them in the right place when I prelogged and have lunch a bit early, so some afternoon snacks still end up in the lunch category because it's still only 1pm.

Well, if that's the case and it's a regular thing for you to feel really hungry and deprived, you may not be eating enough. You may need to add a couple hundred extra calories to your diet every day.

But if all of this only happens on some days...well, we all have days when we're feeling hungrier than usual. I usually just try to either power through those days or eat a little more on the extra hungry day and then eat a little less another day that week. Your weekly average is really what's most important.

Congrats on your AMAZING work so far, by the way! And good luck on the (short) remainder of your journey! :flowerforyou: