Hunger

tegalicious

Hi everyone. Hoping I can get some insights and ideas as to what could be going on with my hunger.

Basically I am hungry pretty much all the time. I would say 90% of the time I am hungry and seem to have an insatiable appetite. I feel like I have tried everything and nothing has worked longer than a few days. I plan on going to see a doctor but my insurance is weird so it might be a while before I can be seen.

I have tried drinking more water, playing with more protein, playing with more fat, played with more carbs and protein and lower fat, tried intermittent fasting and get plenty of fiber. I am hungry even after eating a big meal. And when I do get full, it quickly subsides and I am hungry again in an hour. I am at a loss.

My goal is maintenance and I have been maintaining since January between 115-118 pounds. I use a fitbit to determine my calorie goal. I did have a few weeks when I ate above maintenance and did see a five pound gain but that was gone by my last weigh in last Saturday.

I would love it if someone could take a look at my diary and see if they have any ideas of what I could try until I can see a doctor. Any and all suggestions and ideas for changes and what could possibly be going on is greatly appreciated!!

Thanks in advance!
Tegan

heybales

Since you are letting Fitbit tell you how much to eat daily, are you correcting it for exercise it is badly underestimating, like lifting, biking, swimming, or hill running, or steep incline walking/running?
All those things will be badly underestimating, do them hard enough, by easily 500-600 per hr, obviously more on the stuff it can't log at all.

So 5 lbs in 2 weeks, 14 days?

5 x 3500 if fat / 14 days = 1250 eaten over maintenance daily for 2 weeks if you think that 5 lbs was fat.
If you ate 250 over maintenance every day for 2 weeks it would cause a gain of a mere ONE pound. That's it.
Did you eat that much over maintenance?

So we know that wasn't true. Water weight.
Some may have been higher sodium eating, but that should have flushed out in a couple days with normal diet level and water.
I'm betting you stored more glycogen in your muscles, which stores with water.
But this calls in to question something.

If you had been eating at true potential maintenance, there would have been no big glycogen stores to top off in the first place.
The mere fact there was that much to top off means you were not eating at potential maintenance, or you do a low carb diet with a lot of intense carb burning cardio, or a keto diet and you ate carbs that week. That would cause it too.

I'm guessing you are not eating at full potential maintenance, but suppressed maintenance (why maintaining weight still), and that's why you are hungry.
Body can recover from suppressed maintenance eating at that level - but it wants more food to increase the metabolism and daily burn. So increase calories 100 daily for a week or two.

Or, other option, if you are doing a good lifting program, eating at maintenance allows pretty good effect from the workout, and the body wants to repair and do more, so it makes you hungry. It would prefer a surplus.

Or, other option, do you eat too frequently, and the snacks/meals are mainly carbs?
Along those lines, perhaps normal meals/snacks, and you lead with eating carbs first, lots of carbs, with minor protein and fat if at all. That can easily cause insulin spikes, and then over-reaction and lowered blood sugar, leaving you feeling hungry after 2-3 hrs. Usually would make you tired too with lower blood sugar.
And big meals, even of good ratio of protein, fats, and carbs, even with protein and fat first, still spike insulin.

So several options in there, but the points on glycogen stores and your effect are true, unless you dropped the 5 lbs in a few days and can tie it to a high sodium meal or two.

What are your workouts?

tegalicious

Five pounds in three weeks. One week eating roughly 500/day over fitbit maintenance (I didn't wear the fitbit, it was a rest week and I needed a break from following the fitbit religiously but on my less active days now, fitbit says I burn at least 2000.... I ate 2500/day that week). One week I ate roughly 12000 calories over I think. Not joking. It was Easter and I feasted. No shame and no regrets. I knew I would gain a little and was prepared to handle it. Third week I ate about 1000 over. So for three weeks I was roughly 15000 calories over maintenance. I expected some gain. Figured it would be some fat. But when it went away on the fourth week I got confused. I weigh weekly so maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe I was catching my highs and then caught a low. Not sure. But I did eat a lot over my maintenance and to see a gain I expected just disappear in a week I don't know what to think about that.

Workouts. This week has been a bust for weight training but my routine for the past four weeks has been Tuesday and Thursday: run and strength training and Sunday: run. All runs are done on a hilly environment. Tuesday and Thursday runs have gone from 45 minutes to 60 minutes in five minute increases weekly, this week being 60 minutes each run. Sunday run has been between 120 and 130 minutes with the same weekly increase of five minutes with this Sunday being 135 minutes. I didn't realize I needed to adjust for the hills although the thought crossed my mind last night that maybe fitbit isn't recording my runs accurately because of the hills (I don't sprint up them but certainly am working harder than I do on a flat surface). Strength training is gym machines and dumbbells with sets of 5×5 as heavy as I can. I record the time it takes me to do my routine in fitbit as heavy lifting.

I don't do low carb . I have my protein set to 120 grams a day and I hit at least that most days and I believe I have hit that every day the last four weeks. Fat had been lower simply because I don't like a lot of fat containing items (no butter and no oils and have a lactose issue and the only milk and yogurt I can eat are low fat). I do drink carbmaster milk and yogurt but that is because they are low lactose and high protein, not for the low carb-ness. I recently upped my fat macro to at least 70 grams a day but in the four weeks I am pretty sure that I have been hitting it daily; no change in hunger levels. My carbs are whatever I have left after hitting at least 120 grams of protein and 70 grams of fat. I typically have mainly fruits and veggies and whole grains for carbs with a few treats here and there.

I wouldn't say my lifting program is bad but it isn't as intense as say Stronglifts or NROLFW. It is just a little rotation of the gym equipment and a few dumbbell and ab things that takes at most 45 minutes to complete and I am not doing things super heavy (lat pulldown is stuck at 80 max for 1 rep). I will note that I was having good progression until I took the rest week and didn't exercise. I came back and had to deload and haven't gotten back up to my prior weight amounts even after four weeks. It's why I lacked the motivation to go this week.

I used to eat every three hours but sometimes that was a huge stretch and I would want to eat every hour or two. I decided to try IF. I had a 14/10 eating window and it worked to curb my hunger for about a week. I have been doing it since April 10th but with all the overeating it has been a little less than perfect in the beginning. But in the past four weeks, I had one week where I felt like it was working great and now I am back to being hungry all the time. I had to break my fasting window one day this week because I started getting really hungry and started feeling dizzy.

I haven't really looked into nutrients in each meal as being mainly an app user makes that hard. I figured what really mattered was the overall day. But I can tell you I have tried eating bigger meals less often and I am still hungry before and after. I have tried smaller meals more often and I am still hungry before and after. The only time I get full is when I eat a huge excess. Easter feast weekend? I was full at the end of the day. For that Friday-Sunday, I averaged 5000 calories a day. Before mfp I typically ate 3000-5000 calories a day. It was the only way I wasn't hungry all the time. Since starting mfp, I have been hungry 90% of the time. In the beginning I justified it as being on too low calories, so I upped calories. Each time I upped calories as I got closer to goal weight, I would have two-three days of satisfaction and then the hunger would return. I figured it would go away when I got to maintenance. But it hasn't. So your theory on suppressed maintenance seems like the most logical theory.

Oh and my sodium is usually pretty high. So I don't usually see huge fluctuations from high sodium meals.

How do I adjust for the hills in my runs in fitbit? Am I recording my weight training correctly in fitbit? Where do I go from here?

heybales

Hills you'd need a HRM to estimate calorie burn, or know how much elevation change there is in total (not high/low difference, all the ups and downs), divided by total distance, to get average incline. Might be annoying, but if a regular route you always do, only have to do it once.
Then you could use this for the Gross figure to replace Fitbit's estimate. More accurate than HRM if you know the % grade.
http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

Lifting can be logged on MFP as Strength training and it will sync back over to Fitbit - if you sync. Otherwise have to log on Fitbit site as weight lifting light or moderate, or if truly heavy for you to almost failure, power lifting is more correct.
So it may seem small compared to cardio, but that's true. But it's a lot more than Fitbit's estimate.

So with those 2 items, your TDEE is actually higher.

And I'm going to suggest your weeks of eating more prove that out.
You ate what you thought was well above maintenance, but in reality it wasn't much more, and you probably topped off glycogen stores. Which eventually dropped again from eating less than maintenance.
Just like any diet has first big loss, water weight from that.

Some invalid days is probably part of reason too, perhaps some fat, perhaps metabolism was allowed to be full burning too.

So might examine your meals for what I suggested could be effect of insulin spikes.

But Dr visit good idea too - and Dr should suggest testing that too, so good to come in with the info first, perhaps testing too.
Eat the protein and fat in a meal or snack first, and make the meal or snack max 400-500 calories.

tegalicious

I 100% agree with you and see now that I haven't been at true maintenance. This explains so much. I can't believe I didn't put two and two together when I gained quickly and lost quickly during my little feasting time. I did find it odd that it all came off so quickly but didn't make the connection that it was glycogen and I haven't been at true maintenance until today.

I do my weight lifting to near failure so I would say it is heavy for me. I can typically barely squeak out those last five reps in the last set. Lately I have had to failure before the last set. So I will continue logging it as heavy/power lifting as I was unless my program changes.

I don't sync the fitbit to mfp. I couldn't stand the wild adjustments it was giving me and how it had so many syncing issues (android user here). I just keep an eye on the weekly totals and daily totals and average them out to give me a TDEE calorie goal for the week in mfp.

I will be getting a polar v800 when they come out. It has a hrm. But in the meantime I will try to map my run elevation change but I am horrible at geographical math so I am a little nervous to do that.

After thinking about how I eat, I do tend to eat the meat and fat last lol! Kind of saving the best for last mentality. I will do my best to change that. Typically though my meals seem to be fairly balanced but I haven't actually checked on the website version of my diary to confirm that. Is there a particular percentage I should aim for in each meal and snack? When I was doing IF, which I stopped doing today, my meals were larger than 500 calories max. So I will reign that in from here on out. Not doing IF will help that.

I will be seeing a doctor sometime soon. I realized two Sundays ago I actually had a hypoglycemic episode. So something might actually be going on (or not). Diabetes (both types) run in my family. Not making any assumptions that something more serious is going on but it is worth it to mention the episode to a doctor and having my blood sugar tested because I haven't had it done ever. And I am getting older .

What would you suggest I do in the meantime while I look into attempting to map my runs, calories wise? Would it be worth it for me to just scrap the fitbit calorie estimate and try to figure out my true TDEE based on my actual figures? Sort of do a test of upping calories until I see my weight actually level out?

heybales

I would at least correct a week or two of past Fitbit entries for the strength training being manually entered, and see where that makes the average TDEE.
That is a valid way of doing it, redoing average on weekly basis.

Then get up to that new TDEE value.

I'd hold off on attempting TDEE calc based on results, because that only works coming in from the high side. From the low side you could just cause system to slow down more.
Because if you went on past eating level, and said that's true potential TDEE, and took a deficit from it, you could just suppress your system more if you hadn't reach the 20-25% studies have shown can occur.
And then 4 weeks later eating at TDEE-% with no or little weight lost, you come up with new lower TDEE value. And then take another deficit.
Eventually you will have max suppression and start to lose again, but what eating goal now, how sustainable, how compliant with it, ect? That's the whole point of eating more than bare minimum and still losing weight.

My Dr keeps looking at my folder too and saying I'm getting older, not sure where he's getting his info. :drinker:

If you can have your daily macro ratio the same in each meal, it's much better.
The protein and fat eaten first can just help out an over-reaction you personally may be having to carbs. And it may get better, but with history it may stay bad.

Looks like MapMyRun will give total elevation changes in feet, what they call "gain". Because 1 hill of 100 foot rise is far cry from 20 hills with 50 ft rise.
And since running downhills actually burn more. So it gives total uphill elevation changes, double it, because if you went back home, you went back down at some point.
So total feet in elevation changes / miles / 5280 x 100 = grade % to use on that site. and 2.85 say is good accuracy, don't round off too much.

Also be aware with the HRM it will inflate calorie burn on lifting workouts. So opposite problem.

tegalicious

Currently fitbit says my average weekly but is 17645 total (with weight training already manually recorded into fitbit). So I took that a divided it by 7 and then rounded down to 2400/day so I could have some wiggle room if I didn't get a workout in or if I needed to rest more. Then I eat back any remaining deficit on Sunday when I do my long run and want more food. I did this for my whole weightloss time too so it isn't anything new to my body. I have always had compliance issues due to this hunger though. I even got to a point three months ago where I was starting to overexercise so I could have more food to eat. That is why I had to take a rest week four weeks ago. I ended up injured and had a huge wake up call that something had to change. Before the rest week four weeks ago, I think I was burning upwards of 21000/week, eating 2800/day and eating back the remaining calories on the weekends. I still had the same level of hunger as I do now and as I have had since starting this journey in June of last year.

Intake on rest week was an even 2500/day for the whole week. I didn't wear the fitbit so I don't know exactly how much I was over but light days with no exercise now I burn between 1500-2000. The second week was Easter week and I did 2250 as my calorie goal because it looked like I was going to be at an average of 2500/day for TDEE and I wanted to continue with my usual eating back more on the weekends schedule. It was Easter weekend though so I ended up being over by 11000 for the week. The next week I was still extremely hungry and ended up being at an average of 3000/day and over by 2000 for the week. I didn't log everything I ate that week. I was ashamed. This is the week I saw a gain that put my over my maintenance high point. Three weeks and I was up to 120.9 from 115.6. So on the fourth week I did 2000/day Monday-Thursday. I was ravenous the whole time. But I was debating if I would take a deficit to lose the pounds gained slowly and felt it would be easier to be lower during the week and then only eat back some of my deficit that weekend (so take 250 off of the 2250 daily goal Monday through Saturday and then Sunday be able to eat a little more like usual). On Friday I decided I liked how I looked despite weighing more and having slightly higher measurements so I would start eating back my calories and ate 2600 on Friday. Weigh in on the fourth week I was back down to 115.7. I understand I was at a deficit for those four days of week four but it wasn't that extreme of a deficit and that is my typical routine and I have never seen big weight drops. So obviously the five pounds gained were my glycogen stores and when I went to more of a deficit on those four days I lost them again. That is what I am understanding anyway. This week I decided to go to a very small daily deficit to see if I could get a handle on this hunger. 2400/day is only 100 calories off my average TDEE and I am still ravenous. I am still having major compliance issues. Yesterday and the previous day I ate 4000+ each day. This hunger has gone on for too long and I am starting to lose my willpower to stay in my goal and feeling a little desparate and worried that I won't be able to get a handle on this.

So if fitbit with weight training manually entered is saying my average daily burn is 2500ish should I go ahead and set my daily goal to 2500 for this weekend and next week (scraping the whole eating back extra calories on the weekend and just try to eat at supposed TDEE daily) until I can map my runs (I found a mapping app that measures elevation changes and I believe it gives you an average bit I might just use the one you suggested) and do the calculations you provided? I will have my long run mapped this weekend and then can map my short run on Tuesday.

Edit: weigh in this morning has me at 118. Would you recommend I start weighing daily and tracking in the Libra app to get a better idea of what is a fluctuation and what is my actual weight?

tegalicious

Okay, I used the mapmyrun website to map my Tuesday and Thursday runs. I wanted to double check that I did the math correctly.

Mapmyrun says my route has a gain of 160 feet and mileage of 5.25 miles.

So I doubled that to be 320.

320/5.25/5280*100=1.15

I entered 1.15 as the grade in this website: http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

It gave me a calorie burn of 533 for my hour of running 5.25 miles at a 1.15 grade weighing 118 pounds.

Is this math all correct?

If not, please educate me

If so, how do I enter this data into fitbit on Tuesday when I do this run again? I have a flex so I don't have the activity button. Would I need to put it in sleep mode at the start of the run and then wake it at the end and then convert the "sleep" into an activity and then see if the calories need to be adjusted?

heybales

You make a manual activity on Fitbit site, set the correct start time, and the Fitbit calories and miles for that time will be overwritten.
Steps will still be counted.
No need to change anything on Fitbit.

And math is right on.

If you note what the day is in total calories prior to change, and then after change, you can see how much more or less the more accurate calc is.
Or you could initially set the manual entry to 0 calories burned, and that will also tell you what Fitbit gave for that time by the change in total calories. And then correct the entry to those calories you came up with.
You may find it's close enough for 1.5 % grade it doesn't matter overall.
And then you know if those are your hilly workouts, you really don't need to do it for any others.

I would be curious to see what Fitbit gave for the workout compared to calculated.

tegalicious

I am thinking it is going to be similar numbers. Which then leads to my next question. If the numbers end up being similar, where do I go from there calories wise? If the 2500ish/day that fitbit is giving me isn't my true maintenance what do I need to do to find my true maintenance?

heybales

Well, the lifting is wrong, so that will change things.

But it may indeed be that you have more LBM and higher BMR than Fitbit is estimating based on age, weight, height.

Once you eat at corrected TDEE for a week to see where the hunger is, do the 2 week 250 test.

For 2 weeks eat daily 250 higher than estimated TDEE.
If it's real potential TDEE, you will gain 1 lb slowly over the 2 weeks.

If it's not real TDEE, you'll gain faster and/or more water weight likely in first week.
Or you won't gain anything and you'll maintain at higher eating level.

Restart test by adding 250 more again, until you do gain 1 lb slowly. Then you know prior level was real TDEE.

It's a fun test, and real eye opener as to how much you could eat.
And performance will increase in everything, enjoy it while you can.

tegalicious

Okay! So I went on my long run this morning and actually ended up completing my 2014 goal of running a personal half marathon! Completely unplanned but I did it! Woot! Anyways.....

I did the math after having mapmyrun record my run today and this is what I got....

Total gain: 678

1376/13.45/5280x100=1.90

1.90 entered into the other website with the other variables it gave me a calorie burn of 1272

Went to fitbit and entered my exercise for the time I was running and how far I went etc and my run came out to a burn of 1284 according to fitbit calculations.

So not too much difference there. But! There is a huge but!! I noticed when I got back from my run that fitbit said I had gone 15 miles..... hmm.... That's not right..... It looks like fitbit is miscalculating my long run distance. And sure enough when I entered the correct running distance into fitbit, I lost about 600 calories off my total for the day. Erase the correct run figure and I gain back those 600 calories. So! It appears that for some reason, fitbit is overestimating my long run distances and giving me a lot of extra calories on long run days.

So.... I have been eating those extra calories this whole time and it hasn't seemed to have had much of an effect. Should I just let it be or correct it from here on out?

Should I be logging my weight training as light/moderate or heavy/powerlifting?

Fitbit has been getting the distance correct on my shorter runs because I manually mapped that yesterday and got the same mileage when I manually mapped it as I do when I check the fitbit aftereards. Not sure why it is giving me so many extra miles on long runs though.... Maybe my stride is different??

heybales

I just tried what I had you do. This my my 10 hill run day, grade 5-9.8%, and kept pace best I could to 8/mile on uphills, with same feet turnover as normal running.
Noted what Fitbit had already for my day just after my run - 7.06 miles and 2154 calories.
Manually logged workout of 1 mile and 1 calorie.
Totals dropped to 1.63 and 1205.
So it thinks I did 6.43 miles and 950 cal just for the run.
I did 7.3 miles and 1204 calories. (website says 1234 for avg 4.71% grade. always nice the VO2 formula is working right still).

So indeed, it can get off on more serious workouts. If that had been a 13.2 day like you, I'd be missing 1.6 miles. Whereas you gained about 1.6 miles.

I'd say that overestimate may have been balancing out not logging the strength training. That's almost 100 extra calories a day eaten.
But will it always be equal like that?
I'd correct it if you got better stats, I always do.
Though I just noticed since I let the MFP carry the workout over to Fitbit - me manually correcting the mileage on Fitbit workout does NOT change the Fitbit daily mileage - so I've been cheated of miles actually.
Glad I don't even use those stats there, or I'd be upset, no wonder I just got my 250 mile badge. Should have been a while back.

Your longer runs may be shorter stride, so more steps, and appears to be longer distance in that case.

Whereas I know my measured stride length had little to do with today. Short strides going up, big ones coming down. I expect little accuracy possible.

Light/Moderate is almost maintenance level lifting, like if it wasn't the focus and you did it last. Heavy/Power lifting is normal style for it being focus, almost to failure with sets and rests, so heavy for you weight.

tegalicious

Okay so strength has been being logged in fitbit as heavy/powerlifting and I believe that to be correct as I am doing reps to failure and heavy for me and really working my tail off in there . I go into strength training sessions with going as heavy as I can for 5 sets of 5 reps and my focus is strength gains. So that I think doesn't need to be changed in fitbit so those calories are already correct and included in my 2500/day fitbit TDEE.

The incorrect long runs wouldn't be that far off normally as I typically don't run more than 2 hours for a long run. This weekend was an anomaly with the 3 hour long half marathon. But for accuracy sake, I will override fitbits calculations of my runs with the correct information from here on out. It might lower my fitbit TDEE a little bit but since I have been eating back those extra calories any way, it probably won't have much of an effect in the long term.

I am setting my calories to 2500/day for this week. I am weighing every day and recording it in Libra. I may do 2500/day for two weeks instead of one just to balance out some of the overeating I did the last four days and the 5 pounds of restorative glycogen and water I am retaining from the half marathon (I am so sore I can barely walk or sit down!!). I am changing my meals to include more protein and more fats and am trying to keep the carbs matched with proteins and fats. If my hunger doesn't change with all these changes and the scale shows me drop back down to 115-116 then I will look onto doing the 250 for two weeks test.

Thanks again for all your help!! You are such a great source of knowledge and I appreciate you taking the time to work this all out with me!!

Oh and I run much slower on long runs. From an 11.5 pace on a shorter run to a 13.5 pace on a long run. So that is probably skewwing the fitbit calculations a bit.

tegalicious

Wanted to give an update.

I am five days in with eating at the fitbit TDEE of 2500/day. I have waking up in the morning hungry every day which is not typical. Also thought I would mention that within the last two months I have started waking in the middle of the night at least once to urinate. Kind of tmi but it might be important if I am having a blood sugar issue.

Monday: Weight 126 which is very inflated due to extreme soreness from half marathon on Sunday. Started eating lots more protein and focusing on whole foods and less diet and low fat/non fat foods. Hunger is very satisfied with the new foods and eating every two hours. Rested today a lot because I could barely walk without pain.

Tuesday: Weight 121 which should be my full glycogen maintenance weight. Same eating plan and feeling full and satisfied. Still resting due to soreness.

Wednesday: Weight 121. Still not doing cardio because legs are still sore. I did do some light bodyweight style strength training and logged in fitbit as light weight training. Hunger still satisfied on 2500/day and eating same plan of eating more often and focusing on protein and fat first.

Thursday: Weight 120. Legs finally healed and feeling good. Tried to run in the morning but it didn't work out so well. Ended up running more after work. 5.1 miles total for the day and 64 minutes of running total for the day. Started the day feeling good and satisfied with plan but at the end of the day I was ravenous again.

Friday: Weight 119. Absolutely starving when I woke up. Even got dizzy and almost got a headache while trying to set up at work before I ate breakfast. Feeling fine now that I have eaten breakfast and a snack.

I am going camping this weekend and won't be logging. So this week won't be completely accurate but I am a little concerned about the trend I am seeing. Increase in exercise and increase in hunger and my weight is dropping again. I will probably do 2500/day next week so I can get a good solid week of data before making any changes to my intake.

Forgot to add.... Fitbit has me at a total burn for Monday through Thursday of 9416. Intake has been 10000.

heybales

Good work, remember to tag which weigh-ins are valid for trying to discern anything from in short period of time.

Otherwise you need to wait until you have a month of noise of daily weigh-ins and graph it and come up with a best fit line average.

Still spot checking the running to see if it's getting the distance and calorie burn decently estimated?

For my 1 test, 250 calories lost because of inaccuracy would have been very bad. That would have made deficit unreasonable. Do that several times a week, not good.

I'm sure you've got some repair still going on too, sounds like you probably did well in race.