Exercising more, now I'm hungry all the time! Help!

kappyblu

I've been on MFP about 2 1/2 months now. I've done great and am down 22 pounds. In the beginning, I couldn't do that much exercise at once. I was doing great if I had a 10 minute walk; that was all I could handle. I just really watched those calories. But now that I have more energy, I am exercising more. I have been doing the Walk Away the Pounds DVDs by Leslie Sansone. They are great. I started with one mile and have worked my way up to the three mile advanced walk. Whew! When I do that walk, I burn about 700+ calories in 45 minutes. I've been doing either the 2 mile or 3 mile 5-6 days a week for a couple of weeks now. The two mile burns about 500+ calories in 30 minutes.

Ok, now the question! I am hungry all the time!!! It's like in the beginning when I started MFP! It took almost 3 weeks to get to the point where I wasn't hungry constantly. But now that I am exercising more, the hungry feeling is back. I know I'm supposed to eat some of my exercise calories, and I am, but even after a huge breakfast and a snack, I am still starving! What is going on? I eat high fiber, high protein stuff, but I'm still hungry. Is this feeling normal when you begin to exercise more? Will I just need time to adjust like I did in the very beginning? Can you share a similar experience and offer some advice??. Thanks so much for reading.

saj9291113

Have more smaller meals... instead of having 3 meals a day split it out to 6 meals(not snacks) every 3 hours. Your body still needs it's basic calories to do it's basic jobs(brain functions, pumping blood, breathing etc). So you body is telling you that it needs its basic calories. Keep the same number of calories but split it to 6 meals. If that doesn't work and you still feel hungry, Drink down ICE cold water. It will fill you up without adding to you numbers.
Or
Are you hungry when you are just sitting around... bored hungry, if so then sit there with ice chips at your desk or on the couch or in the car and chew on them to give you something to 'munch' on.

Ryan

smuehlbauer

It would be easier to give suggestions if your food journal was public.
:flowerforyou:

Amarillo_NDN

open up so we can see what you are eating,

FemininGuns

Ya, just like the 2 other posters, you may want to open your diary for public viewing so we can be more informed when commenting for your diet.

Cheers! :drinker:

soze

Are you drinking water before and after exercising. Your body may be saying, Wow am I thirsty!

chanstriste13

Are you hungry when you are just sitting around... bored hungry, if so then sit there with ice chips at your desk or on the couch or in the car and chew on them to give you something to 'munch' on.

Ryan

love this suggestion, ryan! consider it adopted!

erickirb

That is one of the reasons why MFP adds exercise calories to your caloric allotment. Your body needs more fuel when you workout.

nroesler

I have been there. for a while I was ravenous, couldn't stop eating. I was working out 4-5 times per week and it seemed like when I wasn't working out I was eating. It seemed like my body had kicked into another gear and needed more fuel. it has subsided and it took a couple of weeks. in that time I ate 95% of my exercise calories. You are doing good by eating high protein, high fiber. Seems obvious but you should eat complex carbs and lose the simple sugars.

I agree that more and smaller meals work because you will have less time to feel hungry, less chance of overeating and you are getting the fuel you need. This will pass once your body gets used to what you are doing but expect a few more times like this in your future. I experiences one ever 20-25 pounds. Good luck!

Clew

Going with more protein helped me a lot - hope that helps :flowerforyou:

FemininGuns

Here's some info that might help

The fact that exercise helps you to lose weight is a well documented standard because the exercise increases caloric expenditure. What is less well known is that exercise can also reduce your appetite. Well, it can decrease and increase your appetite depending on the intensity, temperature of the environment and whether you are male or female.

Men tend to have a greater reduction in appetite immediately after working out at moderate to high intensity levels than women do. Two to three hours later men’s appetites were not affected by the exercise where women consumed more calories post exercise. A good way to counter the effect of possibly overeating for women is to eat something low in fat and high in protein and carbohydrate blend within an hour of ending the exercise session so that ravenous hunger will not ensue.

There is another factor that affects your post workout appetite; intensity of the exercise session and body temperature. The higher the intensity and temperature, the longer your appetite will be suppressed. That means a walk on a cool morning or a swim in the pool will possibly lead to a big breakfast whereas a run at dawn on a muggy day will not.

In addition the endocrine and cardiovascular systems of the body play a role in appetite suppression. The hypothalamus, a gland in the brain, suppresses hunger and is triggered to release hormones when you exercise at a moderate to high intensity. These hormones are responsible for suppression of hunger. Another reason exercise helps to inhibit hunger is that when you exercise the blood is being taken from the stomach and sent throughout the body. Moderate exercise levels can be reached by exercising three times a week for one hour. The increase in the level of the hormone lasts up to 15 hours. That should be a good reason to get your self moving.

High intensity exercise may have the opposite effect. When you workout at a high level of exertion, your body will start to break down glucose in the muscles for fuel and that will make you hungrier. Your body knows what it needs to survive and maintain. If you approach a workout session on an empty stomach or a stomach that has not been fed any carbohydrates for hours, you will suffer the consequences two-fold. Firstly, you will be breaking down muscle instead of building as described above and secondly, your body will crave those carbs in abundance post exercise setting you up to fail at your exercise efforts.

Yet another factor to consider is psychological hunger. Many times after an exhausting round of kickboxing or a great spin class you might think to yourself, “I deserve a ½ pound cheeseburger with french fries and a chocolate shake”. The truth is we tend to overstate what we think we burned and studies show we do it in a big way. The average person believes he/ she burned 600 more calories than actually were burned and the average overweight person will overshoot by 900 calories. That’s a lot of calories! Don’t give in to the urge to binge eat. Exercise, eat within an hour of completion, never exercise on an empty stomach and make good choices.

NeuroticVirgo

Yep same here...started exercising and my day filled up with calories QUICK! lol More protein and more Fiber are good. I started eating eggs for breakfast instead of cereal, and that helped. (I don't actually like eggs, so I cook up some veggies like mushrooms, onions, green/red/yellow peppers...then add 1-2 eggs...so its more like "would you like some egg to go with your veggies"...but at least I felt full and for a while).

I also think that you might need to eat all of your exercise calories...when I got my HRM, there was almost a 200-300 calorie difference between what it said I was burning and what MFP estimated I was burning...which made me think...hmmm Maybe that's why I was so hungry...I wasn't burning 600 calories, I was burning 900 (that's more than half my daily calorie allotment) I don't eat over very much if I can help it (It just bothers me...why did I work out in the first place if I'm going to eat them?!?), but if I am hungry I eat, even if I eat half or even all my work out calories, so far I've still been consistent with the weight loss. I'll know more next week ... I'm skipping my weigh in this week in hopes for more of a pick me up number. So now it doesn't bother me so much if I go over...as long as I burned some calories that day.

Rallison1965

OMG...... this is freaky..... i'm experiencing the same thing....... It started about 4 or 5 days ago........ it is so great to see that i am not crazy....... and I am so worried about eating to much..... i am hungry all through the night... I wouldn't mind seeing someone elses eating habits who is going thru this right now......i

kjbbdoll

Was happy to see this thread upon searching. I have upped my cardio from 1-2x a week for 60-90min to 4-5x a week for 60-90 min and I am starving all the time! I do eat back about half of my exercise calories but only eat them all if I absoutely can't help it because I feel like I worked damn hard, I'm not going to counter all that hard work by eating it all back again.
Have you noticed your body adjusting and your hunger subsiding after a month or two? Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part...lol I've been exercising more for about 3 weeks now and it hasn't subsided yet. I have been trying to drink more water in the form of hot tea because it tricks my mind and belly into thinking I am having a sweet treat-lol. I eat TONS of protien and fiber and it still isn't really helping.

madisonsteelex

Wish i could burn 700 calories in 45 minutes! If I run for an hour (6mph-7mph average) I only burn around 500 calories.

I workout a lot, and I am CONSTANTLY hungry. Just break your meals into smaller portions and eat more often throughout the day. Make sure you get enough fiber, it keeps you fuller for longer and drink A LOT of water:)

kristinhamby

I was looking this up online. Exercise makes you hungry. I know, I used to get done at the gym and be starving and go eat a super huge meal, it wasn't doing me a darn bit of good weight wise, but my tush and legs looked awesome lol.