So what about not eating...?

SidNZ

It's not what you think. I am not starving myself, but I'm not really eating much... I find it amazing the amount of walking I do almost daily. I work at a fast paced restraunt and walk on average 6-9 miles between a 4-8hr shift. Sometimes more, sometimes less. But I only eat once or twice a day. That's all I ever feel hungry for. I do admit one of those meals comes from the restruant so calorie intake can be pretty up there. I've tried packing food to eat or keeping a bag of carrots in my apron but I ALWAYS forget about it and find them at the end of the late night when I'm certainly not hungry for them. I'd rather have the jucy 1,500 calorie goodness i've been serving all day. And when it's free food, I'm all over it. I fall back to "I'm poor, so I'll take what I can get." So what about not eating enough or any of the right stuff...? Aside from quiting the food business, which isn't an option, what do I do??

BeautyFromPain

Hey there hunny,

I work in fast food too.
Try your hardest to bring like a sandwich and an apple to work and after a while it will become a habit, you will not even crave it anymore.
Noone could even pay me to eat the crap I serve other people now, LOL.

And about not eating enough, when I was eating crap I could only eat one meal a day as well, but after I started eating healthily I eat every few hours and love it. Go talk to your GP or a nutritionist if it is becoming a major concern. xx

LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo

I also work in food business namely in an Italian restaurant. Its really tough and although I'm in the head office as Marketing/Graphic designer but seeing those photos of foods everyday whenever I do some artwork for our collaterals makes me hungry and go downstairs to our resto. But what I just do is I eat mini meals every 2-3 hours whether I'm hungry or not because I cannot be hungry and I hate that feeling.

mowu

What you could start out with is to log what you are actually doing in terms of energy intake and expenditure in you current situation - if your main exercise is the walking you do at your job get a pedometer and get a better estimate at how long you are actually walking (assuming don't have one already).

Log what you are currently eating whether it be from the restaurant or home-brought.

See what i adds up to and evaluate whether or not it is consistent with what you observe when tracking your weight-loss - do it for 2-4 weeks and then you can figure out if you need to change something and will have a better idea as to whether it should be your energy intake or expenditure.

I would love to follow your decisions and maybe act as a sparring partner so I've thrown you a friends request.

ladyhawk00

Chronic lack of appetite can be a signal of severely decreased metabolism. A couple of threads that may help:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/175241-a-personal-view-on-exercise-cals-and-underfeeding

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/231636-the-eating-when-you-re-not-hungry-dilemma

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/186814-some-mfp-basics

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/230930-starvation-mode-how-it-works

As for how to increase cals in a healthy way:

Planning is key. Focus on balanced macros (protein/fat/carbs) in each meal/snack. Start with making sure to eat at least 3 meals a day. Breakfast is important when you're trying to overcome a habit of irregular eating or underfeeding. Once you've adjusted to that, add in snacks. Then, gradually increase the amount of cals in each meal/snack. Just 50 cals more for each meal/snack adds up. If you know you'll be working out, increase cals throughout the day.

If you're not feeling hungry, a good way to increase cals without much volume is healthy fats from natural oils (olive/canola), nuts and nut butters (almonds, pistachios, walnuts), and avocados. Also, I would stay away from "low cal" or "low fat" options. Partly because you want to increase cals, and partly because those foods are usually processed and not nutrient dense, and the cals or fat they take out is replaced by sugar (real or substitute) and sodium - not a good trade off. A fruit smoothie, protein shake/bar or chocolate milk are good cal boosters, because drinking cals can be easier than eating when you aren't feeling hungry.

Make the best choices you can at work. Sounds like you're currently in an underfeeding/binge cycle (binge in the sense of eating one big meal that isn't the healthiest). The reason for that is the underfeeding - by the end of the day you're over-hungry and it's easy to make poor choices when you're really hungry. If you eat nutrient-dense food frequently, throughout the day, you won't be as likely to give in to the poor choices.

Typically, it may be hard for a few days or a week, but your body will adjust to the increased intake and you'll find it isn't an issue for long. Eating more will truly help your metabolism, and your appetite will increase with it.

SidNZ

One of my problems is not having much downtime at work. I don't have the time to shove a mini meal in my mouth as it is pretty much just go go go. Luckily, I've eliminated pop all together so I only drink tea and water at work.

I do have a pedometer and I average about 6mi throughout a regular shift. I just came back to MFP as of today actually, so you won't find anything logged yet. I have to get back into the groove of that...

SidNZ

Thank you for your input! That's certainly a start and I will deffinately look into the metabolisim subject.

BeautyFromPain

One of my problems is not having much downtime at work. I don't have the time to shove a mini meal in my mouth as it is pretty much just go go go. Luckily, I've eliminated pop all together so I only drink tea and water at work.

I do have a pedometer and I average about 6mi throughout a regular shift. I just came back to MFP as of today actually, so you won't find anything logged yet. I have to get back into the groove of that...

hunny, I know EXACTLY what you mean. i am trying to figure out myself how to eat. most my shifts are 4 hours which means no break. not even a 10 minute one.

BeautyFromPain

One of my problems is not having much downtime at work. I don't have the time to shove a mini meal in my mouth as it is pretty much just go go go. Luckily, I've eliminated pop all together so I only drink tea and water at work.

I do have a pedometer and I average about 6mi throughout a regular shift. I just came back to MFP as of today actually, so you won't find anything logged yet. I have to get back into the groove of that...

hunny, I know EXACTLY what you mean. i am trying to figure out myself how to eat. most my shifts are 4 hours which means no break. and i usually get so hungry around the 3rd hour. not even a 10 minute one.

ladyhawk00

Ok, if you can't have a break to have a meal, what about someplace to keep a protein shake or bar? You can take a quick drink or bite...come back in 30 min and take another. By the end of your shift, you've added at least a couple hundred cals - and more important, you won't be as starving so you'll be able to make better choices when you do sit down to your meal.

*Note - we're talking about a decent shake or bar - preferably homemade (think pnut butter, milk, etc - lots of recipes around for them), as most commercial ones have a ton of sugar. But you can find some commercial ones that are ok.

Also, making sure to eat a good meal, with good protein and healthy fats, before your shift will be important.

cantjustcant

I completely understand this! By the time I get done serving it all day, I am sick of looking at it! I try to do three meals a day. I am a medium breakfast and then go to work early and eat before shift starts. Then when I get home from work I usually have a snack.

3DFitness

I've lost over 35 lbs since June 3 eating 1-2 meals a day of pretty much whatever I wanted. The only consistent theme is I stay with-in my daily calorie allotment for weight-loss. My suggestion is to track your progress and let your results dictate your next move.

mowu

Just to throw in a little view-from -different-perspectives

You will see different advices ranging from "You should eat small meals every 2-3 hours to lose weight" to "I lost loads of weight on eating just 1-2 times a day".

While these are in fact quite opposite to each other you may have good results from each of them.

The "many small meals" has been advised by many for a long time and has proven quite efficient at controlling hunger (and blood sugar levels) and thus making it easier to control your diet as you are less prone to make "bad" choices out of cravings.

The "1-2 big meals a day" is somewhat newer and goes under different names like intermittent fasting or the warriors diet. This may be somewhat harder to control due to cravings in the transition period - but many have also found that approach useful.

Once you have established a baseline of your energy intake/expenditure you could read up on the different aspects (with respect to dietary compositions and expected exercise) and from there on see what you could see fit into you life.