Hungry all the time

jakiram

Now I´m at the point that I´m feeling hungry 90% of the time. If I don´t exercise I starve. Being hungry makes me irritable and unpleasent to be around, and I also feel effortless I don´t have energy to do anything.
I eat well balanced meals and with reasonable amounts of carbs .

If I exercise then I might end up not eating all the lost calories back.

Is this just a stage? Should I eat more, now I´m eating 1290 calories a day? I´m not really losing weight the way I used to.

sethwdyer

If you're really struggling, you might want to up your calorie intake. There's nothing wrong with only losing one pound a week. One thing I do if I have a super hungry day is to eat a lot of carrots. They're very filling and very low calories.

TavistockToad

eat more. set your goal to lose 1lb or even 0.5lb, you have more chance of success if you are eating in a way that sustainable.

rileysadams

I find that if I have a good cardio workout (running or elliptical), I can burn 600-800 calories (in about 45-50mins, then I can have a decent meal, still make my calorie and weightloss goals, and not feel like I'm starving. But when I don't get to exercise, I feel the same as you...and I eat carrots as well.

mulderpf

Is this just a stage? Should I eat more, now I´m eating 1290 calories a day? I´m not really losing weight the way I used to.

You should eat more. With any diet, the first few day is when you lose the most (and also the reason why people incorrectly think that after that they can weigh themselves every day and see results). Weight-loss will slow down as you progress, but as long as you're losing the weight then that's fine. Otherwise you are only going to end up frustrating yourself, sit without energy and give up. Rather go slow and steady...

tazzy2805

how much water do u drink ur body tells u ur hungry even when u thirsty drink a min of 2 litres aday i drink 4 when able :bigsmile:

KyleB65

Are you drinking lots of water? I was able to get over hunger pains by drinking lots of water.

Also, it looks like you are almost half way to your goal. For me, the weight almost fell off for the first portion of my loss. However, as I got closer and closer to my goal, the rate of weight loss declined. As an example, July last year I lost almost 15 lbs while November last year I barely lost 5 lbs. All the while doing pretty much the same things.

If you are truly stalled, try making so kind of a change. Up your calories (just try and eat "good" calories like raw fruits & veggies). Adjust your exercise regime (this worked for me). If your workouts are mostly cardio, try adding strength exercises into the mix. I started weight training last November and this gave me the boost required to get to within 5lbs of my goal weight. And, as it turned out, I really enjoyed the training and the results!

Back to food. Another thing that worked for me with regards to feeling hunger. I really focused on raw fruits and veggies. I would make (and still do) these enormous spinach salads for lunch. The calories were low but I was FULL after eating. I also got into the habit of yogurt with granola and started experimenting with things like Quinoa and beans. I found that if I ate good whole foods as close to raw as possible, I did not feel hungry and I kept on track with my weight loss goals.

All the best on your journey!

tabi26

If you are hungry all day long, do you think that you'll be able to keep doing this? I too was once a "1200/day" kinda girl....and I lost weight! Was three pounds away from my goal when I started eating again lol. I too felt hungry all the time, and if I didn't exercise (so I could eat), I felt like I was starving! Ya, 1200 worked, but when I couldn't work out for two hours/day six days/week.....I gained it all back....within six weeks! Bugger!! Haha!

I now have my diary set at 1700/day. I started this a little over four weeks ago.....I've lost 6.9 pounds in those four weeks. And most days, I'm actually OVER my calories.

I would suggest finding your TDEE and BMR. What I did was find my TDEE for my "sedentary" days, and set my diary to that number. That way, if I sit around all day long (I'm LAZY, lol, there are days where I do nothing haha) then I know I can still eat and plan accordingly. I also try very hard to never NET under my BMR.

My stats:
28 year old female
5'5"
Start weight: 149.7
Current weight: 142.8
Goal weight: 129
BMR: 1440
TDEE on sedentary days: 1700-1800
TDEE on days that I work (rare now that there's a ton of snow): 2100-2200

I don't "exercise". I Do log things that I don't do everyday though. Yesterday I spent some time sorting cows, I don't do that everyday, so it got logged as "exercise".

willwillywilson

A couple things that have worked for me are eating my calories over 5-6 meals and snacking/padding meals with veggies like grape tomatoes as fillers. They have so few calories but help keep me full. I also really feel like eliminating sugar from my diet (mostly, there seems to be some in everything!) has cut my hunger level too.

jakiram

Actually now this feeling of hunger has started after I finally got to drink about 2-3 litres of water a day. I exercised a lot last week and did both strength and cardio. I ate according to this programme and ended up 2 pounds heavier...

I know I should eat more vegetables, and carrots used to be my candies.... I guess I should start eating more carrots and berries again.

Thank you all for the good answers and the incouragement!