Still hungry!!

pullem

Hi all,

A bit of background - I successfully completed a reset earlier in 2012 and was eating at -15% on TDEE for around 4 months with slow but steady loss of around 0.5lb a week.

Around 8 weeks ago I started a new lifting programme with my PT, upper & lower body split 4 days a week for an 1hr and 2 days of short (under 30 mins) interval cardio (programme changed every 6-8 weeks to keep things fresh).

In the first 2 weeks of the programme I seemed to struggle with the food intake but broke it down to 6 small meals a day and got it in and pretty much spot on macros of 40C/30F/30P, next 4 weeks went well and 6 weeks in saw a huge improvement in strength along with a 1.5” loss, body fat reduction of approx 2% but weight is static at 67.5Kg. Very happy with this as shows I have increased lbm while weight is static so inch loss must be majority fat.

I am now nearly 2 weeks into the next 6 week programme and have increased calories again so am eating at -10% of TDEE and have changed my macros slightly to 45/30/25 but am absolutely starving all the time and am worried that dreaded binge is just around the corner. Not sure if it is a physiological or psychological thing as literally 30 minutes after I eat I feel hungry again.

How can I have struggled so much at the start but now eating more means I am even hungrier? I am happy with the results I saw after the initial 6 weeks but don’t want to rock the boat and compromise results for feeling full. Is it possible that I may need to do another reset as I don’t have much room left on upping calories anymore?

Thanks

Momwasix

Suggestion only if it was me i would eat tdee without the cut because when you do the lifting or any exercise it will cause a deficit either way and you get to eat a little more rather than making a 10% cut or reevaluate your activity level and see if you are needing to eat more for your level of activity if that makes sense.

pullem

Thanks momwasix, have now upped calories to TDEE for the next 4 weeks with consideration to attempting my first bulk cycle with an extra 200 on top!!

heybales

So if you are adding a load and asking the body to keep improving, then you will indeed feel hungry.

You can fight that urge and eat the same meaning a deficit to TDEE, body won't improve nearly as much as it could, but you'll maintain, and you'll keep losing fat without gaining LBM, therefore weight will drop too.

Or as suggested, select a non-exercise TDEE level and eat it.
Totally let exercise create the deficit and still lose fat, gain some LBM and improve, but probably lose some weight slowly.

Or, select correct exercise TDEE level and eat it.
Body will improve and LBM will go up as fat drops and weight stays the same.

pullem

Thanks heybales, have used your amazing calculator again and eating at non-exercise TDEE actual gives me exactly the same as the -10% deficit that I was eating so will be eating at TDEE with correct exercise factored in for the next 4 weeks then re-evaluate how my body has dealt with it. I am planning to start my first proper cutting cycle in March so the last option seems to make most sense to me but we will see what my body thinks!!