Not Hungry...but

DCpaleochick

To begin with I am primal/paleo Gluten Free and I workout in a fasted state. I can also slip into Ketosis very easily. I feel great, have loads of energy, the scale is moving (slow) but it is moving and I am loosing inches. I feel I am in the best shape of my life!. Now I know that there are many who do not count calories while living the paleo/primal lifestyle but I do. Here is the problem, I am never hungry and I can go longer between meals and find fasting to be very easy to do. I almost never meet my daily calorie goals at the end of each day.

So do I just go with the signals my body is giving me "eat when I am hungry" and chuck the calorie counting biz-ness?
I find that some days I am forcing myself to eat especially (dinner) just to meet the calories set to loose weight.

What are your thoughts? opinions? suggestions?

Brieshon

I would make sure you're getting enough calories. Too few calories and you'll start losing muscle, and if you're eating that little you probably aren't getting the nutrients you need. The amount if calories you actually need varies for different people, but most nutritionists recommend staying above ~1600/day.

I've never heard of working out in a fasted state. Any time I've exercised hungry, I've gotten woozy or fatigued pretty quickly, so I'm sure I'm missing something...

DCpaleochick

Bump*

shar140

Sweet4Tee - without being able to see your diary and not knowing your physical stats and activity level, I can't help much (don't know how many calories you *are* eating vs goal, what your macros look like, what you are eating, etc). If I drop my carbs a lot, I won't feel hungry and have to make myself eat - but once I start eating, I realize how hungry I really am.

Brieshon, it sounds like you still might be a sugar burner. Once you get your blood sugars stabilized and you are adapted to fat-burning, that woozy feeling shouldn't happen during exercise. Intermittent Fasting and exercising while fasted (usually in the morning) isn't uncommon in the primal/paleo community, as well as outside of it. I think LeanGains also uses that approach. The idea is that the body is more primed to use fat as fuel for the workout, as well as trigger hormone responses to burn fat and build muscle better.

Akimajuktuq

I'm keto primal. I exercise in a fasted state often and it's ideal for me (sometimes I only eat one meal per day on weekends). Of course, my body is now totally adjusted to burning fat for energy.

OP: I see it from both sides: I don't think one should force themselves to eat when not hungry. However, we have been so brainwashed with calories in/calories out we need to be careful that we are not intentionally undereating thinking that it will benefit weight loss. Cuz we all know how well that works; not.

Shadowknight137

If the opposite were true, and you had met your calorie goal for the day but were still hungry, what would you do?

AllanMisner

By working out in a fasted state, I'm assuming you mean cardio. I do that in the morning and then eat right after. I don't think I could get through a weight training workout without eating first (and right after).

The calories listed on MFP is really just a guide. Everybody has a slightly different metabolism. I would focus more on the nutrients than on the total calories. Listen to your body and eat when you need to eat. But what you don't want to do is get so hungry you then binge eat (which is why I eat 5 - 8 smaller meals a day).

strychnine7

When I see posts like this, II wonder if some people have a mental aversion to eating in the same way that some people have a mental addiction to eating. I'm the sort who will eat whatever is in front of him, regardless of hunger, if it tastes good and I don't make the conscious effort to not eat it. Are there folks who have the opposite problem? Perhaps caused by some kind of external-conditioning? Or maybe getting SO into the dieting and weight-loss mindset, that your brain tells you that you're not hungry so well, that you actually believe it?

Hmm. I don't know. I'm not commenting on the OP situation specifically. I just wanted to, "think out loud" so's to speak. Thoughts?

Brieshon

Thanks for the explanations of "fasted exercise," everyone! It's been a loooong time since I tried working out hungry (since I thought it made me woozy!), and I was definitely a sugar burner, then! I wonder how my body would do after almost 8 weeks of being mostly paleo!

athenalove46

It is incredibly easy to not get enough calories while feeling full while eating Paleo. For example, I was eating Paleo and I started doing Crossfit 3 times a week. I ate when I was hungry, and I always felt full. I kept losing weight (which is what I did NOT want to do as I was already 115 lbs!!!). A Paleo challenge came up and I decided to make my challenge to gain 10 lbs. To do that I had to track. What a shock it was to see that I was barely eating 1200 calories a day! No wonder I couldn't maintain my weight. I increased calories to about 3000 a day (a little excessive, but I was trying to gain) and it worked. Since then, I've been conscious to make sure to eat every 3 hours or so. Breakfast, small snack, lunch, small snack, dinner. I think it's a good idea to track for a little while, to figure out what you are eating compared to how much you should be eating.

DCpaleochick

Thank you for your responses, I just dont want this process to back fire in the long run from not eating enough. I promise you all that I am getting enough nutrients I eat very healthy veggies and protein and a good amount of fat. My concern is that my hunger level has change since going paleo/primal. My carbs are kept low so I dont experience the cravings and consistent feeling of being hungry all the time. So I guess I just wanted to know that this was sort of normal and whether I should worry about getting enough calories in along with exercise to loose weight. But I figured since I am loosing weight and I feel good and my fitness ability to Kill my workouts are good then I am good for now.

MissXFit13

This is an interesting thread, and while I don't have a solution to your question, I feel the need to respond anyways.

I've been in the same predicament. I stopped logging a few weeks ago when I started my 2nd Whole 30 challenge because I feel like obsessively logging my food intake for the past year has dulled my ability to listen to my body's hunger and satiety cues. I would eat because I knew I had extra calories left, but not because I was hungry. Instead, about once a week I logged what I had eaten that day and was shocked to see how few calories I consumed (not a lot of protein, either). I lift, do Crossfit 4-5 times per week, and run. I also do IF most days, and only eat 2 large meals a day, with a snack, only if I'm really hungry. I want to properly fuel my workouts, but I don't want to force feed myself to get to TDEE-15%. When I do eat that much over a period of a week, I feel bloated and my clothes don't fit as well.

I would say listen to your body. It knows what it needs. We become so obsessed (ok, at least I do) with logging calories, weighing/measuring food, monitoring our calorie expenditure/sleep with gadgets, and trying to reach some ideal "formula" through millions of online BMR, TDEE, BF% calculators. Paleo/primal is the opposite of that. It's getting back to basics. Eat foods that our bodies were designed to digest, and listen to how our bodies feel. If you have energy, sleep well at night, and are still crushing your workouts, then I think you're on your way to figuring out what is optimal for YOU.

(And, if you're really worried about not getting enough calories, eat more avocado and butter/ghee/coconut oil. Instant calories!)

JohnNull

This is an interesting thread, and while I don't have a solution to your question, I feel the need to respond anyways.

I've been in the same predicament. I stopped logging a few weeks ago when I started my 2nd Whole 30 challenge because I feel like obsessively logging my food intake for the past year has dulled my ability to listen to my body's hunger and satiety cues. I would eat because I knew I had extra calories left, but not because I was hungry. Instead, about once a week I logged what I had eaten that day and was shocked to see how few calories I consumed (not a lot of protein, either). I lift, do Crossfit 4-5 times per week, and run. I also do IF most days, and only eat 2 large meals a day, with a snack, only if I'm really hungry. I want to properly fuel my workouts, but I don't want to force feed myself to get to TDEE-15%. When I do eat that much over a period of a week, I feel bloated and my clothes don't fit as well.

I would say listen to your body. It knows what it needs. We become so obsessed (ok, at least I do) with logging calories, weighing/measuring food, monitoring our calorie expenditure/sleep with gadgets, and trying to reach some ideal "formula" through millions of online BMR, TDEE, BF% calculators. Paleo/primal is the opposite of that. It's getting back to basics. Eat foods that our bodies were designed to digest, and listen to how our bodies feel. If you have energy, sleep well at night, and are still crushing your workouts, then I think you're on your way to figuring out what is optimal for YOU.

(And, if you're really worried about not getting enough calories, eat more avocado and butter/ghee/coconut oil. Instant calories!)

THIS!