Must READ! from experienced fitness pal...Hunger PANGS

Disagreeing. There's no reason to feel hunger and deprive yourself to lose weight. If you're hungry...eat. The trick is in what you're eating., and also in learning to distinquish between actual hunger and emotional, or boredom, or other kinds of drives to munch that don't have anything to do with real hunger. To tell yourself you're now on life sentence of hunger discomfort is self defeating, sort of masochistic, and wrong.

When I get hungry, I eat. It's just taking a while for me to identify what is hunger, and what is boredom, thirst, emotional distress, or all the other reasons I feel I must eat.

For me, if I'm "hungry", I ask myself, "how about an apple". If I can't fathom eating an apple, then I'm probably not really hungry.

I don't longingly look at food, because when I'm hungry, I eat it. I've just changed HOW MUCH I eat of that stuff. Before I eat, I weigh, in my mind, if it's worth the calories. If it is, I eat it. If it's not, I pass. Oversimplification of course, but that's the gyst of my plan...

On Weight Watchers, all I thought about was food. When can I have some. How can I have more. How can I eat junk and still have enough points for dinner. This time it's just different for me. I can't do that anymore.

Hunger is not directly related to being FAT. :noway:

QUOTE:

83lbs down... Eat 1400...120g protein, 120g carbs, 50g fat, lots of fresh vegetables and fiber and it's very very rare I feel hungry... Really disagree with your post. If you eat the right things you don't need to be hungry... This lifestyle change doesn't have to be all the things you just made it out to be x


So if your not hungry on this reduced calorie diet, then what caused you to over eat so drastically in the past if you seem to be nearly unable to sense hunger?

Eh. There are some very simple facts there that you are overlooking. I've been doing some self-exploring and experimenting lately, and discovering some VERY basic facts. Actually, so basic, that I'm almost embarrassed to admit I am only learning this at my age.

You can easily eat 5000 calories over the course of a day, OR 2000 calories, and feel MORE full on the 2000 than you might on the 5000.

Food choices. (and YES -I absolutely agree with Dan on the IF and have been considering giving it a go) Truth is, your body get's used to eating at certain times, and you will get hungry at those times.

case in point: if you NEVER eat breakfast, some people don't, and frequently they will say that if they try to eat breakfast they can get sick to their stomachs because they are not used to eating at that time. So you have person A, who does not eat until lunch time, and isn't HUNGRY until lunch. Then you have person B who eats breakfast every day, then one day they (insert reason here) don't get to eat until lunch, and they are STARVING. why? because their body is used to having fuel at X time, and it doesn't appear. All the hunger signals go off, and you are HUNGRY.

if your body gets used to having food at certain times, hunger isn't going to strike at the other times. for the same reason you don't typically get awakened in the middle of the night, every 3-4 hours, because you haven't eaten. (this could happen under certain circumstances, but for the vast majority of people, even on a calorie deficit, they're not dealing with hunger that wakes them up at all hours). Your body adjusts. And I don't even have all the science of leptin and ghrelin(sp?) behind that. Just know that this happens.

now back to my 5000 to 2000 experiment, or the 5000 to 1000 even (not recommending 1000, but go with me here..)...

1. a couple of days ago, I had 3 packs of pop tarts over the course of the day. 1200 Calories. Add a Mocha in there - 400, some pepperoni pizza - 800 calories. so for a few snacks, and one real meal, we've just wiped out 2400 calories. so Yes, getting in 4000 to 5000 calories in a day, pretty dang easy, and not necessarily too much food to make you ill.

2. Having a LARGE volume of vegetables, lean protein, high fiber foods can easily get you through a day without hunger for way less than 2000 calories. I just had a huge bowl of oatmeal with a touch of brown sugar and some applesauce and cinnamon blended in (AMAZING by the way), for less than or around 300 calories (haven't logged the details yet). I'm so freakin stuffed right now my eyeballs are buggin. I could have had well over that in some kind of high calorie drink.


these comments you keep posting about how impossible it must be that people couldn't have gotten fat unless they were hungry - are just uneducated and narrow minded. Aside from the examples above, people eat when they are not hungry. They eat for emotional reasons. They eat just To EAT. They eat because they like food. Hunger - well - I say if it has ANYTHING to do with it, it's a minor reason. Food Choices are absolutely the biggest factor I believe in most cases.

lastly, to reiterate, you could eat 350 calories for a meal, and feel stuffed, as easily as you could eat 2000 calories for a meal, and feel just as stuffed.

All I can do is :noway: at this theory and agree that this has to be trolling..

All I can do is :noway: at this theory and agree that this has to be trolling..

It doesn't have to be trolling. I am still constantly amazed at the dipsh!ttery that some of these dipsh!ts spout.

It is a form of extreme suffering for me that I cannot eat what I want whenever I want. The fact that I cannot eat taco bell, cakes, cookies, and spaghetti and meatballs in whatever amount I desire causes me daily misery. The fact that I cannot eat until I am sick whenever I want is very stressful and has deprived me of a coping mechanism for which there will never be an adequate substitute. It's simply a reality that I will always have to live with if I want to be healthy and for right now, I am ok with that.

I steadily lost a pound a week without ever being hungry. I also did not stop eating my favorite foods like pizza, or drinking wine or other alcohol. What planet are you from?

While I was losing weight, yes there were times of gnawing hunger. I am maintaining now in my 2nd year, and I am rarely hungry. I believe it is because I have improved my food choices. If you give your body good stff at regular intervals, there is no need to be hungry. Those who say you can lose weight by eating twinkles and maintain that loss are kidding themselves. Give the body good food, and it will maintain itself. Very liberating. It goes without saying, exercise is key.

Your post made me sad. I replaced food with exercise and that has helped. I also try to live in the moment. I have tried Zumba and belly dancing and kickboxing and running and I love them all. I hope you find a replacement for recreational eating. I KNOW it is tough. Peace.

It is a form of extreme suffering for me that I cannot eat what I want whenever I want. The fact that I cannot eat taco bell, cakes, cookies, and spaghetti and meatballs in whatever amount I desire causes me daily misery. The fact that I cannot eat until I am sick whenever I want is very stressful and has deprived me of a coping mechanism for which there will never be an adequate substitute. It's simply a reality that I will always have to live with if I want to be healthy and for right now, I am ok with that.

I don't feel "hungry" what I feel is desire for the food I love in the quantities I love whenever I want them. That can't happen anymore---I choose that---but I do think about cake and pie and still read cookbooks constantly. I just love food. I know though that I can't eat it like I used to, that's all. I'm trying to not focus so much on it and think about the many other fun things i like too instead.