Hungry every 2 to 3 hours

Eat more protein! This keeps me full for at least 3-4 hours at a time.

How tall are you and how much do you need to lose? I would eat my own fingers on 1290 cals a day..... I find that eating lots of protein and grazing every 2/3 hours keeps hunger away....

How tall are you and how much do you need to lose? I would eat my own fingers on 1290 cals a day..... I find that eating lots of protein and grazing every 2/3 hours keeps hunger away....

I am 5 foot 3 inches and need to lose about 115 pounds. I plugged in that I wanted to lose 2 pounds a week and that's what MFP came up with for me.

If you have that much to lose, eat more....Eating too little this early in the game will make your weight loss come to a screeching halt too soon...And you won't keep up with it if you are hungry...Set it to 1-1.5 lbs a week, and eat back some of your exercise calories if you are hungry.....

At 5'3" and with 115 lbs to lose, you will probably lose weight eating 2000 calories a day. You are hungry because your body actually needs a lot more food than it is getting. MFP pretty much automatically assigns 1200 calories to everyone, but that's not necessarily the most accurate measure.

Calories are a unit of energy. Your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) is the number of calories (amount of energy) that it would take to fuel your body if you were in a coma: that is, the bare minimum energy required to make your organs function and keep you breathing.

TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is your BMR plus however many calories you use walking around, talking, getting the mail, whatever. So the total amount of energy in calories that you use in your normal daily life. Go to scooby's workshop website I have included below and figure out your TDEE (just follow the instructions). TDEE tells you how many calories you should be eating to maintain your weight at its current level.

To lose weight, you should be eating about 20% BELOW your TDEE. So if your TDEE is 1800 calories, you should be eating around 15% fewer calories to keep your body functioning efficiently and still lose weight. 20% of 1800 is 360, so subtract that and eat 1540 calories to lose weight.

Now, if you go for a walk and burn 200 calories and enter that into MFP, it gives you 200 extra calories that you earned-- you should try to eat those calories because that creates 200 calorie deficit on top of a 360 calorie deficit, so at this point you're 30% under TDEE which isn't giving your body enough calories to function efficiently.

If you end up eating over your calories on any day (doesn't matter whether you work out or not for this), by say 100 calories, you are fine, because remember, to maintain your weight you have to eat your TDEE and your calories are set at 360 under TDEE, so you still will lose weight. Maybe not as much as you wanted or as fast as you wanted, but you're still under.

So basically, you have a buffer zone. Once you figure out your TDEE, you can eat all the way up to that point and not gain any weight. TDEE is usually a lot higher than people expect, so once you figure it out for your weight/height, etc, don't freak out. Simply subtract 20% from that, make that number your goal, and don't freak out if you eat a little more, because you still have all that wiggle room up to TDEE.

Here is the website. Set your activity level as lightly active: http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

Hope that helps, and I apologize if I explained anything you already know, but it's important to understand the way this works to be successful. Good luck!

I am 5 foot 3 inches and need to lose about 115 pounds. I plugged in that I wanted to lose 2 pounds a week and that's what MFP came up with for me.

That sounds too low, what is your basal metabolic rate and have you set your activity level correctly? If I guess you are 250 pounds (you say your goal is 150 in your profile) that makes your BMR 1800 or so - you should not be netting below that. Losing two pounds a week healthily is difficult, it means under consuming calories by 1000 a day, you absolutely have to exercise intensively and even then you need to regiment your diet to get all the nutrients your body needs for health.

Nutrients that work together to confer satiety include protein, healthy fats, fibre and water. Realistically that means eating a pile of low sugar fruits and non starchy vegetables, protein little and often, healthy fats like oily fish nuts and seeds regularly, low glycaemic index carbs like beans and lentils for any remaining calories.

This is normal. Be patient. Eat something every couple of hours. This is a big change for you. Make sure to have protein like peanut butter, then some fiber like an apple or an orange then a few crackers or carbs. You are balancing your blood sugar by eating several mini meals per day. Happy to help if you need more info. Congrats on your initial weight loss!

You may want to up your calories so you dont go into starvation mode and plateau sooner than later.(1 pound per week). I'm also 5 3 and have lost a total of 93 pounds and would like to lose 40 -50 more. I also eat three meals and two snacks on the days that I work and change it up a little on my days off. I try to keep my snacks under 200 cal. and so far losing around 1 pound pre week.

Does it actually say 1200 on your daily limit, or are you going by when you finish your journal entry and it says that you're consuming too few calories? Because at 5'3" 250 lbs, 1200 is WAY too low of a limit. I'd say change it to 1500-1600 for awhile, you'll still lose the weight!

have you set your activity level correctly?

I set it to 60 minutes a week of working out (that means going to "Curves" twice a week).

Are you doing anything else, your 10000 steps a day for example? What level have you set it to - sedentary, lightly active?

You are doing right by eating every 2-3 hours. I eat around 1200-1400 calories a day and I have 3 meals and usually 3 snacks. It is good for you to eat less more frequently than to eat a whole lot at one sitting. Just keep doing what you are doing.