How do I curb my hunger?

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LibbyLou1282
LibbyLou1282 Posts: 5
in Health and Weight Loss
I have tried many things, but I'm still always hungry. I tried filling in the hunger with fruits and veggies, but i'm still hungry. I drink water when i'm hungry, but my stomach growls anyway. I wake up in the middle of the night starving! I went to my doctor and they tested me for many things thinking I had a medical problem (I went over my diet log for a week) but results all came back negative. She said just ignore my stomach since I'm eating all the time! It's hard to ignore it! What can I do?Anyone have any magic ideas? or suggestions that helped them?

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  • AmyRhubarb
    AmyRhubarb Posts: 6,890 Member
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    What is your daily calorie goal? If you are legitimately hungry all the time, even waking at night, you may just need to eat more! :smile: Can't see your diary, so hard to offer advice.
  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
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    If you've been eating too much and switched to a lower food amount it generally takes about 3 weeks to become normal. You may feel hunger until then but it won't kill you. Another thing is what you eat. High protein foods with fat will keep you feeling satiated longer than empty carbs.
  • LibbyLou1282
    LibbyLou1282 Posts: 5
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    Calorie goal is 2040
  • LibbyLou1282
    LibbyLou1282 Posts: 5
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    Actually the hunger stuff started before I started my diet... I've had this problem for about a year, and waking up in the middle of the night starving has been my whole life.
  • shineyapple
    shineyapple Posts: 94 Member
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    the foods that you are eating now could be the cause of the problem. Do you get enough Fats & Proteins in your diet? Perhaps eat more FATTY foods, like nuts & fish!
  • LibbyLou1282
    LibbyLou1282 Posts: 5
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    I actually eat fish and nuts a lot.. i don't know.
  • ElyssaElizabeth
    ElyssaElizabeth Posts: 21
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    I had this problem after getting a birth control device. I was just starving all the time! It was awful, and my doctor said the same thing "Just ignore it." I tried to tell her how terrible it was, that I literally couldn't sleep because my stomach was growling and it physically hurt, and she said, "Get used to being hungry." Which, in retrospect, was TERRIBLE advice!

    Trial and error taught me a few things. I tried a lot of different programs and pills (Curves, Dean Ornish's book, Alli, SlimFast, Metabolife) and none of them worked. Eventually, I picked up Jillian Michaels "Master Your Metabolism" (note: I HATE The Biggest Loser, but I liked her book). Not everything worked for me (for one, I'm a vegan, and she recommends eating a lot of fish and other animal products), but some of the advice actually worked really well. And I picked up a few other tricks here and there. The things that helped me most:

    1) I eat every 3-4 hours. Even if I'm not terribly hungry at the time. I try to eat my biggest meals earlier in the day, with progressively smaller meals and snacks as the day goes on. If I don't allow my blood sugar to peak and crash, I tend to not eat as much. If I starve myself during the day, I just end up binging at night (or the next day).

    2) I stop eating by 5-6pm. This keeps me from binging at night, my dangerous time, and it also helps me sleep better. It's totally an arbitrary time...I go to bed fairly early, so if you go to bed a lot later, you can move the time up. I've just found that stopping eating 3-4 hours before bed is a good idea.

    3) I eat foods that are high in fiber and protein. I'm a vegan, for ethical reasons, so it's easier for me to have a high-fiber diet, but it's worth trying. Plant-based foods are a lot less calories, usually, than animal products, so you can eat a much greater volume for the same amount of calories, or less. Eating more plant-based foods allows you to fill up without taking in tons of calories.

    4) I don't eat a lot of empty carbs and sugar. This makes your blood sugar peak and crash, which can make cravings and hunger worse. It's not that I NEVER eat processed foods or sweet treats...I find that if you totally forbid something, you'll probably end up craving and craving and then giving in and binging and eating WAY more than if you just had a little every once in a while.

    5) I stopped drinking diet pepsi. I was a total diet pepsi addict, at least 36oz a day. Now, it might just be psudoscience, I'm not sure if it's true or just confirmation bias, but a lot of people say that artificial sweeteners can make your cravings worse and your hunger signals go nuts. Plus, it's just not that good for you. So take this with a grain of salt, I don't know if it actually worked or if it's all in my head, but I knocked off the soda entirely.

    6) I have little snacks with me constantly. I try to keep them healthy and low calorie. But if I get a hunger craving, I've found that it's a lot better to have something small right away than to try and ignore it for hours until I think it's "time" to eat. Putting off eating when my body is screaming for food, again, leads to binging later on and eating way more than I otherwise would have. Along the same lines, I few little candies around (usually those Werther's Originals). If I get a sugar craving, I find it's better to satisfy it immediately with a small, little piece of candy than try and ignore it or put it off until I find myself in front of the freezer at 1am scooping out soy ice cream straight from the carton.


    These are the things that worked for me. I don't know if they will help you (I'm not a doctor!), and everyone is different. Really, the best advice I have is to try different things and keep what works for you and ditch what doesn't.

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