1st day lifting and I'm starving!

I'm a newbie to counting calories and weight lifting at the same time. When I was younger, I could execise, including lifting and gauge my food intake without counting calories and lose weight.

Now that I am older, that doesn't work. I am lifting and counting calories.

I get HUNGRY too. If I feel I need to eat more after lifting, then I do. If you are using MFP to account for lifing calories, it may be too low.

Search for the topic of calories for lifting. Also, I have set my calories each day based on an average that includes my routine weekly exercise. So far, that usually gives me enough to eat and I don't log exercise or adjust my eating much for work outs.

I always make sure I am eating at least my BMR (basal metabolic rate).

Check out the Eat More To Weigh Less group and consider joining it. Lots of resources for understanding how to set your calories in MFP and make sure you are eating enough.

Also, I was never big on watching protein, but I am a vegetarian and am adding protein drinks/bars around workouts - a protein drink after lifting for sure. This has helped my hunger.

I have to remind myself that I want to lose weight, but if I am also building muscle, I have to fuel my workout and keep my metabolism going too. I can't say how this is all working for me, because I just started the method of the average calories each day. But, it makes sense to me and feels right.

There is a lot of talk on this site about counting calories and staying within set limits. But, we also need to listen to our bodies and the simple answer may be that when you are starving, you need to eat more.

I lift after work and often find that I am starving the day after a lifting session. Upping your calories and making sure you are getting enough protein should help

I've noticed the hunger on lifting days, too. Does your TDEE calculation include your newly added activity? As soon as you add the lifting in, you're adding activity that will change your calorie goals.

I find eating within 1/2 an hour after lifting or long workout helps tremendously with hunger issues.
As well as ensuring I have enough protein and carbs, usually the heaviest meal of the day.

On days that I work out hard I am starving.

Take BCAA's pre workout and if you're still hungry after, take them again.

Today was my first day trying out All Pro's program. I followed it with a 1/2 hour of cardio while waiting for my son to finish his workout. I have been starving since we left the gym!! I had a post workout snack and had dinner and I'm still starving! Is this normal? I still have calories left but I would like to save them for later.

Yeah, I think it's normal.

What's worked for me is:

(1) I make sure I eat very close to my calorie goal on the days that I lift. I've been focused on losing weight & maintaining muscle mass, so I don't want to starve myself out of muscle repair after lifting.

(2) I try to eat something about an hour before exercise, and then I usually go for some sort of high-protein / fairly-high carb snack (yogurt, protein smoothie or something along those lines) within 30 minutes or so after exercise. Usually that snack's 300+ calories, so it's almost a meal's worth. Even then, I tend to get hungry within another hour or two, so I make sure I've got calories left for another small snack.

(3) I also seem to get better results if I don't go straight from lifting to a full (30m+) cardio stint, but I do weave a little bit of light cardio into my lifting, usually just keeping myself moving in between sets (walking around, doing 30s of jumping jacks, etc).

Take BCAA's pre workout and if you're still hungry after, take them again.

What is BCAA?

Branched chain amino acids. Essentially, it's the building blocks of protein. I take them to prevent catabolism because I workout fasted but they really blunt your appetite as well. I'll have gone 20 hours or more without eating and barely felt any hunger.