my daily calories = really hard to stay within!

One thing is to open your diary so people can make food suggestions for you. You can eat 1500 calories that leave you hungry or you can eat 1500 calories that keeps you satiated. If you've just started this journey then it will take a bit for your body to get used to your new level of eating as well. Drink lots of water, eat proteins to keep you feeling full longer, lots of veggies and fruits and avoid empty calories like breads, pasta and cereals. Not that they are bad for you but they don't provide you with long term feelings of fullness.

replacement behaviour - i like it!

i caved today when i was visiting my mom's house... i had already eaten dinner, but she offered me some of her homecooked leftovers. i had just a few small bites but it was an extra 200 calories that threw me over! i felt instant guilt, ran home to enter it on MFP then hopped on my bike for 15 mins. still wasn't good enough.

Maybe in the future if that happens again, take the leftovers home and eat them the next day instead of right then and there. That way you still get to eat them, but you don't end up eating dinner twice.

It might be the foods you're eating. If you eat good, healthy food, 1570/day is very doable and can even leave you stuffed. If you eat a bunch of sugary junk that's basically empty calories, then you'll still be very hungry at the end of the day.

But, like someone else said, if you find that 1570 is too much of an adjustment for you from what you were doing before, change your goal to a slower weight loss pace (like from 2 lbs/week to 1 lb/week, or from 1 lb/week to 0.5 lb/week). That will give you a smaller calorie deficit and will give you more calories to eat each day. (It'll also mean slower weight loss though, but that's fine and slow weight loss is actually very healthy.) But if your goal is already at the slowest weight loss pace (0.5 lb/week), well...you're going to have to learn to get accustomed to 1570 if weight loss is important to you. Prepare healthy, filling meals, don't eat junk that's empty calories, don't drink a lot of your calories, and exercise regularly so you can eat back those calories too.

i'm set at 2/lbs per week... i'm hoping to lose atleast 50 lbs in the next year. and i wanted to really restrict myself so i'd see results fast, as not to be discouraged like in the past. I may need to adjust it now that i've seen some results, but i'd like to try sticking to it for a while. old habits die hard. i actually don't drink alot of calories anymore... i used to, atleast a can of regular pepsi a day, but i've completely cut that out because it's not worth the calories. I drink alot of water, tea, and skim milk when i do need calories.

thanks for the tip, i may need to look at my settings if i keep feeling this way or want to give up.

Don't restrict yourself too much, you don't want to set yourself up for failure. Ease into it. Try changing your goal to 1lb a week for awhile, get used to eating a little less, and then maybe you can change it back.

learn to like eating veggies, you can eat 3-4 cups of broccoli and cauliflower and use about 100 or so calories depending upon what else you put on it. put a little salad dressing on top or some shredded cheese for flavor and NOT a bunch of melted cheese sauce. for me, most processed foods leave me feeling super hungry and always wanting more. it's impossible for me to open up a big bag of chips and portion out a serving and eat just that cuz after i finish it, i feel like i'm starving and eat more. i like to snack on 1oz of almonds as they help me feel like i ate something without wanting to eat the rest of them. i try and do a protein, veggies, and small amount of rice for lunch and dinner and breakfast will be oatmeal and fruit, or small bowl of cereal with fruit in it.

I would look at what foods you are gravitating to and what you have in your diet. Are you going low-carb after a life of cereals, pasta, bread and chips? It's going to be hard going for you at first (or for a while.) However if you start replacing those carbs with better carbs and choices, it's a little easier -- cereal to steel-cut oatmeal, reduce portion size and add salads or vegetables to the mix.

If you are feeling like you are being restricted too much, you will rebel, so you can't go too restrictive. Plan how you plan to eat for the rest of your life. Such as, if you must have chocolate, have 1 oz. of dark chocolate (if you like it) and incorporate it into your day. There, it's done and it's over and you can stop thinking about chocolate. (I advise a Ghiradelli dark chocolate square with sea-salted caramel.)

You can still have sandwiches, pizza and the like, you just have to be smart about portion size and ingredients. For me, if I'm going to eat pizza, I make it myself so I have control of the cheese and ingredients (just buy the pizza shell at the store.) I also try to eat 1/3 rather than 1/2 (doesn't always work, but that's OK, too.) and try to make sure the rest of my meals fit into the day. (Friend me and see how I do it.)

To do this, I had to give up going out to eat or take out. I had to learn more about nutrition and make things that were tasty and good for me. I think that's part of your journey here, too.

Not sure if it's already been mentioned or not but I've noticed that when I start my day out with mostly carbs (oatmeal and toast for example) I feel like I'm STARVING within two hours! I'm trying now to limit my carb intake for health reasons and I noticed that today I felt like I was able to eat a lot, feel full, stay under my 1400 calorie goal, AND under 125 for carbs. (Hopefully I'll be able to wean myself down to about 100 carbs within a week and then down to 75.) I had a higher amount of protein for breakfast (ummm can we say BACON and eggs?! Yes, please!) and it stayed with me so much longer!

Also, I don't know how much water your drinking but that is usually one of my weakest points. Today I MADE SURE I had 10 cups. I really think it has helped! Good luck with finding some recipes/meals that work for you! And congratulations on your 5 lb. weight loss! Keep it up!

i'm set at 2/lbs per week... i'm hoping to lose atleast 50 lbs in the next year. and i wanted to really restrict myself so i'd see results fast, as not to be discouraged like in the past. I may need to adjust it now that i've seen some results, but i'd like to try sticking to it for a while. old habits die hard. i actually don't drink alot of calories anymore... i used to, atleast a can of regular pepsi a day, but i've completely cut that out because it's not worth the calories. I drink alot of water, tea, and skim milk when i do need calories.

thanks for the tip, i may need to look at my settings if i keep feeling this way or want to give up.

Don't restrict yourself too much, you don't want to set yourself up for failure. Ease into it. Try changing your goal to 1lb a week for awhile, get used to eating a little less, and then maybe you can change it back.

I agree with this! Changing your goal to a slower weight loss pace will actually be MORE encouraging because it'll be so much easier to stick to it. If it's easy and enjoyable to stick to a weight loss plan, then it won't feel like a diet and you'll be able to keep it up long-term...which means REAL results and a MUCH easier time maintaining once you reach your goal. There are also many health benefits for slow weight loss, such as: an easier adjustment on your body, few if any plateaus, lower chance of loose skin, less muscle loss (which means more of the weight lost will be fat), etc. Eventually you WILL need to eat at 1570/day to see a small amount of weight loss and at that point, your body will have an easier time doing that. But for now, I really think you're better off taking this slowly. Remember, that this is about your HEALTH, it's not a race or some Biggest Loser competition where the winner gets a big prize. Slow and steady wins the race. :bigsmile: