Upped my calories and NOW I'm starving?

I had a quick peek at your food diary, i agree that protein and fibre are super important at every meal (if i dont get protein in im still starving after eating). My favourise foods for filling up are quest bars, popcorn, oatmeal and chia seeds.
another thing i would suggest would be breaking up your meals so that you have lighter meals and more snacks. i find myself continually starving so i eat a lighter lunch and dinner so i can have decent snacks throughout the day.
also, are you adding your exercise in and eating back those calories? its super important to make sure you eat back what you exercise otherwise you would be well below a healthy range (if i dont eat enough after working out i get so hungry it makes me ill)

I'm not sure what your budget is like, but you can save quite a few calories by replacing all or a portion of your ground beef with lower fat beef or ground turkey. Think 93/7 or even 85/15. I often pay the same as cheaper beef as I will grab marked down packs a day or two before the sell by date and freeze them.

You could get at least double the protein replacing your protein bars with something like Pure Protein bars. They seem to range 180-200 calories each, but have 20g of protein. Double the protein switching your regular yogurt to Greek yogurt.

I usually eat what I cook for the family as well, but routinely have salad and cottage cheese on the table at every dinner even though usually only I eat them. I have more veg with dinner than anyone else too and end up with more calories available for snacks throughout the day.

I also have a few go to meals with really good calories/macros like tilapia fillets and steamed veggies or chicken breast and mashed sweet potatoes that are very filling, have high protein and low calories. I'll have that for lunch when I know I'm going to have a high calorie dinner like pizza.

I have my goals set to only 1lb/wk and I lift heavy 3 times a week. I also go for a walk or do a little aerobic activity, something pretty well every day even if just for 15 or 20 minutes. Tons of free vids to do on Youtube. It's pretty easy to get another hundred here or there in a day. With my current activity level, I try to stay between 1600-1800 a day which is like TDEE minus 20-30% depending on the calculator used, but I often go a bit over. I'm 5'3" and when TOM goes will be around 190lb. I get something like 1490 to start with at sedentary, so only about 120 higher than you.

Doing this will take me longer to get to my goal weight I guess, but the scale number is no longer my driving force. I'm not dieting and don't foresee an end point really. I'm reclaiming my life. I've lost and regained plus a little more for my troubles too many times in my life. I've been dieting since I was about 12 years old. My end results were approximately an extra 10lb each year. So I refuse to do it anymore.

As I come up on my 1 year mark, I'll only be down about 80lbs instead of the 100+ I could have struggling at 1200 a day, but OMG, that's 80lb for very little effort. Best of all, for me at least, it's sustainable long term.


Check my diary for today. Its at 1471. It includes a full breakfast, pizza and even my current favorite treat. Most items are made from scratch. MFP's recipe builder is great for tweaking recipes. I eat Hamburger Helper and mac and cheese sometimes too, I just health it up a little, which incidentally also stretches the food budget. Try adding a couple cans of veggies or beans to it. Cheeseburger Mac with a can of corn and a can of kidney beans or diced tomatoes is great. You get more servings and they have better nutritional stats. Leave out the butter and use a leaner meat. Add frozen broccoli or mixed veggies to things. Swap oatmeal for crackers in your meatloaf. Seriously, check the labels at your local grocery and go a day before sell by on the meats and buy it marked down. I'll likely do something active today because we're snowed in and its boring, so maybe a dance workout with the kids. I'm going to bake as well, so will probably be adding in at least another 200 calories or so. The 1470 though is set at sedentary, so could just veg on the couch all day if I wanted.

A vegetable garden is big on the to do list for this year because of finances, but there are a lot of ways to up the nutritional value without really upping the price. A site called hillbillyhousewife.com helped me years ago in extremely lean times and I learned quite a bit. I don't visit it as much anymore, but there is a lot of good info and recipes there.

Sorry, rambled a bit. If you see any recipes you want, let me know.

OMG.. I just read on that site about how to drain and rinse ground beef after it's cooked to rid it of a lot of the fat. Genius information on that site! Thank you so much! Bookmarking!

omg...no. :laugh:

Seriously--I usually drain it so it doesn't taste greasy but I never heard of rinsing it til I got on here. Bleh.

Nothing wrong with fat at all. We were discussing ways to pack in more food with less calories though. I often buy a better quality of ground beef and sometimes use poultry products like turkey bacon or turkey sausage when I want more calories to splurge on other things later. No different than adding in some egg whites vs whole eggs or using stevia instead of sugar in your coffee. I can't say I've ever rinsed the fat off ground beef, but it really wouldn't hurt going into something like a casserole with a lot of other ingredients and seasonings I wouldn't think. I have hidden ground turkey or venison many times in recipes without anyone remarking upon it. No idea how you would log it though.

It all depends on what I have, what numbers I have to work with and what else I want to do with my day. If we're doing Pizza Hut, I'm going to eat 3-4 slices. So trim 20 calories here, 30 there. A big favorite here is sausage and cabbage. I don't even drain the fat before tossing in the cabbage. Its fantastic stuff with spicy mustard. I'm usually well over on my fat those days.