Calorie deficeit and hunger

As people have said, you're way under-eating. The weight you're losing is possibly muscle, not fat. So you're actually in reality not losing anything. You need to get up to a healthy calorie intake of AT LEAST 1,200. Remember WHAT you eat is what matters. You could really eat MORE calories and have the same effect of eating less if you're eating the right stuff. Don't just focus on calories, look at WHAT you're eating. Labels are your best friend.

I began just over a month ago on MFP and tried to maintain a diet of just under 900 calories. I realize that this was quite the large deficit but I wanted to see a change quickly. On average I'd say that I consume around 1100 calories a day and usually eat back my exercise macros. I try to keep my carbs fairly low considering I workout 6 days a week (75g), fat at an decent level (30g) and protein high (around 100g).

Now initially I was obviously hungry a lot. Especially since I was working out quite a bit. I did cycle my carb and calorie levels so there were definitely cheat days.

However, over the last two weeks or so, I have noticed that I am no longer hungry. My macros intake will be fairly under for the day and I will have to force myself to eat. I still go to the gym and burn roughly the same amount of calories daily, but I just don't have the appetite any more. I'm worried that I'm eating too little to maintain positive muscle growth and at the same time I'm wondering if this is just a phase and I should listen to my body despite the deficit.

One word:

Patience !

You joined a month ago or less, and expect the success people have after several month.
Please set up a regimen that allows you to eat at an acceptable deficit, add the kind of exercise you like to do ( because for actual weight loss it is not really necessary, but helps in health & fitness), weigh all your food, log all your food consistently and hang in there for a month or two. You will see success !
Constant changes will not help you at all and will make it impossible for anyone to give you advise, because you have not taken enough time to find out what actually works for you.

I had the same concern -- not feeling hungry. I noticed that, similar to the previous posters, I didn't necessarily feel hungry; however, I noticed that I felt a little weak. I didn't want food though, because my tummy didn't say "I feel empty". It was the lack of energy that told me I needed to eat.

With a bit of agreement with some other concerns shared, that is a rather large kcal deficit. One which is definitely going to eat away at the muscle that you don't want to lose. To echo what someone else had said, 1500 kcal of proper food is going to work with your body much better than 900 kcal of less healthy choices. For example, I eat loads of veg, fruit and beans every day -- well over what you're intake -- and I'm keeping my muscle. My 2 cents....

I began just over a month ago on MFP and tried to maintain a diet of just under 900 calories. I realize that this was quite the large deficit but I wanted to see a change quickly. On average I'd say that I consume around 1100 calories a day and usually eat back my exercise macros. I try to keep my carbs fairly low considering I workout 6 days a week (75g), fat at an decent level (30g) and protein high (around 100g).

Now initially I was obviously hungry a lot. Especially since I was working out quite a bit. I did cycle my carb and calorie levels so there were definitely cheat days.

However, over the last two weeks or so, I have noticed that I am no longer hungry. My macros intake will be fairly under for the day and I will have to force myself to eat. I still go to the gym and burn roughly the same amount of calories daily, but I just don't have the appetite any more. I'm worried that I'm eating too little to maintain positive muscle growth and at the same time I'm wondering if this is just a phase and I should listen to my body despite the deficit.

The short answer is, you should have listened to your body when it was "hungry a lot."

It can be hard to know when to trust your body signals and when not to. I think basically your body has gotten used to you giving it that low amount of food, so it's learned to live on that for now, it has given up asking for more because it's figured out your plan. You were hungry a lot at first, you say, so this makes sense. You ignored the signals so your body gave up sending them. Should you start to eat more, you might find that suddenly you are more hungry because your body says "oh i'm getting more food again? maybe if i ask for more i'll actually get some!" It would probably reward you better in the gym too, if you give it more fuel to work with.

The deficit is most likely too large, and you already realize that, so you need to reduce it (up your calories) to function better and to keep exercising in a beneficial way.

How much to up your calories? That is a personal number but I'm sure you will get lots of advice, a good start is finding out about BMR and in general, trying to keep your number *at minimum* above that (and much higher if you can and still lose weight!). I'm still learning about all this myself, but find learning about BMR and TDEE and scooby's calculators and all that, it's helped a LOT. Active people can and should eat more. There's a bunch of forum posts at the top of all the different sections that give a great overview of the basics of successful, sustainable weight loss. You have an appreciable number of lbs gone, probably best to get comfortable now with losing weight at a slower but more healthy pace.

good luck ^^

one of the body's survival responses to long term calorie shortage is to shut down hunger signals. However, they haven't gone away, they tend to come back with avengence leading to binge eating.... which is another survival response to this situation

seriously eat more. You won't see change quickly with only a few lbs to lose, and too big a deficit at this stage leads to loss of muscle tissue and bone density. Fat is lost slowly, and the less of it you have, the slower it's lost. Aim for a very small deficit, and slow, steady fat loss, while feeding your body enough to sustain it.

huge increase in appetite from exercising = normal. your body needs to be fed after exercise. Plan a balanced post-workout meal containing protein and carbs, and eat this after exercising.

being tempted to eat a muffin .... if you have your calorie goal set up so you can eat the highest number of calories you can while still losing weight slowly and steadily, then eating a muffin isn't going to harm your progress. Log the calories and over the course of a day, don't go over your calorie goal.

You don't have to eat so little to make progress, in fact eating more is better all round, because there is a lot more to being healthy than how much body fat you have. To be healthy you also need strong muscles, dense bones, a strong cardiovascular system and strong lungs, blood pressure in the healthy range and healthy amounts of lipids etc in the blood. Exercise goes a long way to achieving all of these, and eating well, including getting plenty of protein, essential fatty acids, vitamins (including fat soluble ones) and minerals. Loss of body fat comes from a calorie deficit, but too big a deficit compromises many other factors that contribute to good health, and it sets you up for binge eating. Instead, a small calorie deficit for slow and steady fat loss plus exercise enables you to be healthy in terms of ALL the things that contribute to health, and you're not sacrificing most of them for just one factor. Also, you look better naked when you're healthier as opposed to just sacrificed everything else to be a particular number on the scale.

Whenever I eat at a large deficit for long enough, hunger drops. I actually only occasionally experience real, true "hunger" when losing weight. That's because I rely on large deficits, with little exercise, when I'm cutting fat.

I only have persistent, true hunger regularly when I'm working out and eating at my maintenance level.