How is this possible?

Try loading up on veggies. They put a lot of stuff in your stomach for not a lot of calories.

if you are hungry, eat. that has been my way to diet at least. if you feel the need, divide your meals.

Have you tried eating more, smaller meals? If find that I can go about 3 hours on 150-200 calories without extreme hunger, which leaves calories for a"normal "dinner

If it's an ongoing thing, and you're confident that you're getting enough calories, protein and fat every day, and that your meals are decently spaced, I'd recommend talking to your GP. There are common medical conditions that can cause severe hunger even when your intake is seemingly good, so if there's nothing obvious on the nutrition front you should check that out.

What has helped me is learning to embrace hunger. I like to think of hunger as meaning that my body is dipping into the fat reserves. I visualize the fat flowing out of my fat cells and into the blood stream, because there isn't enough food in my stomach to feed my body.

Fruitylicious03 wrote: »

I don't log regularly though so my diary won't help. What I'm doing is learning portion control...well trying.

I eat the same thing generally for breakfast and dinner. Lunch has around the same calories p/meal often but the ingredients in the meal vary.

I cook my food ahead for the week, so what I do is weigh and measure everything in the recipe ONCE, and create a recipe on mfp just to see the total calories for a serving of the recipe. That's how I know how much I eat a week.

I eat 85g of protein and 45g of fat a day. On 1470 calories.

If you don't log regularly, how do you know you "eat 85g of protein and 45g of fat a day. On 1470 calories."

Oh, you don't log. You may not be eating enough then. Try logging for a while.

TimothyFish wrote: »

What has helped me is learning to embrace hunger. I like to think of hunger as meaning that my body is dipping into the fat reserves. I visualize the fat flowing out of my fat cells and into the blood stream, because there isn't enough food in my stomach to feed my body.

Ha- I like that!

I totally understand where you are coming from! I could not get past my 15 lb plateau to save my life!! However, I have good news! Today is the day that I reached my goal. I was able to break through my plateau and get it done. Hunger was my biggest enemy as well. I created my deficits by maintaining a high protein diet. While at work, I would keep my calories low by creating 200-300 calorie snacks of ham and cheese or chicken drum sticks and I would drink about 96 ounces of green tea each day. For my workout, I took up running and HIIT. I ran sprints. I ran miles using intervals of sprinting and jogging. I made sure that as I lost weight, I would readjust my goals in MFP to make sure that I maintained the correct amount of caloric deficit (MFP doesn't automatically readjust). I also set my goals on MFP to lose 2 pounds a week. That way if I did go over my caloric limit by a little, I would still have some wiggle room. In conclusion, the way that I lost weight and broke through my plateau was HIGH PROTEIN and HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING! Good luck!

Fruitylicious03 wrote: »

I'm trying to lose the last 15lb. But it seems like everytime I try to keep a deficit...I eat up to maintenance or over. Why?

Because I'm super hungry! Not mentally (like cravings and such) but physically. Stomach grumbling, nauseating hunger.

Now I maintain at 1670. (I'm sedentary because I sit and study all day, I do eat back exercise calories but I don't set mfp to lightly active as my activity varies) my deficit is only 250 calories.

I hit all my macros, focussing on protein and fat (the rest kind of falls wherever) and drink water all day. I can't understand why I can't get over this blasted hunger! Am I missing something?

Honestly, it's going to be pretty hard for anyone to actually help you other than giving anecdotal evidence of what worked for them because you aren't actually accurately tracking so you have no idea if you're actually eating 1670 calories or hitting the protein/fat macros you posted.

Not to rag on you, but how do you know that you maintain at 1670? Is that what MFP or a website told you? Maintenance isn't actually an exact calorie amount, it's a range typically of around 200 calories. The only way to know what your true maintenance is, would be to eat that for around 60-90 days and see if you gain or lose. I have no idea how tall you are, how much you weigh, etc but 1670 is actually a fairly low maintenance unless you are 5'2 or under, and weighing around 110-120lbs, especially since you're only 21. I'm 5'6/5'7 and nearing a healthy weight for my height, I'm lightly active, a year older than you, and I maintain around 2100-2300 calories; something I know because I've done maintenance cycles over my three year weight loss journey.

Just a thought, but maybe you aren't getting proper hydration? Try drinking some water to see if the "hunger" subsides. If it doesn't, then you should eat.

zarckon wrote: »

ruffnstuff wrote: »

You should really take some of the advice given here and consistently log EVERYTHING (weigh it!) for a few weeks. I have no doubt in my mind that you are probably consuming more than 1670 cals a day if you are maintaining. You are 21 years old. Unless you are very, very, very petite, these are not the maintenance calories of a healthy, active 21 yr old.

I agree OP should log, but it could be close to right. They did say "sedentary" and that it's 1670 before exercise calories. They didn't say "healthy" or "active". You're assuming that.

Well if that's the case, that sucks for her!! I'd have a hard time losing too if my TDEE was around 1700. But again, for these numbers to be realistic, she must be rather petite. She's not 21, 5'9" with those numbers.