Does hunger get better after dieting for a few weeks?

I do an intermittent fasting type diet: skip breakfast and eat between 12pm and 9pm. Only reason is I'm super hungry at night if I eat breakfast and run low on calories.

For me, it did, but I also had to look at what made me feel full - fortunately in my case it's bulk from vegetables and that kind of thing. However, a lot of people here say that fat is what helps them the most, so you might want to try upping the percentage of fat in your diet and see if that helps you too. Protein helps too but it sounds like you might be (possibly unintentionally) eating pretty low-fat, so I'm wondering if that's the culprit. You're out of the realm of hard science here and into "how does it make you feel?" so it's worth a shot to see if it makes you feel better.

Also, this might be a placebo thing, but I feel less hungry when I'm very careful with my micronutrient intake and get lots of vitamins and minerals in my diet. My explanation of that in my own head is that my body isn't craving anything because I'm deficient so it's curbing my hunger, but that could totally be made-up and I don't want to present it as fact, just an anecdotal thing that has worked for me personally as far as the sensation of hunger goes.

I was definitely struggling more with hunger when I first started

When I was on a medically supervised VLCD liquid diet, I stopped getting hungry after a few days. It has not been so with a moderate reduction in calories, and hunger comes in waves, sometimes lasting days. Extra cardio can leave me in a raging hunger in a day or so.

Not terribly encouraging I know. I figure hunger is a signal that all systems are operational.

Then I had a hot day working in my community garden and my hunger just wasn't there. I had one of hubby's cool smoothies for dinner, as I figured, "why question it? If I'm not hungry the don't eat big." A couple days later I dropped a few pounds.

I found that after a few weeks it gets easier. Your stomach isn't asking for food all the time.

You are 40 lbs lighter than previous and if you have been exercising, that also means you have increased your lean muscle mass. In order to give some options, you will need to look at you current BF, your activity level and your nutrition intake.

I don't know - I obsess over food constantly! I eat too many calories early in the day and then go like 8 hours between my last snack and dinner with gym time in between so I'm hungry a lot!! I need to get better at spacing out my calories through the day.

About 2 weeks in a deficit it seems to level out for me.

This is a good scale that i have memorized and used. It's been nice to learn the difference between real hunger and when to stop eating. I follow the 80% rule. I stop eating when i'm 80% full.

lauracups wrote: »

I have heard it over and over how hunger can be confused with dehydration, and it wasn't until I started upping my water and decaf tea at night that I believed it. Try increasing fluids, see if that helps.

Another thought along these lines: for many people a lack of sleep can lead to feeling hungrier, as your body is trying to compensate by grabbing quick energy from food. I tend to go to the caffeine in the short term, but find eating well easier when I try to get enough sleep.

(I routinely get too little, but have been doing particularly poorly over the past few weeks and I can really tell the difference, ugh.)

When I started MFP, I felt hungry every day for about 2-3 weeks, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to stick with it. But one day, I just stopped feeling so hungry. My new diet was enough to keep me satisfied. I agree with lemurcat12...lack of sleep can really mess with your hunger. I make poor food choices when I'm tired.

i just decreased my calories and find i am annoyed by how hungry i am. i am hoping it goes away soon. last night after dinner i had to skip my tea (with cream and sugar that would add up to 80 calories and usually sates me for the last few hours before bed) and i was SOOOO irritated (perhaps sugar withdrawls?). i brushed my teeth and was still hungry and annoyed. going to budget better today so i can fit it in tonight! let me know how it goes as far as when you stop being so hungry!!!!! *grumble grumble grumble*

I think it gets better. I was hungry and angry all the time at the beginning. After 20 days it got better. Now when I am hungry I am eating an apple or grapefruit, drink some water and it keeps me going to my next meal. I found that I feel better eating less but more often. Something that I have never done before diet. The most of calories I use for breakfast ( first meal of my day, time depends on my shifts) but that's because of my job.
It's getting easier, believe me.

I'm snacky every now and then, but I think I can count the times I've been really hungry in the past six months on two hands (I eat around 1300 calories a day). I found that what works for me is shifting my meal times a little. I usually have breakfast around 10:30 (I get up around 7:45 and get to work at 9, and I am really not hungry until around 10:30), lunch around 3, and dinner when I come home from work/gym (around 7pm). I do have little AM/PM snacks between breakfast/lunch and lunch/dinner though (prunes, yogurt, crisp bread, something along those lines). OP, maybe something along those lines would work for you?