Find it hard not to go over calories. Weight mostly stays the same.
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OP, when I increased my servings of veggies and focused on hitting my protein goal every day, it became a lot easier for me to stay at my calorie goal and not feel peckish all day. Good luck!0
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I have gained dramatic weight on some medicines (60/2months), and it was a rumbly stomach hunger and not the brain hunger. I would consider eating more protein and fiber. both will keep you full longer
I have switched medication at times because of side effects-you may consider talking to your dr about it. there are many different antidepressants. Me, wellbutrin gave me vertigo. really bad. like barely able to sit in a chair vertigo.0 -
Maybe you could try more substantial meals to cut back on the snacking ritual.0
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Hi
I have to say I was a red meat eater most of my life so far! I can have a burger and chips and eat the rest of the evening snacking on rubbish or even healthy stuff as long as it's good.
If I eat chicken and chips with salad that's me full till morning so think it's what your eating is the problem.good luck tho. Xx0 -
The medications can make you feel hungry because one of the signals that tells your brain and stomach to feel hungry is a dip in blood sugars. If your body is mimicking insulin resistance, then you react very quickly (spikes and dips) when you eat carbs. So carbs are very good for taking away that hunger signal, but because your body doesn't process it that well, you also get that large dip in blood sugar translating to another hunger signal.
You need to work on evening out your blood sugar. Focusing on the protein will help TREMENDOUSLY. The proteins will help keep you satisfied without dipping your blood sugar. If your snacks are the cause, then stop or change those snacks.
Think of yourself as a diabetic when you eat and you will find that you will stop going over on your calories (no need to snack anymore).0 -
I know it sounds cliche, but water really helps...when I get hungry I pound a bottle of water like a frat boy does beer...then I forget about food for a couple hours
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I agree with adding some protien. I like the Greek Gods brand plain, full fat greek yogurt. I put a splenda, a dash of vanilla extract and blueberries in mine. So good. But my favorite snack and the most "frequent" food in my list is apples. I love an apple and the fiber in it help me feel full. Apples are also good in yogurt or cottage cheese and they are pretty sweet.0
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danieltsmoke wrote: »I know it sounds cliche, but water really helps...when I get hungry I pound a bottle of water like a frat boy does beer...then I forget about food for a couple hours
coffee does the trick too.
OP, logging food is a good way to learn knowledge but not a daily task to stress you out. I started serious weight cutting 3 months ago. Only logged food for 1 month, then let go. Because after 1 month I have the knowledge, I know what I am eating. What to put to my diet and how much energy it feeds my body.
Good luck.0 -
Things I find that help my appetite:
- Delaying breakfast and lunch for as long as I can, then I have less time to the next meal and that helps me cope.
- Having a huge dinner at night, around 600 calories of a huge salad, cold chicken breast, grated carrot, beetroot, cottage cheese or grated cheese, steamed small potato/sweet potato.. I'm bursting afterwards, but I prefer that to feeling hungry.
- I save 200 calories most days to have an ice cream cone after dinner.
- Drinks.. lots of water, or a low cal coffee from my coffee pod machine, low cal cup-a-soup.
- Soups. Try making a homemade soup that is low calorie and then have a hot cup of that when you are struggling, and a cup before meals, depending on the calories.
- I eat a raw carrot as I'm making/weighing my evening meal, and a large drink, seems to help fill me up.
Hope that helps a little, and upping your protein should help you a lot.
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I've been having good luck with nuts/nut-based meal bars/snacks that are specifically high in protein while still being in the calorie range of what I'm wanting to eat. I know a lot of people here have issues with different meal replacements, but they're great if you're always running late to get out the door to work or something.
Also, popcorn. I get these AMAZING little bags of lime/salt flavoured microwave popcorn, and it's like 25 calories for the whole thing. When my husband whines that he wants more, I can point out that he could eat four of them for the number of calories in our normal snacks. That's a LOT of popcorn.0 -
PinkPixiexox wrote: »I don't think 'getting used to being hungry' is the answer here.
Your body is an amazing thing and it gets you through each and every day - you certainly shouldn't restrict it when it's screaming out for some fuel. If you are on a weight loss plan, it can be a little testing at times but you need to find ways to stop the hunger through the foods you currently eat. Protein will help and also - drinking water. I also would suggest eating fruit when you're feeling hungry and foods that release their energy slowly over a few hours. It's trial and error and tweaking where necessary but don't deprive.
Being hungry and feeling hungry are 2 different things. Since the OP is not losing weight it's pretty safe to say her body is not hurting for more calories.0 -
On the plus side, OP, you now know without a doubt what your TDEE is. Now you just need to tweak what you're eating so you can eat less and not be constantly hungry. Others have given you good advice on where to start with that - go forth and experiment!0
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I've always eaten when hungry since I've been counting calories, and I try to exercise to make up for eating too much. There's only so much exercise I can do though. Contrary to what I just wrote above I don't really want to sit around starving because on diets where I've done that I always gain the weight back. I am very, very slowly losing weight, but at this rate it will take years to lose substantial weight. I do want to try eating more protein even though I don't like it much. Maybe that's part of the answer, as well as maybe accepting I'm just going to lose weight slowly.
One thing I haven't mentioned is I take medication for depression, and have to take it even when I'm doing fine. I don't think the tablets have too much of an impact on my weight loss but might slow it down a little. I don't know if the tablets can make you hungry.
These medications are the reason why you are feeling hungry all the time. Your macros are set to the MFP default (I'm assuming), and they should be more like 30% carb/35% fat/35% protein in order for you to feel full.
Research a diabetic diet. Depression drugs and other classes of drugs can make your body mimic insulin resistance or diabetes (hence the side effect of gaining weight on a lot of these drugs). This will suggest that you need to lower your overall carb percentage and with every meal there should be some fats and proteins. Try really concentrating on hitting those protein numbers and NOT eat all carb meals or snacks. Those are killer for your carb numbers. The occasional carb heavy meal is ok, but look at the overall day's numbers. You'll find this hard in the beginning, but the hunger pangs will go away after 2 weeks of successfully hitting your protein numbers.
So the medication can make you feel hungry? My meals aren't carb heavy really but my snacks are, and I snack a lot. I'm going to change my diet a fair bit - more protein and fibre. I'm looking forward to this!
They can, it depends on what you're on. As someone mentioned above, Wellbutrin (bupropion) doesn't increase hunger for most people.
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Drink lots of water, too. You'll get used to lower calories eventually. For few days/first week can be hard but you adapt.
Good luck 0 -
A few ideas:
Maybe you could have your sandwich with more meat/protein but only one slice of bread. You'd hit about the same calories, but potentially stay full longer.
You might play around with when you eat. If I eat within 2 hrs before I go to sleep, I'm good. Even a little bit before that, and I need to snack before bed.
I've made a habit of serving myself about half as much rice as I want (so half a cup instead of a cup, usually). That means more of the bulky vegetables and the satusfying protein. I'm stuffed for fairly few calories.
It's great that you found an antidepressant that works for you. Make sure your prescribing doctor knows that you've lost weight as that may affect your dosage. If you've just been getting refills without any visits, the doctor may not know. Who knows...a slightly lower dosage could mean less of an effect on your appetite.
That's all I can think of. Best of luck!0 -
MAKE YOURSELF RULES AND STICK TO THEM!I know im new on here but I was on another board like this that recommended i eat 1200 calories a day, no way, I STRICTLY stuck to between 800-900 at the most, give yourself a reward like buying something. even if you want a sweet like Dairy queen then thats all you eat for the day if you used your calories, go hard! -2
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LynndyStarr wrote: »MAKE YOURSELF RULES AND STICK TO THEM!I know im new on here but I was on another board like this that recommended i eat 1200 calories a day, no way, I STRICTLY stuck to between 800-900 at the most, give yourself a reward like buying something. even if you want a sweet like Dairy queen then thats all you eat for the day if you used your calories, go hard!
That's genuinely terrible advice. It's not sustainable or nutritionally sound.
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Well It works....I went from 135-100lb in six months, I have tried the "right" way after gaining close to 70 lbs with pregnancys and it did not work, neither did going to weight watchers, medical weight loss, joining a gym, or running an hour a day. So hey im just being honest.0
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I definitely think it is because of the meds, my physically active, skinny younger brother was put on medication a year ago with the well-known Side -effect of no longer feeling satiated. He is now considered obese, still active, but he just does not stop eating. People are startled at how fast he keeps Gaining. If you are in his position as well, you will need to face that you will always be hungrier than most. You will at least need to monitor your intake so you don't gain, and to keep weight loss tolerable, I would suggest aiming for a very small deficit, like 100 kcal. It will take forever, but that is just because you are in a special situation. I admire you for your will power so far! You are doing so much better than my brother! And as to finding ways to try and diminish the hunger, I hope you find a solution in the tips given to you above. If I were you, I would look into that diet for diabetics as suggested above first.0
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Thanks for all your responses everyone. Today I saw my doctor and while I was there I asked her about always being hungry. She said my medication can have an impact on my hunger but in the end I just need to change my snacks. My meals are okay, but I'm now aiming for healthier snacks with protein. I bought some greek yogurt with fruit today and ate a fair bit, and I noticed I ate less snacks. I eat fruit every day already so I'll aim to add greek yogurt and nuts as my main snacks, and maybe some cheese. I didn't buy plain greek yogurt today but probably will next time and add fruit to it. I'm only starting but I was under by about 200 calories today which never happens Here's hoping making some smart changes works out. 0
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Hi. I've been counting calories for about a year and a half, and have lost 38.5 pounds/17.5 kg. I'm 5 feet tall and currently weigh 185 pounds/84 kg. I have a lot more weight to lose.
For a long time now my weight has barely moved because I go over my calories quite often. I changed it from 1200 per day to 1500 and I still go over. I'm not gaining the weight I lost back but I'm not losing either because I often eat almost as many calories as I burn. I exercise a fair bit but eat those calories too. I can see it clearly in the numbers - I log my food quite accurately and weigh my food, and I use a Fitbit to calculate my exercise calories. I can clearly see based on the numbers why my weight is staying the same.
I just don't know how to stop eating so much. I'm ALWAYS hungry. When I feel hungry it's almost painful, so I eat. I don't eat a lot of fast food but I eat processed food and snacks. I think snacking is my main problem. I graze a lot, and don't always eat healthy snacks. I don't eat to the point of feeling sick hardly at all, I usually feel hungry even when I go over my calories. I just don't know how to stop feeling hungry, and find it hard to sleep if I go to bed hungry.
Any advice would be great.
I have the same problem. I have always had a huge appetite. A few things that have helped me:
- You have you heard about metabolic typing? I read about it a few months ago and decided to give it a shot. After I figured out my metabolic type, I adjusted my macro goals from the defaults that MyFitnessPal set for me and felt a difference in my satisfaction after eating.
- When I'm hungry and I don't think I should be due to the calorie intake I've had, I will chug some iced water, iced lemon water or unsweetened iced green tea. I wait about 30 minutes after that to see if I was truly "hungry"
- Last thing I try to do is make myself do a jog or other type of exercise to get my heart rate going to the max for just 10 minutes. Sometimes that just kills my urge to snack.0 -
Metabolic typing is hooey.
Drinking and exercise might actually help.0 -
LynndyStarr wrote: »Well It works....I went from 135-100lb in six months, I have tried the "right" way after gaining close to 70 lbs with pregnancys and it did not work, neither did going to weight watchers, medical weight loss, joining a gym, or running an hour a day. So hey im just being honest.
The OP is 50lbs heavier than your start weight. Just because you did something (inadvisable) doesn't mean you should offer that as a solution to other people. And is also sounds like you didn't try it the "right" way of monitoring calories in and out until you decided to overly restrict.0 -
Glad to hear your doctor gave you good advice that's helping. 0
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Thanks for all your responses everyone. Today I saw my doctor and while I was there I asked her about always being hungry. She said my medication can have an impact on my hunger but in the end I just need to change my snacks. My meals are okay, but I'm now aiming for healthier snacks with protein. I bought some greek yogurt with fruit today and ate a fair bit, and I noticed I ate less snacks. I eat fruit every day already so I'll aim to add greek yogurt and nuts as my main snacks, and maybe some cheese. I didn't buy plain greek yogurt today but probably will next time and add fruit to it. I'm only starting but I was under by about 200 calories today which never happens Here's hoping making some smart changes works out.
That's great OP0 -
I am 4'11". You may want to look at the type of snack you eat. When I changed my snacks to things I like and mostly protein snacks, my extreme hunger abated. Try laughing cow cheese (35 cal), Baby bel lite cheese (50 cal), turkey and chicken pieces.0
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Thanks for all your responses everyone. Today I saw my doctor and while I was there I asked her about always being hungry. She said my medication can have an impact on my hunger but in the end I just need to change my snacks. My meals are okay, but I'm now aiming for healthier snacks with protein. I bought some greek yogurt with fruit today and ate a fair bit, and I noticed I ate less snacks. I eat fruit every day already so I'll aim to add greek yogurt and nuts as my main snacks, and maybe some cheese. I didn't buy plain greek yogurt today but probably will next time and add fruit to it. I'm only starting but I was under by about 200 calories today which never happens Here's hoping making some smart changes works out.
That's awesome, glad to hear that we were on the right track with your snacks being the culprit! I will also add some protein snacks (that aren't eggs) would be beef jerky or Perdue short cuts (they are grilled chicken pieces with different flavors, but a little high in sodium) or you can make your own grilled chicken breasts and cut them up as your snacks (which will cut way down on your sodium from prepackaged foods). Good luck! 0 -
I am 4'11". You may want to look at the type of snack you eat. When I changed my snacks to things I like and mostly protein snacks, my extreme hunger abated. Try laughing cow cheese (35 cal), Baby bel lite cheese (50 cal), turkey and chicken pieces.
Oh I forgot about laughing cow and baby bel cheese. Thanks for the good idea.
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