Cutting down to 1800 calories a day and but I am so hungry all the time

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  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,935 Member
    edited July 2017
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    tdavis1994 wrote: »
    I am currently have it set for 30 percent of my diet is protein. I am 322 pounds and looking to get down to 185 ultimately but my first goal is 300.

    You may need 2,000 calories to stay satisfied. I'm more than 100 pounds less than you and with exercise, I need around 2,000 to prevent hunger outside right before meal times.

    That said, are you tracking fiber? If not, and if you have no medical reason to track Sugar or Sodium, swap one of them out for Fiber. Hitting your fiber goal each day should help with satiety. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,935 Member
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    blakeym wrote: »
    I'm fast learning that unless I feel hungry at east once each day for a period of time, I'm not in caloric deficit.

    How long is that period of time? It's normal to feel hungry before meals, but if you are hungry for hours, I suggest something needs to be tweaked.
  • MJ2victory
    MJ2victory Posts: 97 Member
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    Have you cleared this with your doctor? That is a very low calorie amount for your weight. People in here are full of advice and that's great but maybe have a chat with the doc?
  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
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    I'm going to go with the folks who recommend eating more. I truly believe that most people will not stick with a diet (food plan? eating habits?) if they're always hungry, and that weight loss is not a race. What is working for me so far is that I worked out how many calories I need to eat to maintain my current weight (TDEE) and made it my first goal to stick to that for a month or two. Then the last couple of months I've started gradually reducing my averages every couple of weeks. I've been losing 2-3 lbs a month all year even eating right around TDEE (which is about 2200 at my current weight) probably because I've been religious about over-counting calories in and under-counting calories out. I'd like to accelerate that a bit, but I want to do it in a sustainable way, which means not being hungry. Obviously it differs by person and by where you're starting out, but I'm guessing that starting at 322, you'll find that you will lose weight even eating significantly more than 1800/month.
  • steveko89
    steveko89 Posts: 2,217 Member
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    I suggest playing with the macro mix. For me the, default carb setting is too high. When I first started logging and tracking I was trying to drop about 25 lbs and set my diet for the default macro split at 2lbs/week. I'd be consistent on hitting my targets, not lose much week-to-week and be hungry constantly. I started to trade carbs for protein and started losing more weight and feeling less hungry immediately.
  • splinker
    splinker Posts: 17 Member
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    Before you decide to eat more, make sure you are absolutely confident in the accuracy of your calorie count. My goal is 1,500 or less a day. Sometimes I'm hungry. My weekly calorie intake for the last 8 weeks has been 10,000 calories or less.

    But. I eat out a lot. And I have to trust the general calorie count of MFP. For example, I will order a cheeseburger with no bun at a diner. Is that really 380 calories? Maybe 420? I don't increase my calorie count because I assume there's some underestimating involved in my logging.

    Sometimes hunger and boredom are identical twins for me. I try to replace boredom with exercise (or writing). Also, yes I'm often hungry. But when I was eating terribly and way too much, I was also often hungry. Might as well be hungry and healthy (er).
  • tdavis1994
    tdavis1994 Posts: 18 Member
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    My nutritionist put me on 1800 to 2000 calories a day. I am generally around 1900. I am not getting a lot of physical activity because of an injury so I am not burning extra calories. I generally eat 3 500 calories meals and 2 200 calories snacks. I am eating chicken, boiled eggs, lots of veggies, yogurt, one starchy thing a day like toast, potato etc. should I try 3 600 calorie meals and two snacks?
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    edited July 2017
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    tdavis1994 wrote: »
    My nutritionist put me on 1800 to 2000 calories a day. I am generally around 1900. I am not getting a lot of physical activity because of an injury so I am not burning extra calories. I generally eat 3 500 calories meals and 2 200 calories snacks. I am eating chicken, boiled eggs, lots of veggies, yogurt, one starchy thing a day like toast, potato etc. should I try 3 600 calorie meals and two snacks?

    Experiment and see how you make out. Personally, I'd cut out the snacks and eat larger meals - eating 5 times a day is disastrous for me, that's 5 times to overeat. A large 700 calorie breakfast, light 400/500 calorie snack/lunch and an indulgent 800/900 calorie dinner would be my calorie split. It's individual. Just keep trying until you find the eating pattern that works for you.
  • Hypsibius
    Hypsibius Posts: 207 Member
    edited July 2017
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    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    tdavis1994 wrote: »
    My nutritionist put me on 1800 to 2000 calories a day. I am generally around 1900. I am not getting a lot of physical activity because of an injury so I am not burning extra calories. I generally eat 3 500 calories meals and 2 200 calories snacks. I am eating chicken, boiled eggs, lots of veggies, yogurt, one starchy thing a day like toast, potato etc. should I try 3 600 calorie meals and two snacks?

    Experiment and see how you make out. Personally, I'd cut out the snacks and eat larger meals - eating 5 times a day is disastrous for me, that's 5 times to overeat. A large 700 calorie breakfast, light 400/500 calorie snack/lunch and an indulgent 800/900 calorie dinner would be my calorie split. It's individual. Just keep trying until you find the eating pattern that works for you.

    Totally...

    Honestly right now my macros are split up about like this. If you're experimenting, you could even try this (though I'm not sure it'll help w/ hunger pangs at first):
    • 10% breakfast
    • 30% lunch
    • 60% dinner
    I don't really snack. I eat a similar number of calories per day, but my breakdown tends to be heavy on dinner. Keeping myself to 600kcals after 5pm would be tough regardless of what I've eaten earlier in the day.

    Also I like intermittent fasting.

  • ZoneFive
    ZoneFive Posts: 570 Member
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    Dietary fat's important, too. You said you're eating chicken -- if you're eating chicken breasts, change to thighs. They're a little fattier, which will help with satiety, and *I* think they're tastier, too. If you like avocado, try a tomato-avocado salad with Caesar dressing. Make sure your yogurt is full-fat. I've been a volume eater for most of my life, but since I changed up my eating habits to include the full-fat versions, I've needed a lot less food to be un-hungry. And my weight's coming off very nicely, so it's all good.
  • noirelb
    noirelb Posts: 216 Member
    edited July 2017
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    You seem to be eating lots of protein if you only have 1 starch per day. Are you losing more than 2 lbs per week? I know my calories were set to 2lbs per week which gave me 1340calories per day. It was fine for 2 months and i dropped lots of weight but now I'm hungry! So i put it to 1.5lbs per week and 1560calories a day. Slower loss buf no unwanted snacking since I'm not hungry.

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