Hungry Eating 1600 Calories

I wouldn't up your calories, but I would play around with your foods. Try mixing up what you eat and when you eat it, or how often you eat it. I find I'm happiest when I eat small amounts for breakfast, snack, and lunch (when I'm busy at work) and then save more calories for dinner. You'll need to figure out what keeps your fullest for the longest time for the fewest calories too.

Also, try drinking a big glass of water with each meal.

I second the 50-30-20 split! I was hungry all the time at 1600 and finally went to see a dietician when the scale stopped after losing 60lbs. She suggested my protein intake was too low. I now eat about 80-100g daily per my body mass and have found that super helpful. I also highly believe in eating for fullness so I will eat as much food as I can to maximize 1600. (i.e. lettuce wraps with tuna instead of bread, a big salad with super light dressing and a Greek yogurt for fullness). Sometimes the portions are huge but the calories aren’t too high.

I’d also suggest drinking more water before and during meals. This helps with the feeling of fullness. So do high fibre foods. Eating smaller meals throughout the day can avoid some of those more significant hunger pangs towards meal time if you’re doing 3 meals daily.

In terms of exercise, if you’re not eating them back you’re truly in need of a deficit that 1600 daily which is a struggle for anyone! Realistically if you’re burning 200 calories on your walking every day but not eating any of that back, you’re burning through that 1600 to 1400. I’m not saying eat it all back as people rarely do but 1/3-1/2 of your exercise calories can be eaten back.

Good luck!

Personally, for your exercise regimen Id up the protein. If you are losing on 1600 <net? Eat back some exercise cals>but hungry the answer is to adjust your macros for things that satiate you longer. For me is protein then carbs then fat.

Eat more protein and less fat. Protein is likely more satiating. Also, eat back your exercise calories or at least some of them.

If you're only losing 0.5 lbs a week, then I personally wouldn't up your calories, but change what you're eating or increase your exercise. I think people are forgetting that you're only 5 foot 2 inches (I'm the same height), we can't eat a lot and continue to lose weight.

apple4164 wrote: »

Thanks so much! MFP community is truely a supportive group:). I have (or rather, had) type 2 diabetes, and that's why I decided to lose weight (when I was 175lbs). Personally, I find fats and protein more satiating than carbs, but perhaps I should try experimenting more with changing up my macros (I'm eating 100+g of protein daily)? I'm almost too scared to increase my carb intake (due to my T2D history).
I do eat healthy both because of my medical history and because I want to max out the amount of food I can eat as much as possible, but the idea of eating junk food when I want to (as long as it is within calorie limit) sounds like a great advice!
I am currently losing at around .5lb/week, and if I eat back 1/3 to half of my exercise calories, is my weight loss just going to halt all together?

The way MFP is set up you're actually supposed to be eating back your exercise calories. Theoretically you're supposed to be eating all of them back—MFP users say eat SOME back instead in order to guard for logging inaccuracies. That being said, if you're only losing at .5 pounds per week at the moment my guess would be that you're already eating more calories than you think you are, which sometimes happens if people don't weigh their food using a food scale and just use things like cup and tablespoon measurements instead. Or if not that it could happen to people who are selecting bad entries from the MFP food database (cross-check with another nutrition info website like fatsecret.com or something). In turn, if that's the case, then you're back to square one on the issue of you feeling hungry with the amount you're currently eating.

If you're considering adding more carbs based on others' suggestions, I would suggest you focus on carbs in the form of vegetables as opposed to pastas and stuff, not because of the whole carbs-as-sugar thing but because the fibre in vegetables might help you stay full longer. Are you familiar with the concept of 'net carbs'? Where if you take the number of grams of carbs in something then subtract the number of grams of fibre it has, then that's the 'real' number of carbs you should consider that food to have since the fibre slows the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream? You'll find that, using this concept, you could consider yourself to be eating low carb while also staying fuller longer. That may be what some of the other posters on this thread are talking about when they say they find carbs satiating. I'm guessing most of them are talking about vegetable carbs.