Always always hungry

1. Make sure you are eating enough. How much total weight are you trying to lose, and what did you set up as your weekly rate of loss?
2. Are you eating all your calories?
3. Are you exercising? Are you eating back any of those calories?
4. Are you hitting your protein, fat, and fiber goals?

What rate of loss did you set in your MFP goals? If it's not already set for 1 pound per week, try changing it to that. This should give you some extra calories to eat each day.

I was hungry the entire time I was breastfeeding and I wasn’t nearly as active as it sounds like you are. Making breastmilk takes a lot of energy. You may have better luck setting your goal to maintain and eating back your exercise calories, and using the breastfeeding to create your deficit. I couldn’t make that work while I was still breastfeeding—too hungry—but it works for others. But since I have stopped breastfeeding, I don’t get nearly as hungry and have been able to maintain a deficit and start losing the baby weight. It may be worth waiting until your baby is weaned or eating some solid food before you go into full weightloss mode. (Fast weight loss wasn’t worth it to me if I had to be that hungry (and hangry), so it was TOTALLY worth the wait for me.) Good luck!

It is sooooo frustrating! But I got through it by reminding myself it’s temporary (though it didn’t always feel like it, hahaha). I like your idea of using this time to set a healthy foundation! And you might want to see how you feel at what MFP thinks is maintenance. That should still be a deficit if you’re breastfeeding, so if you’re not as hungry you might be able to lose some as well. (Just don’t beat yourself up if you don’t. Breastfeeding hunger is for real!)

Every person is different - but when I started to lose weight I also felt hungry, especially late at night. A piece of cheese, a boiled egg, some smoked salmon or just a mug of tea helped me. After a few months I learned not to be hungry - mainly by having some protein handy in the fridge.

Another thing you can do is experiment with the timing of when you eat, to see if that helps: 3 meals, 2 meals, which meal(s) are biggest, snacks or not, that sort of thing. Review your food diary when you feel more hungry than normal, or stay satiated better than normal: Do you see any patterns? (Patterns could involve macronutrient combinations of meals/snacks, specific foods, timing of eating vs. exercise or breastfeeding, sleep adequacy, stress levels, etc.). If you can identify patterns, you can identify different remedial strategies to try.

Satiation tends to be very individual, so it's hard to make specific recommendations. Personally, I need a solid breakfast with some protein, protein in each meal, and volume (like plenty of veggies) in at least one of my meals, for best satiation. But other people do better skipping breakfast, eating relatively more fats, getting complex carbs regularly, or who knows what-all other variations.

Hope you find something that helps!

Nevermind, I just saw one of your replies

Looking at your sample day, that is a LOT of carbs and very little fiber. Fiber fills you up so
I’d focus more on fruits, vegetables, and beans as your main carb sources. I’d also drop at least 100g of the carbs in favor of another 30g of both fat and protein for more of a 33% split between the macros. Focus on the quality of your food and try to maximize the quantity you eat for the calories—think giant salads with tons of veggies, chicken, avocado, and a sprinkle of nuts or seeds or homemade veggie soups loaded with celery, carrots, cabbage, squash, etc. Foods that are filling, high in fiber, and mainly contain fresh ingredients.

Cutting out junk is great. If you're breastfeeding I would carry on what you're doing and not worry too much about tracking. You need carbs and fats in your diet, keep it balanced and also hydrated
I breastfed twins and craved sweet stuff, calcium rich foods and drank lots of fluids. Never gained an ounce.

Scottgriesser wrote: »

At 245 lbs 107g of protein is on the low end. Not wrong, just on the lower end. Protein is the most filling of all macros so I'd alter the macro breakdown to include a lot more protein and less carbs. The default MFP macros are pretty carb heavy.

For reference, I'm about the same weight, male, and I take in about 140g protein per day on a lower calorie budget. Hungry, sure, but not to the point where I need to eat or someone is getting punched.

Can't really comment on how much energy/how hungry gets from breastfeeding.

I agree that protein is filling for me . . . but I understand satiation to be pretty individual. I've seen others here name protein, fats, fiber, volume, or complex carbs as what's most filling for them. (Shrug)

In a nutritional sense (beyond satiation), protein intake is mainly about maintaining lean body mass. We don't need extra protein to maintain our fat mass. From a purely nutritional standpoint, we can estimate protein needs based on lean body mass, or, if we don't know LBM, by using a healthy goal weight as the basis with an adjusted multiplier.

There are extreme differences of opinion about how much protein is nutritionally optimal. Ive seen lows as low as 0.4g per pound of LBM, and highs up to 1.2-1.5g. Personally, I shoot for 0.6-0.8g per pound of healthy goal weight, as an approximation for 0.8-1.0g per pound of LBM. For me, at 5'5", female, goal 120 pounds, I go for a minimum of 100g daily - nice round number. But I don't know whether more would be advisable when breastfeeding.