PMS week--> wanting to eat anything and everything

I feel like I could have written this, OP. In fact I stumbled upon this post because I was searching for posts on this topic. The only difference is that I'm not sure the periods of unsatiable hunger are cycle-related or not, because 1). I take oral contraceptives and am not supposed to have a menstrual cycle in the normal sense of the word. 2) there's no clear patterns in my case: sometimes I have these "pottomless-pit" days for almost two weeks followed by two weeks of "normal-hunger". Sometimes I get 4-5 of these days randomly several times throughout a month. And then recently I had one month of almost non-stop ravenous hunger and then one month of normal hunger levels. So yeah, I don't know if if it's cycle-related, but it definitely feels hormonal.

It feels almost like an overwhelming compulsive drive to eat. If I try to eat my normal intake (2000cals which puts me in a 250-300cal deficit only) I feel like I'm STARVING, like I've been under-eating for a year. If I let myself eat more, much more, even over maintenance, the cruel irony is that the hunger is still there almost constantly, just a little dulled. It's incredibly frustrating when I am already hundreds of calories over my TDEE and yet still feeling hungry... My psychological attitude to food also changes on these days. Food suddenly becomes more important than almost everything else. Images of food, mentions of food grasp my attention instantly. And I have difficulty thinking about anything else. Then when it's over, suddenly everything changes. I feel like myself again, food starts to matter less and I can eat at my regular deficit or even more without a problem. I still get hungry, but it's not overwhelming.

I don't have much advice to be honest. As I'm still trying to figure out how to del with it without ruining all of my progress every time. One trick that helps me sometimes (the key word is sometimes, unfortunately) is something that somebody on here recommended me -I skip breakfast or have a very small one and then have a very calorie dense lunch with lots of carbs, fats and proteins, like I huge burger and milkshake or something like that (1000+ calories) and sometimes it does the trick and for several hours I feel blissful satiety and can even manage to stay at maintenance on that day. But it doesn't always help unfortunately, so some of these days I end up 1000 cals or more over my TDEE with in my case can mean ruining a week of progress .

I also try to exercise as much as I can on these days to lessen the damage but the worst thing is that exercising seems so much harder on these days - I feel so lethargic and week that it takes so much more effort to exercise...

kimothyschma wrote: »

@oat_bran made another great point which is that even when you give in and feed the beast, YOU STILL FEEL HUNGRY! That is so true and I can’t believe I never realized it before. That really puts the hormonal cravings and hunger in perspective for me. That it’s not really grounded in reality and I have to wait it out. My usual strategy is to eat maintenance- give myself a little chocolate, eat extra fiber and protein and then drink lots of tea to try and fill my belly. It works okay. Not great. Good luck to you!

Yeah, I'm actually starting to think that maybe the best way to deal with this hunger is to just "starve it out" so to speak. Because if I still feel hungry after eating an entire fridge and if I still spend all of my energy and focus on resisting the desire to keep eating, what's the point? I may as well stick to my regular deficit and suffer through it until it passes. (I mean I understand it logically, but actually resisting the urge to eat when I'm in this mode is not always realistically possible...)

I drink a lot, but try to find drinks that I like and not just plan tea. I also drink a green smoothie and try to schedule many things so I won't be in *that* mood. btw, for me chewing gum makes me feel hungry.