Cravings!!!!!! Not Pregnant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lietchi wrote: »

goldyray1 wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

Another thing to consider: how big is your calorie deficit? If it's too big we're more likely to get cravings, to go on a binge. Having enough calories also means that there's space for snacks.

Not sure I understand what 'calorie deficit' is. My diary is public is you want to look at it.

Large calorie deficit = the number of calories you're eating are much less than what you need for weight maintenance = aiming for faster weight loss

The larger your calorie deficit, the more likely your body is going to try to 'sabotage' you (cravings, water retention from the stress,...).

Based on her reported total weight loss, OP's *average* deficit is around 600 calories daily +/-. However, she's had other threads where she talks about getting off track in some way. I'm not sure, or can't remember, whether that's been more about eating above goal calories, skipping logging, eating presumed "bad foods", etc.

@Goldyray1, I see that your diary does have some days where you didn't log. I have no way to interpret that. If you're finding your calorie goal too challenging, and going off track - eating more calories than you'd intended or hoped - then you don't log . . . well, that would be the kind of scenario some of the recent posts on this thread are talking about, where a too-low calorie goal is impractical, maybe causing feelings of deprivation or hunger/cravings, resulting in very uneven eating patterns.

Your average weight loss rate overall doesn't seem excessive, but if it's the result of eating at a low calorie goal for a while, then having day(s) where you can't do that and eat lots more, then it might be more productive to set your goal a little higher, and eat more on most days but avoid the unplanned overages. You could end up getting the same average weight loss rate, but with less stress involved.

If logging itself isn't onerous to you, it would help if you could get to a place mentally where you log carefully and honestly every single day, to the best of your ability, even if you have to estimate, and even if you think the day was a "bad day". By doing that, you would then have a total calorie intake over X weeks that you could compare with your weight loss over the same X weeks, and get a better understanding of what your true calorie needs are, for a given rate of weight loss.

That kind of information is very, very valuable for guiding weight loss, and for keeping the loss manageable . . . it's much better than the *estimates* from MFP or a fitness tracker.

penguinmama87 wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

goldyray1 wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

Another thing to consider: how big is your calorie deficit? If it's too big we're more likely to get cravings, to go on a binge. Having enough calories also means that there's space for snacks.

Not sure I understand what 'calorie deficit' is. My diary is public is you want to look at it.

Large calorie deficit = the number of calories you're eating are much less than what you need for weight maintenance = aiming for faster weight loss

The larger your calorie deficit, the more likely your body is going to try to 'sabotage' you (cravings, water retention from the stress,...).

Yes - so when you did your MFP setup, did you plan to lose 1lb a week (which would be a 3500 calorie deficit per week, or 500 per day) or 2lb a week (7000 calories per week, or 1000 per day?) MFP does that math for you and gives you a calorie goal with the deficit built in.

A higher deficit is harder on the body than a smaller one. Your body will use up your fat stores so you lose weight, but it really doesn't *want* to - it would like to use as little as possible to keep you alive longer (which makes sense if you're living in a situation with little food available and starvation is a real possibility - not so much in resource-abundant societies.) Trying to lose weight too aggressively will stress your body - cravings can be one response to that stress, to load up on a bunch of calories right away to maintain the status quo.

I hope that explanation helps.

ETA: I did take a look at your diary for the past week and it looks like your default calorie goal is quite low (1200 calories). That's as low as MFP will go for a woman. You do adjust upwards for exercise calories which is good, but on days you don't get much exercise and aren't eating above that 1200 I could see how that could really stress your body out.

I also see that you weigh some things and not others. Restaurant foods are hard to do, but I would strongly recommend weighing everything you eat at home, even if they come in serving sizes, like bread, because even being prepared, cut and packaged by machines there will be variations from serving to serving. This can help you measure your intake more accurately to make sure you're not accidentally over or undereating.

Speaking as someone in the same demographic, she's in a class of people for whom 1200 *could* be an OK goal, at least in theory. While her effective loss rate is IMO OK-ish for her current remaining weight to be lost (little over a pound a week, 30 pounds to goal) that obviously doesn't mean the eating patterns are not stressful in some way.

It's probably irrational of me, but when people post threads with many exclamation points in the title or text, I tend to tentatively assume that they may be somewhat stressed, whether by situation or by personality.

I didn't read the other responses but the poster names I saw generally have great advice.

I had this exact same problem. I ended up buying some Klondike bars last week and that seems to help. They're 250ish calories, which is quite a bit less than a small blizzard, and so far that's been doing the trick.

Eat it. Deprivation may cause a binge later. Just don't make dairy cream blizzards a habit.