Calorie allowance leaves me feeling hungy
walktalkdog
Posts: 102 Member
My daily calorie allowance is 1380 calories (set at losing .5 pound per week). I'm a 64 year old female 5ft 8in tall and currently 158 pounds.
I exercise daily and eat back my exercise calories.
I recently went through a weight-gain period (up to 162 pounds) and am currently actively trying to lose .5 pound per week.
Problem is I'm hungry most of the time and especially at the end of the day!
My go-to snacks are: hard boiled egg, string cheese, apple or other fruit, plain greek yogurt with a smidge of jam, portion controlled nuts, carrots and hummus, air-popped popcorn.
Meals vary so I won't include them here, but they are portion controlled and I aim to include nutrient dense calorie light choices such as a source of protein and veggies or a salad. If the meal includes carbs such as rice, pasta, potato, bread, etc., I'm careful to eat only a small amount.
I limit the amount of alcohol except for special occasions.
I use a kitchen scale and measuring cups and try my best to accurately track.
My goal is to maintain between 150 and 155 pounds, which I feel is reasonable for my stats and station in life. But man, am I hungry!
Does this relate to anybody else out there? And what snacks do you find satisfying?
Thank you!
I exercise daily and eat back my exercise calories.
I recently went through a weight-gain period (up to 162 pounds) and am currently actively trying to lose .5 pound per week.
Problem is I'm hungry most of the time and especially at the end of the day!
My go-to snacks are: hard boiled egg, string cheese, apple or other fruit, plain greek yogurt with a smidge of jam, portion controlled nuts, carrots and hummus, air-popped popcorn.
Meals vary so I won't include them here, but they are portion controlled and I aim to include nutrient dense calorie light choices such as a source of protein and veggies or a salad. If the meal includes carbs such as rice, pasta, potato, bread, etc., I'm careful to eat only a small amount.
I limit the amount of alcohol except for special occasions.
I use a kitchen scale and measuring cups and try my best to accurately track.
My goal is to maintain between 150 and 155 pounds, which I feel is reasonable for my stats and station in life. But man, am I hungry!
Does this relate to anybody else out there? And what snacks do you find satisfying?
Thank you!
6
Replies
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I am in the same boat. My calorie allowance is the same as yours. I am a 54 year old female, 5ft 6in tall. I find from late afternoon to bedtime, that I am extremely hungry. I snack on fruits, veggies, cheese, greek yogurt. When I get home from work, most days it ends up being a free-for-all with whatever I can grab and eat. My diet goes downhill every evening. I have not been able to find what will keep me satisfied. I try to eat something every 2-3 hours to keep the rumbly tummy at bay but I struggle in the evenings. I try drinking water. Nothing seems to work. Sometimes I think it's my head convincing me I'm hungry and unfortunately, it wins most times6
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Have you been at it 2 wks to see if avg weight loss is really around 0.5 weekly?
Could have bigger deficit actually in place.
It could be you selected Sedentary as many assume because of desk job, but the other 8 hrs of the day and weekends they are anything but, thereby creating that bigger deficit.
If having a balanced snack or meal - do you eat the fat or protein first, or carbs first?
You could be having slight over-reaction with insulin, causing low blood sugar - making you feel more hungry than you really need to be.
Do you feel tired after some snacks or meals - usually good sign that is happening too?1 -
I hear you! Thanks for replying and knowing I'm not alone in this. I question "what am I feeding?", but it is genuine hunger. Water doesn't do it for me; I try tea sometimes, too. Or taking a walk. But no wonder most of the population is overweight - it's just so hard to lose and maintain weight!
I relate to what you said about your evenings. Our kitchen is located such that we must walk through it to go from living room to bedroom so passing through it sometimes triggers cravings and food grabs lol! Sometimes I go to be earlier just so I can wake up and eat again.5 -
Please change your Diary Sharing settings to Public: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
If you don't already track Fiber, please swap out something like Sodium for it.1 -
Based on the info you gave...I used a TDEE calculator (and used sedentary as your 'activity level' bc TDEE is different than NEAT, which is what MFP uses)...anyway this way - with no exercise figured in, to maintain your weight you should be at ~1600 cals/day.
So the deficit that you have (you are at ~1400/day as a goal and you said you're eating back your exercise calories)....isn't that bad. It's just that you do not have much wiggle room between your maintenance cals and BMR to mess with as far as creating a deficit --- so unfortunately you may have to settle for slower weight loss than .5lbs per week.
You mentioned you have lost weight so far....so what is the rate of your weight loss now? How long did it take you to go from 162 - 158. You could try setting your calorie goal for 1450, and eating back 50-100% of your exercise calories. You'd still be in a deficit, a small one, but slow and steady wins the race. And you don't really want to be eating much less than 1350 anyway (that's close to your BMR).
**The above are all estimates based on the info you gave. Only other advice is to make sure that what you enter as calories you ate and calories that you burned are as accurate as possible.
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Are you sure you have your settings set appropriately? I am 5ft2 and to lose weight my calories are almost identical.1
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westrich20940 wrote: »Based on the info you gave...I used a TDEE calculator (and used sedentary as your 'activity level' bc TDEE is different than NEAT, which is what MFP uses)...anyway this way - with no exercise figured in, to maintain your weight you should be at ~1600 cals/day.
So the deficit that you have (you are at ~1400/day as a goal and you said you're eating back your exercise calories)....isn't that bad. It's just that you do not have much wiggle room between your maintenance cals and BMR to mess with as far as creating a deficit --- so unfortunately you may have to settle for slower weight loss than .5lbs per week.
You mentioned you have lost weight so far....so what is the rate of your weight loss now? How long did it take you to go from 162 - 158. You could try setting your calorie goal for 1450, and eating back 50-100% of your exercise calories. You'd still be in a deficit, a small one, but slow and steady wins the race. And you don't really want to be eating much less than 1350 anyway (that's close to your BMR).
**The above are all estimates based on the info you gave. Only other advice is to make sure that what you enter as calories you ate and calories that you burned are as accurate as possible.
Thank you for your detailed reply. I actually started on MFP in December 2017 at 167 pounds. I got down to 156ish in April 2018 and managed to remain in a range of 154-157 for several years and even during most of the pandemic I kept it there. But then I stopped tracking diligently and the weight started creeping up very slowly to 162. I use Libra to track my weight, and I find that to be very helpful, because my weight really does change from day to day, and I like following the trend.
I wonder about my insulin response, and my individual hormone and other responses that we can't control and don't really understand. I've never been extremely overweight, but my parents were both slightly overweight during most of their adult life until they got very old and became thin and frail. One of my brothers is very overweight. I was slightly overweight during my child-raising years and until December 2017, when I just felt uncomfortable being even slightly overweight.
I think if I ate 1600 calories a day, I would gain weight. Maybe I will try to 1450 and eating back 50-100% of my exercise calories - good idea.
I think you are correct, it's just going to be slow-going, and I need to be very diligent in logging accurately.
Thank you,
2 -
I am within 2 weeks of being 58, 5’7” sedentary female and mfp gives me 1,300 cals to lose 0.5 lbs. at 138 lbs. I have an injury that has made me sedentary since April. water weight and sodium tend to hide weight loss. I find that high fiber food with some fat like vegetables with some oil to be satisfying.
Satiety is different for each person. But if you are not finding protein to be filling then experiment. Also, maybe look into slowing weight loss further by eating at maintenance for 5 days a week and a modest deficit for two days. This might make eating habits more sustainable in the long term plus great practice for future maintenance.
Will be honest. Sometimes I am hungry when I go to bed. But I have been at this since last March with refeed weeks along the way and have lost a little over 85 pounds. Just experiment to find something enjoyable, convenient, satisfying and easy for you to maintain for the foreseeable future. Best wishes on your health and fitness journey.
One quick question. How did you determine that you need to lose 7 pounds? Was it a previous weight when younger or an arbitrary number? I chose mine by looking at a thread of people of similar heights who posted pictures of themselves at goal weight to determine who had the most similar build to mine and what they weighed. Just wondering about healthy weight ranges at various heights and frames.
1 -
I hate to point out the obvious but anything less than it takes to maintain your weight will result in loss eventually. Once i got to a point where my daily calorie allotment to lose .5 pounds a week I set my calories to maintain and made sure I ate between 1200 and that number.
Once my weight dropped enough to narrow that gap further and I was mostly eating maintenance most days I just started to eat at maintenance and NOT eat my exercise calories unless they were extreme (ie: I wasn't gonna starve myself when I did 6 hours of hard hiking). That created the deficit.
Yeah loss gets slow, but it's still loss and I wasn't starved.4 -
Beautyofdreams wrote: »I am within 2 weeks of being 58, 5’7” sedentary female and mfp gives me 1,300 cals to lose 0.5 lbs. at 138 lbs. I have an injury that has made me sedentary since April. water weight and sodium tend to hide weight loss. I find that high fiber food with some fat like vegetables with some oil to be satisfying.
Satiety is different for each person. But if you are not finding protein to be filling then experiment. Also, maybe look into slowing weight loss further by eating at maintenance for 5 days a week and a modest deficit for two days. This might make eating habits more sustainable in the long term plus great practice for future maintenance.
Will be honest. Sometimes I am hungry when I go to bed. But I have been at this since last March with refeed weeks along the way and have lost a little over 85 pounds. Just experiment to find something enjoyable, convenient, satisfying and easy for you to maintain for the foreseeable future. Best wishes on your health and fitness journey.
One quick question. How did you determine that you need to lose 7 pounds? Was it a previous weight when younger or an arbitrary number? I chose mine by looking at a thread of people of similar heights who posted pictures of themselves at goal weight to determine who had the most similar build to mine and what they weighed. Just wondering about healthy weight ranges at various heights and frames.
Congratulations on your big loss!!
I just redid my fitness settings. I put in 158 pounds and sedentary (I have a full time desk job), and it came up with 1370 calories per day.
The reason I chose 154 pounds is because that's the weight where I feel good and look good. I carry much of my extra weight in my belly and at 154 pounds the belly isn't quite as round. I know that at my age I'm not going to have a flat belly no matter how many ab exercises I do, but at 154 I feel good and am happy with how I look. Because I work out with weights I have some muscle tone and I know muscle weighs more than fat.
I also like your idea of doing the 5 day maintenance and 2 day deficit - it's worth experimenting a little now that I have recommitted to logging more consistently.
3 -
I am 66 years old and diabetic. I find hunger is satiated when I increase my fiber. That calorie level seems awful low for your height. If you add 30 min. of exercise, your caloric intake will jump up and you can eat a little more. Your body may be on need of additional nutrients like fiber. If you have already increased your activity, make sure it is noted and your caloric needs will go up. Good luck.1
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I'm also 5'8" and in my sixties and when I had to lose from 155 to my now weight of 140-145 I ate 1500-1600 a day PLUS my exercise calories. I was still hungry. I'm retired and live in a small place so if I used Myfitnesspal's Activity Level descriptor of "sedentary" I would be set at about your level.
Thing is? I actually need more. The calculations are not good for me. When I was losing I ate that 1500-1600 and then 300 more for every hour of moderate exercise. So five out of seven days I ate 1800-1900. Some days even more than that.
I was hungry all the way through my weight loss from 155 to 140. No way I could have eaten 1380 as baseline.
You're probably not Sedentary. Try the Lightly Active setting and see how that goes for you for a month. It will give you a couple hundred more calories.
Then? Patience. It took me several months to lose that 15 pounds and I was hungry on many days. I also had quite a few days where I was over my calories by 1000 or more. (a thousand)
Those last pounds were hard. I made all my own meals and used my digital food scale for all of them. I don't think I would have made it without the exercise.4 -
walktalkdog wrote: »westrich20940 wrote: »Based on the info you gave...I used a TDEE calculator (and used sedentary as your 'activity level' bc TDEE is different than NEAT, which is what MFP uses)...anyway this way - with no exercise figured in, to maintain your weight you should be at ~1600 cals/day.
So the deficit that you have (you are at ~1400/day as a goal and you said you're eating back your exercise calories)....isn't that bad. It's just that you do not have much wiggle room between your maintenance cals and BMR to mess with as far as creating a deficit --- so unfortunately you may have to settle for slower weight loss than .5lbs per week.
You mentioned you have lost weight so far....so what is the rate of your weight loss now? How long did it take you to go from 162 - 158. You could try setting your calorie goal for 1450, and eating back 50-100% of your exercise calories. You'd still be in a deficit, a small one, but slow and steady wins the race. And you don't really want to be eating much less than 1350 anyway (that's close to your BMR).
**The above are all estimates based on the info you gave. Only other advice is to make sure that what you enter as calories you ate and calories that you burned are as accurate as possible.
Thank you for your detailed reply. I actually started on MFP in December 2017 at 167 pounds. I got down to 156ish in April 2018 and managed to remain in a range of 154-157 for several years and even during most of the pandemic I kept it there. But then I stopped tracking diligently and the weight started creeping up very slowly to 162. I use Libra to track my weight, and I find that to be very helpful, because my weight really does change from day to day, and I like following the trend.
I wonder about my insulin response, and my individual hormone and other responses that we can't control and don't really understand. I've never been extremely overweight, but my parents were both slightly overweight during most of their adult life until they got very old and became thin and frail. One of my brothers is very overweight. I was slightly overweight during my child-raising years and until December 2017, when I just felt uncomfortable being even slightly overweight.
I think if I ate 1600 calories a day, I would gain weight. Maybe I will try to 1450 and eating back 50-100% of my exercise calories - good idea.
I think you are correct, it's just going to be slow-going, and I need to be very diligent in logging accurately.
Thank you,
Always do the math if you think something is fat weight.
Fat is not fast, lost or gained.
If you ate 1600 compared to 1450, and you think 1450 will cause weight loss, 1600 isn't going to cause weight gain.
That's only 150 cal spread.
Say 1450 was actually your maintenance level, that means if you at 150 more than maintenance - it would take 23 days to slowly gain 1 lb of fat.
You might gain some initial water weight eating 1600 due to more stored carbs with attached water, and more food in your gut (37 grams if you ate just extra carbs & protein) - but nothing meaningful that would keep going up.
As those with diabetes will tell you - you can control insulin response to a rather major degree by food choices and timing.
If you think you are getting low blood sugar because of too good a response - you would feel tired after some snacks/meals. And likely hungry.
Great job on tracking and keeping maintenance in place during a difficult time.
You mentioned you lightened up on tracking and gained weight slowly.
Why can't you go back to the amount you were tracking accurately at for maintenance weight - and subtract 250 cal for deficit?4 -
I have found that if I'm going to lose weight at any steady rate (even .5/week) I will be hungry, and that's all there is to it.
Personally, I found the most success (and had very, very manageable hunger) on a low (not keto) carb diet (below 150 net carbs). It was a PITA to track and manage to ensure I stayed below that, BUT, I sometimes was forcing myself to eat enough by the end of the day, and had the most success I've had losing - ever I think.
Problem was, it was very difficult to track and maintain and plan, and it was expensive as well. It was, however, effective and the only effective plan that didn't leave me ready to gnaw my own arm off half the day.
I was also tracking calories with that diet, but found that frequently I would have under eaten for the day if I wasn't tracking the calories and had only focused on the macros.4 -
After I reduced fat (which I love but do not find satiating) I reallocated those calories and was able to average a steady 1 pound per week loss *** while only being hungry right before meals *** until I became 20 pounds away from goal.
It took me a while to realize I needed to reduce my weekly weight loss goal to a half pound per week, but now that I have, I'm able to maintain that calorie deficit without being hungry.
Fiber, bulk, and protein are key to that for me.1 -
I found that the difference between 1300 calories and 1400 made a HUGE difference for me hunger-wise. I was willing to lose at a slower rate for that extra 100 calories a day1
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