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To quote @Caroline_slowandsteady, “And I do eat a bedtime snack/treat, which I know is not recommended.” There is nothing wrong with a bedtime snack. There is nothing “wrong” with any food. Just plan for it and choose wisely. Personally, I have dinner at 7pm or later and have a treat before bed. (and I did this even when losing weight). You have to find a way of eating which satisfies you, take no notice of any of the so-called “experts” on the web or TV.
Similar to my answer to Donna – you have to find what suits you. Some people find protein satiating, some find that they like a high volume of food – lots of veggies work for me. I have a good breakfast and dinner and only a light lunch. I live alone and am retired so I can totally please myself but I get that you have other people and obligations to take into account.
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@daciasil21 Do you have a blood glucose test kit/monitor? If not, I think you should get one if you are on a medication that affects insulin/blood sugar because what you described sure sounds like low blood sugar which can be quite dangerous. A doctor´s order is not required if you are privately paying. You should be able to get one on Amazon or a drug or discount store like Walmart very inexpensively that includes some starter supplies like test strips (it is the test strips that cause most of the cost for diabetics who need to test a lot, but really isn´t that expensive if you only test occasionally). I got a second one for $12 that I have kept in my gym bag ¨just in case¨ since I was close to the cut off for a diabetes diagnosis at one point. I occasionally test my blood sugar, especially if I have a headache or dizziness. Even though I have not yet had a low reading, it is reassuring for me to know that the cause is not low blood sugar. It would be even more important to know if it WAS low blood sugar.5
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Thank you for your responses. I will get a glucose test kit to better guage whats going on. I think I'll adjust my calorie goal for now to a bit higher and see how that works. I might need to eat more frequently too. I'm glad I was made aware of the medication's interactions in a somewhat innocuous way and nothing too serious happened！4
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Exercise calories are a nightmare for me. How do I ever know my efforts were enough?0
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From @Caroline_slowandsteady …
@MadisonMolly2017 Offered some suggestions of things she has done towards a healthy diet. And then asked some questions to try to troubleshoot.
1. How much you’ve lost total - As of Jan 1, 25 pounds.
2. How much you’ve lost since Jan 1 -
As of this morning I am actually exactly the same weight I was on Jan 1. But I have mostly been trending higher.
3. Your current BMI & weight
weight 148.6, BMI 24.7. This hunger problem started right around when I started hovering around the top edge of the "healthy" BMI, and it does make me wonder if maybe that's just as good as it gets? But I would like to be more in the middle of the range.
4. When you track EVERYTHING, how many calories do you eat?
That's a hard one to answer because I usually stop tracking when i start to go over my target. I was going for a while with 1200 M-Th, 2000 calories F, 1350 Sat and Sun, and sticking to that and losing. Now I am aiming for 1350 a day but have not succeeded. Monday I maybe for the first time completely tracked a day where my nibbling was out of control and it amounted to an extra ~500 calories, for 1850 calories.
5. What’s your exercise look like?
I aim for 15 minutes of MommaStrong (HIIT program) and 30 minutes of walking a day.
6. Height
5' 4 3/4'' The BMI calculations above are with rounding up to 5'5'. I never know if that is fair. If I do 5'4'', I am not in the healthy range.
7. How often are you hungry?
For the last month, ALL THE TIME. Except for yesterday. Yesterday for some reason I was not super hungry all day, so maybe I am finally on a good road?
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@Caroline_slowandsteady
I’m glad you are feeling less hungry!
My “mouth” hunger is quite problematic if I eat salty or sugary foods. I’m assuming you drink water (1oz per kg of body weight per day).
I got hungrier when I got into the healthy BMI range, too! So I lost another 4-6 lbs very slowly & got Very Hungry. Declared maintenance. Weight went up some due to more food lol
My goal all along was to choose a maintenance range that I can maintain.
All my doctor cares about is BMI under 24.9! So the rest are “vanity” pounds.
After a year or two, I was ready to slim down some more. Not at all as hungry as before (likely because I hadn’t just had a transplant & lost 35-40 lbs over 4-7 months.)
This really worked for me.
How do you feel about maintaining your current weight (fine to use 5’5”) for a month or two? Letting your body recover from dieting? Was your lifetime high weight 173?
Then, I’d focus on question number 4. Really lock in recording every nibble. You will find you can eat fat more calories. You’ve maintained 2 months & gone over your calories…so by recording EVERYTHING you will learn you can eat more! This is an essential skill for maintenance. You realize it’s just data & will work to your advantage to record all you eat !!
I still can’t believe I can eat as much as I do.
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Caroline_slowandsteady wrote: »I have been struggling with hunger for the last month or so. I wake up hungry, after I eat I want more food, and I am hungry in between meals. That makes it a real struggle to stick to a calorie deficit! That has not been my experience of weight loss so far, and it's been hard.
I posted about it in my daily posts some in February and some kind people offered suggestions. I thought I'd carry that forward to here so maybe other people could also benefit from the suggestions or add their own.
I will say yesterday I was not ridiculously hungry all day, so maybe it is something that is passing? It made me very hopeful.
@Mrs_Hoffer suggested cutting out grains. I have so far in weight loss journey been unwilling to cut anything out completely. But in an effort to help with the hunger I upped my fiber which meant upping my carbs, including grains. So maybe that unintentionally has had the opposite effect.
@Jana_2020 suggested modified fasting. I think I definitely couldn't do full fasting but maybe I could try some kind of modified fasting. I have always been a person who eats a lot of small meals and I get hungry between meals. I wake up hungry and if I don't eat breakfast soon after waking I feel sick. And I do eat a bedtime snack/treat, which I know is not recommended. It's been a thing I think since having kids (my oldest is almost 10). Once I am done with them for the day I relax and eat a cookie. I know it's a bad idea, but when I try cutting out I get so sad about it! But maybe I should at least try that. We eat dinner at 5:30 and I eat breakfast at 7, so that would be a decent window of not eating if I tried that.
@MadisonMolly2017 Offered some suggestions of things she has done towards a healthy diet. And then asked some questions to try to troubleshoot.
1. How much you’ve lost total - As of Jan 1, 25 pounds.
2. How much you’ve lost since Jan 1 -
As of this morning I am actually exactly the same weight I was on Jan 1. But I have mostly been trending higher.
3. Your current BMI & weight
weight 148.6, BMI 24.7. This hunger problem started right around when I started hovering around the top edge of the "healthy" BMI, and it does make me wonder if maybe that's just as good as it gets? But I would like to be more in the middle of the range.
4. When you track EVERYTHING, how many calories do you eat?
That's a hard one to answer because I usually stop tracking when i start to go over my target. I was going for a while with 1200 M-Th, 2000 calories F, 1350 Sat and Sun, and sticking to that and losing. Now I am aiming for 1350 a day but have not succeeded. Monday I maybe for the first time completely tracked a day where my nibbling was out of control and it amounted to an extra ~500 calories, for 1850 calories.
5. What’s your exercise look like?
I aim for 15 minutes of MommaStrong (HIIT program) and 30 minutes of walking a day.
6. Height
5' 4 3/4'' The BMI calculations above are with rounding up to 5'5'. I never know if that is fair. If I do 5'4'', I am not in the healthy range.
7. How often are you hungry?
For the last month, ALL THE TIME. Except for yesterday. Yesterday for some reason I was not super hungry all day, so maybe I am finally on a good road?
What does a meal or a snack for you look like? I agree with your approach not to cut anything out completely, and have found that lean proteins and whole grains do fill me up. I find that a lot of packaged foods don't fill me up or make me more hungry. So, like, a bowl of cereal will only keep me occupied while I am eating it but the second I am done, I am hungry for more. And don't get me started on those "just 100 calories" packaged snacks because I will eat all of them and not even register. Breakfast for me now is something like oatmeal with fruit and almond butter (or peanut butter), or an egg on toast. To a certain extent, by cutting calories, you will feel hungry. But if you wake up hungry and you're hungry all day long, and you go to bed hungry, I think there are some changes you can make. So give us an idea of what a day of food looks like for you and we can go from there.0 -
@SummerSkier I had to look up TDEE because that is a new one for me. I found a calculator that reckons that my total daily expenditure of energy is 3494 calories which seems remarkably high. MFP reckons I will lose weight eating 2000 calories but that has not been my experience. I can lose weight eating 1700 calories and doing no exercise. I am trying to eat clean, especially on cycle days. During the week, there are a couple of HIIT days to boost my endurance and fitness levels. On the long cycle days, I eat much more at breakfast and plan to eat a lot on the bike. I think part of the challenge was retrieving and opening things from a jersey pocket whilst wearing thick winter gloves. But the goal ride is early October so I'm hoping it won't be so cold.
@WhatMeRunning I do have a heart rate monitor and I use it for longer rides to make sure I don't start out too hard, which is a habit I have. I will have to check out the Matt Fitzgerald Diet Quality Score, so thanks for that. What do you use as your recovery drink, if you don't mind sharing?0 -
Thank you to everyone for your responses! I am going to write back in a few posts.
@makattack220 that podcast looks interesting. I looked around her website a bit and couldn't find anything about the fat adapted vs. sugar burning issue. Can you summarize it for me? I do think that sounds like me, potentially.
@LazyBlondeChef that's an interesting idea of switching up my way of eating. The only times in my life that I have had only 3 meals a day have been on vacations where I am eating out and eating a lot and just not feeling hungry between meals. Those times have always resulted in weight gain. I've been a snacker my whole life.
@TerriRichardson112 I do that checklist - or just checking in with myself - but this has felt like real, true body hunger.1 -
@Cowphilosopher and others who asked what I am eating:
In my weight loss so far I have mainly had meals that are mostly vegetables - LOTS of vegetables - with ~3oz of protein and ~1/2 cup of carbohydrate. That was my "meal pattern" that I settled on for weight loss before I was willing to track, and I kept going with it with tracking. That got me down ~20 pounds at which point I plateaued and began tracking. The changes with tracking mainly focused on the sauce - I had not been worrying about the sauce, but I began to try to reduce the calories from that.
Snacks for a while have been an afternoon snack that is usually some berries and lowfat cottage cheese and honey or half an apple and peanut butter. And a bedtime snack that is 1/2 cup of whole milk in the milk frother (like a cappuccino without the coffee) and a <100 calorie cookie/other treat.
I do drink lots of water and decaf/herbal tea.1 -
@MadisonMolly2017 Thank you so much for your kind response. I was really expecting you to lay down the law and tell me to get more serious about eating less! I think your answer to "Really lock in recording every nibble. ... You realize it’s just data & will work to your advantage to record all you eat !!" is exactly what I need to focus on now.
I am not going to give up on pre-tracking my days or having a goal of 1350. But when I want to eat something that is over the goal, I am going to think about why I am eating it and if those reasons seem good enough, I will eat it and record it. For this month. And see what I learn.
I am frustrated by this extra hunger because I have been losing weight - slow and steady - for almost 3 years now - and I have never been this hungry. And my diet has not really changed. (To answer your question @MadisonMolly2017, I am losing "baby weight" from my about-to-be 10 year old. I am not counting from my high weight when I was pregnant with her or immediately post-partum, but a few months in I pretty much stabilized around 170, and I am counting from the point at which I decided to work on losing weight (which was actually rather a high point in that stable range).)
I think what happened was:
1. This has been getting steadily harder for a while, as I look back at my records. Really since getting within the healthy BMI range. Which is why I joined UAC, but I haven't really seen much of a loss with UAC - still in that top of the healthy BMI range. @MadisonMolly2017 I love that you call them "vanity pounds" - I guess they are. I want to lose more because I weighed less pre-pregnancy, and because these extra pounds are almost all in my belly, which I think is bad for me and also - yeah, vanity.
2. Then in January I had my covid booster which resulted in a flare of my autoimmune thyroid condition, with some weird hormone blips. I backed off trying to track or eat to a pattern while that was active. But I think I maybe tried to get back into it too soon. I do think some of the hunger initially was hormonal.
3. Several weeks (a month?) ago I decided to tackle the hunger and also the constipation I was experiencing (which were both probably due to reason #2) by eating more fiber. I was noticing I was not usually that close to the recommended 25. I upped the fiber by adding more carbs and reducing fat to fit them in. I think that may have been counter productive? I do still think it seems like a good idea to eat fiber. But I think that is one of the things I need to collect more data on. I think I am definitely seeing a difference between adding in chia seeds, which does not seem to affect me much, vs. having a snack of oatmeal, which I tried, which left me starving and shaky. Oatmeal has never been a great snack for me. Also kashi cereal, which we have in the cabinet for my kids which I tried adding in because it has so much fiber but it also has so much sugar and salt and I don't think it's a great choice.
@MadisonMolly2017 I love your idea that the choice is not between giving up and fighting harder. But I could just take a pause for data collection and then decide what to do next. I think that's my goal for March.2 -
Caroline_slowandsteady wrote: »@makattack220 that podcast looks interesting. I looked around her website a bit and couldn't find anything about the fat adapted vs. sugar burning issue. Can you summarize it for me? I do think that sounds like me, potentially.
@Caroline_slowandsteady if you use the links I put in my post for the free resources (Six Steps to Jumpstart and How to Lose Permanently), read those - they are short - and they have the info in there👍 For further info/discussion, her podcasts are great and I linked her "podcast roadmap" she made for new listeners (has direct links to the podcasts). Episode 7 really focuses on this concept so maybe start there!2 -
@Caroline_slowandsteady Maybe consider a different metric than BMI for how healthy your weight is. I believe the metric of waist to height ratio is more correlated to health than BMI is. If your waist is more than half of your height, then they might not be vanity pounds. But if it is less than half your height my suggestion would be to work on confronting the cultural attitudes about thinness/beauty and try to be more accepting of your healthy body while you practice maintenance for awhile.3
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@Cowphilosopher - Chocolate milk is typically the perfect ratio of carbs to protein and a drink almost universally loved. My particular one I used for endurance training was a bit unusual, although I loved it. I told other runners about it and as far as I know I've never heard anyone else say they used it. 😆 So that probably says a lot. I would use Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey protein powder (I preferred Strawberry but Vanilla also works good for this) and Mountain Berry Gatorade powder. Mixed with water, of course. By a matter of coincidence, the can of Gatorade powder came with a scoop which per the nutrition data worked out to double the calories of the protein powder, so it was very close to an exact 2:1 ratio (negligibly higher in carbs) and easy to do. One scoop of each. I would take it with me on runs away from the house (even events) in a 20oz shaker bottle containing just the two powders, and also take a 16oz bottled water. After my run/event I would pour the water into the bottle, shake it up, and drink. Easy-peasy. And I personally loved it. Might be something that only I like though. I certainly understand that it probably sounds weird, but to me a "berries and cream" recovery drink sounds just fine. Due to the sodium content (electrolyte replenishment from the Gatorade) this might not work for everyone. Also keep in mind the cumulative calories of the drink compared to your activity. Don't just drink it afterwards if the caloric burn doesn't well exceed the calories of the drink, or if the exercise itself did not warrant a need to replenish electrolytes (so many people overdo the sports drinks, way in excess of what they should consume). In those cases, you might be better with a small chocolate milk or (even better in some case) skip the recovery drink after a light-ish workout. Endurance training is hard and takes a long time to recover from, so all things that can help should be considered/utilized and keep what works for you.2
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Caroline_slowandsteady wrote: »@MadisonMolly2017 Thank you so much for your kind response. I was really expecting you to lay down the law and tell me to get more serious about eating less! I think your answer to "Really lock in recording every nibble. ... You realize it’s just data & will work to your advantage to record all you eat !!" is exactly what I need to focus on now.
I am not going to give up on pre-tracking my days or having a goal of 1350. But when I want to eat something that is over the goal, I am going to think about why I am eating it and if those reasons seem good enough, I will eat it and record it. For this month. And see what I learn.
I am frustrated by this extra hunger because I have been losing weight - slow and steady - for almost 3 years now - and I have never been this hungry. And my diet has not really changed. (To answer your question @MadisonMolly2017, I am losing "baby weight" from my about-to-be 10 year old. I am not counting from my high weight when I was pregnant with her or immediately post-partum, but a few months in I pretty much stabilized around 170, and I am counting from the point at which I decided to work on losing weight (which was actually rather a high point in that stable range).)
I think what happened was:
1. This has been getting steadily harder for a while, as I look back at my records. Really since getting within the healthy BMI range. Which is why I joined UAC, but I haven't really seen much of a loss with UAC - still in that top of the healthy BMI range. @MadisonMolly2017 I love that you call them "vanity pounds" - I guess they are. I want to lose more because I weighed less pre-pregnancy, and because these extra pounds are almost all in my belly, which I think is bad for me and also - yeah, vanity.
2. Then in January I had my covid booster which resulted in a flare of my autoimmune thyroid condition, with some weird hormone blips. I backed off trying to track or eat to a pattern while that was active. But I think I maybe tried to get back into it too soon. I do think some of the hunger initially was hormonal.
3. Several weeks (a month?) ago I decided to tackle the hunger and also the constipation I was experiencing (which were both probably due to reason #2) by eating more fiber. I was noticing I was not usually that close to the recommended 25. I upped the fiber by adding more carbs and reducing fat to fit them in. I think that may have been counter productive? I do still think it seems like a good idea to eat fiber. But I think that is one of the things I need to collect more data on. I think I am definitely seeing a difference between adding in chia seeds, which does not seem to affect me much, vs. having a snack of oatmeal, which I tried, which left me starving and shaky. Oatmeal has never been a great snack for me. Also kashi cereal, which we have in the cabinet for my kids which I tried adding in because it has so much fiber but it also has so much sugar and salt and I don't think it's a great choice.
@MadisonMolly2017 I love your idea that the choice is not between giving up and fighting harder. But I could just take a pause for data collection and then decide what to do next. I think that's my goal for March.
@Caroline_slowandsteady
Great!
If my body is ever “really hungry”, I tell it, “Of course you can eat if you are hungry.” I don’t want it to think it’s in “starvation mode”
However, I also ask myself if I’ve been eating when not hungry…and curb that!
I don’t want to get lower than I can maintain.
My extra weight is around middle, too. But my waist at narrowest part, as directed, IS less than my height, so I chock it up to genetics (looking at my grandparents.) I remind myself the number of people who maintain 5 years is dismal. If I keep 70 pounds off & have a bit of a belly - likely die to prednisone - I’ve still beat the challenge.
I have oatmeal (to help with cholesterol, but honestly, I don’t think it helped, but now I enjoy it)) every morning now with 4oz nonfat Fage yogurt. No shakes
The only time I get false hunger is after salty or foods containing sugar. What are your patterns? Maybe note these during your March Discovery Month. It’s like a science experiment in ourselves…well worth your time! 😘3 -
lesdarts180 wrote: »Wow, I just sat down at my laptop after being away from home for a day and a half and there are so many posts and so many questions.
First one: @donna25trinity asked me a question about averaging calories. First, let me remind everyone that I am a little old lady so my calorie requirements are quite low, yours may be higher.
I am maintaining now but when I was actively losing weight at a reasonable rate (22.5 kg in 9 months ie just over 1lb per week average) I used to reckon on keeping my normal intake at about 1,000 calories a day plus a small part of my exercise calories*. You get a lot of criticism here on MFP if you go that low but I needed to average about 1,200 per day and holidays and days out are bound to be higher. I took several holidays, days out, family celebrations. You can nearly always plan ahead for these occasions and “bank” calories in the same way you might save up for something special. “banking” beforehand is much more effective than going into “debt”.
Saving 100 calories per day for 5 days is only the equivalent of a dessert or a glass of wine and a chocolate on each of those weekend days. You can’t just indulge without counting.
If you are going to be very restrictive you have to make every food choice “work” – you need your protein, fibre, vitamins, whatever is important to you.
*I agree with @SummerSkier that “exercise calories” are a mixed blessing, try not to get too hung up on it.
Awesome thanks so much for that it makes perfect sense! I hve one more question for you @lesdarts180 and maybe @SummerSkier may also be able assist as well seeing u guys are at maintaince. My original goal weight was 58 kgs I got there in September so switched to maintaince but found it would fluctuate over a 3 monthly period from 57.5kg to 59.2 kgs so that's wen i decided to go back to a deficit and make my new goal weight 56kgs. My question is once I get to 56kgs I know the same thing will happen and the weight will fluctuate up and down by a couple of kilos so how do you deal with that? How do u accept that and not freak out about it? On the days it is higher do u feel the need to revert back to a deficit to get the weight back down? Lastly Is there a way u guys stabilise your weight so it's consistently close to ur goal weight? Hope all this makes sense. Thanks guys. Xo1 -
@donna25trinity It's pretty normal to fluctuate within a few lbs (or a kg or or two). I think it's just something we have to accept. Unless you eat exactly the same food every day and do the exact same exercise everyday it is logical that it will happen. That's why we need to have a maintenance range. If I ever get past my current plateau I will have a 5lb range (110-115) striving to stay at 112 on average.2
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Im having some health issue so I might have to partially drop out. I still want to be accountable for exercise and the quality of the food but I think I need to back off from controlling the quantity to a degree. The doctor says I need to eat more.
I lost 112 pounds so far but I had hoped to lose more weight and go faster.7 -
@daciasil21 very sorry to hear about the health issue and I hope you are ok and recover soon. Do keep in mind that being within your calorie limit is 100% defined by you and not by anyone here. So you could simply reset your calorie goal to what you wish to achieve to be healthy. It's health that is the goal here, not weight loss. It can seem like weight loss is the goal due to how that is the thing most work on to be more healthy. But not everyone must lose weight to keep themselves healthy.2
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@donna25trinity I think over time you will find what works best for you. The scale drove me crazy so I actually stopped weighing a few years ago. How my clothes fit, tracking my food and how I felt became more important than a random # on the scale. Maintenance will never be static either so what works for several months may need to change. And going back to a small deficit for a few weeks is sometimes required. Changing exercise or macros or supplements can also effect the #. It's sort of why I just picked a # for my TDEE and stick to it. And not to say I never weigh myself but last time I was in the Drs offices (endo and primary) it had been 2 years and they both were astonished my weight was almost exactly the same over the pandemic. To me that was a big win because in my past they might have said the same thing but they did not know that I might have had to work like crazy for several weeks before the visit to get back to that #. Whereas last year I was just normal ongoing maintenance.2
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@makattack220 I had looked at the website but didn't want to give up my email address to get free resources. I will listen to the podcast.
@ideas2, I just measured and my waist circumference is less than half my height. Not much less, but less!
@MadisonMolly2017, I also am considering the idea of not getting lower than I can maintain. I just had in my head from the beginning - I mean 10+ years ago - the idea that I would get back to my pre-baby weight, a weight that I had carefully maintained for 10 years before that.
But maybe time to accept that by health measures, I have succeeded in accomplishing what I needed to, and the rest is more about balancing my own desire to shape how I look against my desire to eat delicious food.
But, I'm not going to worry about that question for now. I'm going to focus on gathering data by accurately tracking every bite I take, and see what I learn.
I am not sure that sodium has much of an effect on me. Also not sure exactly how to track it. I just looked back at the last few days and my sodium is under my goal (which is the MFP goal automatically set, I did not adjust it). But I did put some salt on things that I didn't track. And I am not sure that sodium is accurately put into every entry.
I have been noticing the effect that restaurant food has, but I am not sure how much that is because it is higher calories or because of the sodium or what. I will keep gathering data.
Thank you so much for the insight, all of you.
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