Hunger Pangs

Ayup. I've experienced what everyone has described. It's there in the background. Not much, but it's there. I've found that after a couple of years, it really dissipates. In the beginning, when hunger wasn't there, I was eating at my maintenance level. It actually helped me figure out what my maintenance calories should be. No faint background hunger, I stayed the same. That went on for weeks and weeks, it was not a plateau.

I had to sit with it and surf the urges. I was so used to stoking the fire. I was stacking weight on like a freight train. Some say, you have to sit in the fire so you can break any habit. I don't skip meals and I really look forward to them. Good food fixes everything. Maintenance phase mitigates hunger. It feels good not to be in a deficit.

I'm a lucky developed-worlder. I'm not even sure I've ever been actually hungry. Appetite, cravings, stomach rumbles when the body expects intake because of habits, yeah, absolutely. Real hunger? Dunno. Certainly I was one of the lucky people who didn't much struggle subjectively with it during weight loss, even when I accidentally ate too little for a few weeks. (Eventually I got weak and fatigued, strong clue I was under-eating . . . well, that and too-fast loss for my own good.)

There have been times when I got fatigued and probably grumpy when doing a lot and eating very little for a period of quite a few hours, and was revived to feeling normal and probably being nicer when I ate something. Maybe that's actual hunger? It's only happened during things like multi-hour days of steady canoeing/portaging on vacation, between fairly moderate meals during the full daytime. Even the "clear liquids" thing before surgery or colonoscopy was more of a challenge to habits, not so much difficult physical hunger perceptions, though I do usually drink clear caloric beverages (sugar!) when allowed during those.

I'm not saying the above would be true of anyone else, nor doubting anyone else's self-account. Experiences are individual. That's just my perception of mine.

This is such an interesting thread and illustrates why MFP is such a valuable resource for understanding how we each perceive and react to the world. Although (or maybe because ?)I recently lost almost 80 lbs it has never occurred to me that anyone would think of hunger as painful or be afraid of it unless they are in a starvation situation. Only because I have been lucky enough not to experience it that way. The only truly unpleasant hunger symptom I have experienced are when I have low blood sugar for some reason, but that has almost never happened to me - I can remember a handful of times during cancer treatments and sometimes before I was about to get sick with some sort of bug that I would have a feeling like I couldn’t control my blood sugar and would get shaky and feel nauseous and light headed if I skipped too many meals. This is an abnormal symptom for people without diabetes. You can read more about it and some factors that cause it here https://www.healthline.com/health/hypoglycemia-without-diabetes#complications But if you regularly experience these sorts of unpleasant symptoms you should probably discuss them with your doctor.

I was listening to a podcast, Science vs, on how the medication Ozempic makes the brain think it's not hungry. Podcast did go into down side as well of taking a medication, but it was enlightening to listen to how our brain and "food noise" aka hunger/cravings can sabotage our weight loss efforts. I lost 50 pounds in one year many years ago it was pretty much controlling portion size, being satisfied with enough food for sustainability, and know the hunger which for the most part was mild after a bit of time was tolerable. Then covid happened! I'm glad to say that I am 1 pound away from my pre-covid weight. I really went on a food and alcohol binder for a couple of years! Gained about 20 pounds! Yikes! Now I'm back to focusing on those key findings. It's all about the hunger game. Control that and I can reach my goal again!

I too like that late night empty feeling. To me, it's the satisfying feeling of fat leaving body. Funny, but I never have that empty feeling when I get up the next day. 🤔

penguinmama87 wrote: »

I've really enjoyed reading this thread and have had a lot to muse over. My experiences with hunger are definitely colored by pregnancy and breastfeeding. I learned a lot about this in my last pregnancy, where I put on a LOT of weight, even though I had already lost a lot prior and learned so much. But hunger is a different beast in pregnancy and I was not prepared for it (or I was overconfident.) As @AnnPT77 mentioned, as a person raised in the developed world access to food has never been an issue. I've been able to more than respond to those additional impulses to eat. If I have another baby one day, I plan on remembering to use the math because the math don't lie. 🤪

As might be expected many of my friends are also moms and it is interesting to note how many of us just take for granted that once you have so many kids, you're just inevitably fat. Definitely a body that has given birth is in some ways different than one that hasn't, but I'm skeptical of inevitable fatness. I think it might take a little more work and dedication to stay fit, because weight gain is after all part of the deal, but I consider that for the almost thirteen years I have been "eating for two" more often than not (almost all that time, in fact). So I'm accustomed to a level of food that would be too high in any other circumstance. When I was losing weight after my fifth child, I remember I increased my activity by a LOT as she weaned so I could more or less keep eating as much as I was before she weaned and still lose weight. By then, though, I wasn't dealing with the crazed desire to eat like during pregnancy or in the early postpartum days.

I am currently finishing up a weightloss journey with the goal of pregnancy after. I am so nervous about gaining all the weight back. I can't gain all the weight back. I had health issues that resolved after losing all this weight. So I do plan to use mfp to track my calories through the whole pregnancy. I do wish there was an active thread on here for pregnancy weight tracking. But seems like all I've found are dead threads.

Kiwi2mfp wrote: »

penguinmama87 wrote: »

I've really enjoyed reading this thread and have had a lot to muse over. My experiences with hunger are definitely colored by pregnancy and breastfeeding. I learned a lot about this in my last pregnancy, where I put on a LOT of weight, even though I had already lost a lot prior and learned so much. But hunger is a different beast in pregnancy and I was not prepared for it (or I was overconfident.) As @AnnPT77 mentioned, as a person raised in the developed world access to food has never been an issue. I've been able to more than respond to those additional impulses to eat. If I have another baby one day, I plan on remembering to use the math because the math don't lie. 🤪

As might be expected many of my friends are also moms and it is interesting to note how many of us just take for granted that once you have so many kids, you're just inevitably fat. Definitely a body that has given birth is in some ways different than one that hasn't, but I'm skeptical of inevitable fatness. I think it might take a little more work and dedication to stay fit, because weight gain is after all part of the deal, but I consider that for the almost thirteen years I have been "eating for two" more often than not (almost all that time, in fact). So I'm accustomed to a level of food that would be too high in any other circumstance. When I was losing weight after my fifth child, I remember I increased my activity by a LOT as she weaned so I could more or less keep eating as much as I was before she weaned and still lose weight. By then, though, I wasn't dealing with the crazed desire to eat like during pregnancy or in the early postpartum days.

I am currently finishing up a weightloss journey with the goal of pregnancy after. I am so nervous about gaining all the weight back. I can't gain all the weight back. I had health issues that resolved after losing all this weight. So I do plan to use mfp to track my calories through the whole pregnancy. I do wish there was an active thread on here for pregnancy weight tracking. But seems like all I've found are dead threads.

I'd be happy to support you! I will likely have another baby, heh, but I would like to reach my goal weight first this time which would mean longer spacing than I have previously had if I want to lose at a good rate. My big issue (which is typical for me in pregnancy) is that I get very fatigued and my activity slows way down; even when I began my last pregnancy at a normal BMI I struggled a lot with fatigue. But I still ate like I was walking 15K steps every day, whoops. I got out of the habit of keeping track and wanted to kick myself when I realized just how much more I was eating than I needed to. If you keep your wits about you and continue to pay attention, I think you'll be OK.

If you're curious, for myself I've already mathed out how I'd like it to go next time:
- Eat at maintenance for weeks 1-12 (I don't have a hard time with this because I'm usually pretty nauseous; it is safe to even lose a little but I wouldn't try to lose on purpose)
- work up to 250 calories over maintenance for weeks 12-25 (this is usually when I start feeling a little bit hungrier and start to show, but nausea resolves and I feel motivated and active again)
- work up to 500 calories over maintenance until delivery (due date is 40 weeks) - this would be a gain of 1lb/week which is appropriate for this stage of pregnancy. Towards the end I start feeling more tired except for the bursts of energy like nesting. It's also the level of calories that would be good if you plan on exclusively breastfeeding (though you might need even more; I do. My hunger just overcompensates for this and if I'm not paying attention I will overeat.)

I do think there's something to the idea that our instincts are not designed for a society with overabundance, which is why the idea of "intuitive eating" has never made sense to me. I don't think it's bad to eat socially or celebrate with food, for instance, but if I just "ate when I was hungry" and still had access to plenty of calories, I think I would overeat every time. Doing the math helps me exert my reason over the whole thing.