What To Do When You Are Really Hungry?

One thought - what are your goals? If you're aiming to lose 2 pounds per week, occasionally allowing yourself an extra 500 calories on a day you really need it would not be unreasonable. And if you're aiming for 1 pound per week loss, same thing. 1200 day in, day out is hard to do. I am not going to tell you that 1200 is too low - I don't know your stats, your situation so that would be rude of me.

Alternatively, do you have a staple list of meals that are big but low calorie? Some of my favorites are egg rolls in a bowl (cabbage w/ soy sauce, ginger, garlic, a little sesame oil and some sort of protein), spaghetti squash (I top w/ red sauce, turkey sausage, garlic, grated parmesan cheese) or chili. The chili may not seem 'bulky' but I do find it filling and can have a good meal for 400 calories even topping it with cheese.

Figure out an estimate of your maintenance calories: How much you could eat per day and expect to stay at your current weight. (Yes, I know you don't want to stay at your current weight.)

If you have an extra-hungry day, interrogate yourself to be pretty sure that it's actually hunger (for fuel or nutrition). If it's possibly stress, fatigue, lack of enough good-quality sleep, an emotional need, boredom, social triggers, or habit, deal with that root cause first, see if that helps. I'm talking meditation/prayer/stretching/breathing exercises/bubblebath for stress, nap for fatigue or inadequate sleep, distraction for boredom, etc.

If it's hunger, first try drinking something warm and low-calorie, like herb tea or broth. Sometimes that will blunt hunger. Wait 20 minutes or so, see if that sinks in. If still hungry, eat something you find filing. (What that is will be individual. For me, it's usually either protein like low-fat string cheese/hard-boiled egg/etc., or a giant heap of low-cal veggies.)

Here's where your maintenance calorie number comes in: Recognize that if you eat over your goal calories, but below your maintenance calories, you'll still lose fat that day, just a small bit less than usual. You'll reach goal weight maybe a few hours later, in theory. In some situations, that's the right answer. On the other hand, if you consciously decide to eat above your maintenance calories one day, but are at your goal or at least below maintenance calories on average for the week, you'll still lose weight.

You can make rational tradeoffs to eat a little more sometimes, maybe a little less on days you're less hungry, maybe take an extra walk on a day when you're more energetic than usual, and things will still work out fine.

By the way, some people find that mild exercise blunts cravings: Somewhere in there, try a little walk around the block, or something like that.

"Good enough, on average" works. It doesn't have to be "perfect all the time".

When I am hungry between meals, my favorite go-to snack is a piece of light (45 calorie) toast with one tablespoon of pimento cheese. It is about 100 calories and fills me up enough to get to the next meal.

First. Good job setting yourself a high-bar goal. 1200 calories is torture. Been there. Loss that (get it). I commend you. Something I wish I did when I was on a 1200 calorie diet was, add a cheat day. One where I would go back up to my maintinence calories, while still eating healthy foods. In theory, it should help reset the metabolism and make the other 6 days more effective.

This is gonna be gross. I have been using this trick for years to help me when food wasn't available, or between meals on a structured diet. I warned you, it's gross.
*2 TBS Apple cider vinegar
*2 TBS Lemon Juice
*Dash of cayenne pepper
*Stevia (optional. Nothing really helps)
*2 OZ Water

Make sure you have a non-calorie chaser VERY near by. For me, this kills all hunger pangs for 10-20 minutes. Worth it? You decide.

I have used this nasty little trick multiple times during my planned 1 day fasts as well. It helps me. It's definitely not for everyone.

Occasionally, if I'm really hungry, I eat to maintenence and have a better day the next day. Today was a rare maintenence day for me.

If I’m ravenously hungry and I’ve been losing at the pace I would expect based on my calorie deficit, I assume I’ve either overcounted my calories or undercounted my activity level, and I eat more. Even if I’m wrong, one day isn’t going to make or break anything.

Brief divergence. As a regular air-popped popcorn gnosher, it’s much higher calories than you think.

It is also, sadly, not very filling.

That said, I’d rather have a giant 240 calorie bowl of airpopped popcorn with my lunch than a sad little serving of 11 potato chips for 150, so I clear the space for it. If I eat it about an hour after my sandwich, it does double duty as a nice snack.

Anyway, don’t assume airpopped popcorn is low cal or throwaway cals. Make sure you’re weighing your kernels.

A really great tip someone here gave me is to mix melted butter (margarine is fine and is half the calories) with soy sauce. It is absolutely amazing and the soy sauce (which is very low cal) makes the flavor go farther over the popcorn.

I use half a tbsp margarine (weighed bit measured, of course!) with a tbsp soy sauce. For 35 calories it really is worth it.

I never would have though of using soy sauce on popcorn, which is why these boards are golden.

The Duke Diet and Fitness center (now closed forever) has cookbooks that have incredible snack/dessert recipes. Every meal in any of the menus is under 400 calories and they have some incredibly simple recipes too. I was the Exec Chef there for many years and only wish they would have allowed the actual people who did the work to put their names on it! One of the reasons why I left.
Anyway, if you cannot find it hit me up and I can email a copy of one or 2 of them. Since they are out of business now its not illegal for me to just give it away. The amount of money people spent to go there to lose weight was mind boggling! No insurance, all cash baby!