Am I the only one?

I think it's the change in the types of foods we are eating when starting new diets. I thought the point of this was to start a life style change of eating healthier? I'm not going to go out and eat at mcdonalds just to make my calorie goal! Most healthy foods naturally have less calories than the junk I ate before. I'm eating salads and grilled chicken instead of big mac's and fried chicken biscuits...so yeah it's going to be harder to hit that goal. Add into the fact that I'm doing cardio every day, it just makes it that much harder.

I believe it was in one of the 20 other threads on this topic....

I think it depends on where your focus is at. Me, I'm one of those people who will get involved in a book, a movie or a project and sort of forget all about that eating thing for hours or days at a time if nobody shoves food at me. Where I ran into trouble is that somewhere along the way I developed the habit of mindlessly eating while involved in a book, movie or project and had no idea how much I was consuming. I've recently managed to break that habit, and now I'm struggling to get up to MFP calorie goals... and that's with FOUR meals per day that I am obligated to eat at a table with seven preschoolers. (Breakfast and lunch with the AM class, then lunch again and a snack with the PM class). Even with those 4 meals AND my son begging me to go to McDonald's tonight, I only managed to net 988 calories and I am TOTALLY done for the day. It's 9:30 and I'm not going to eat anything else, forget it.

I think those who are really concerned/obsessed with food and planning meals and stuff are the ones who tend to have a hard time staying under the calorie goals. Me, I don't worry so much about the food. I live in America, and if and when I realize I am hungry, there will be food readily available.

Everyone is different, so why create a thread trolling some of the people on this forum because they have a hard time putting down food? Some of us have busy schedules, some people work wild shifts at work, and some people are still getting used to eating these different kinds of foods. Then you have people working out every day and eating much healthier low cal foods.

If you aren't hungry...then don't eat.

If you aren't hungry...then don't eat.

That's great in theory, but some (like my Hubs) went into various programs that taught you not to eat at all - to put your body into ketosis (sp?) so it would burn his stored energy. That has psychologically made him believe that eating = gaining. When we eat the right foods at the right time, we encourage our bodies to burn calories. When we work out we encourage our bodies to burn calories at a faster rate. Unfortunately, my Hubs now thinks he isn't hungry even though his stomach is growling loudly enough to hear across the county and he doesn't have the energy to get up and work out a while.

At the risk of sounding confrontational (which I truly don't mean to be) - there are no easy answers such as "If you aren't hungry... then don't eat." One size does not fit all when it comes to old addages, I guess.