first day and starving!

This is what I ate, and yeah this isn't even half or a portion of how I usually eat.
Generic - Home-Brewed Coffee W/ 2 Tbs Sugar, Cream,
Kellogg's - Special K Red Berries W/ Whole Milk, 62 g Special K with 125ml Whole Milk


Lunch
Generic - Grilled Tri Tip Steak
Vietnamese - Pho, Chicken

Dinner
Chicken Stir Fry - Stir-Fried Vegetables With Chicken or Pork
Generic - Home-Brewed Coffee W/ 2 Tbs Sugar, Cream

Snacks
Carrots - Baby, raw, 2 large
Sabra - Spinach and Artichoke Hummus
Meat - Italian Dry Salami,
Carrots - Baby, raw
Peaches - Raw, 1 small

plus I did Insanity and some "light, moderate cleaning" for an hour and a half.

I would drop the two tablespoons of sugar in the two daily coffees and eat the 180 calories that sugar has in the form of fruit or vegetables.

Hummus is a good snack, but commercial ones are loaded with oil and other fats. Cooked chickpeas have 115-130cal per 100 grams. The hummus you've eaten on this example has already 70 cals / 28 grams (so 250 cal / 100 grams). See the difference? By choosing less sugar and less oil you can eat more and keep your calories down, which means you'll feel fuller longer.

Also, up your fruit and veggie intake. Guidelines suggest about 500grams/day total (that's more than a pound of fruit and veggies). If you chose low cal veggies (peas for instance have 3-4 times more calories than say lettuce or spinach), you again can eat more and feel fuller.

It's all in the small changes.

Higher protein and fiber plus lots of water! Snacking on almonds is a great way to fill yourself without overdoing it, one serving is about 28 nuts. Eating one at a time and chewing really well makes it feel like you're eating a lot more. For me that helps bc I am a notorious snacker. :happy:

OP: My first three days I thought I was going to die from hunger. I did NOT realize just how much I had been eating on a day to day basis until I started using MFP. My calorie goal is very similar to yours. I am limited to 1440 a day and let me tell you, that first day I reached my goal before NOON! Crazy.

Yes, your body will adjust and yes, you will get to the point where you will learn what you eat makes a big difference in how full you feel afterward.

I encourage you to eat back your exercise calories, at least in the beginning. Your body is going to go through a "what the hell" period because you are changing your habits. Eating those calories will help you to manage the hunger. After a month or two, you can reevaluate how you feel and you may discover that you don't always want to eat them back because you aren't hungry enough to do so.

Good luck! Feel free to add me if you're looking for encouragement. :flowerforyou:

Feeling a bit grumbly in the tummy ey? try drinking hot water and lemon. You can put in a small pinch of salt too. (gets rid of that really sour taste) It helps stop cravings, helps digestion, gets rid of toxins in your body. plus heaps more benefits!
Good luck!

I would urge you to make sure you eat the highest fiber foods you can find and pair them with protein and fat. A little fat is very helpful to satisfying hunger and the protein and fiber combination will help sustain that satiety much longer than a meal that is not complete i.e. carb only or carb/veg, or carb/protein (no fat) etc.

Try and get carb/fat/protein at each meal and snack and lots of fiber and lots of water.

Fantastic advice! Dont worry for a second about going over MFPs protein setting! Its low!x

Congratulations on getting started and making such a GREAT start. Remember to drink lots, that's one of the keys to not feeling hungry and reaching for the snacks. Also, as someone else pointed out...watch what you are eating. Make sure you get enough protein as that will help fill you for longer periods. My husband laughs because I have a huge salad at lunch but as I say lettuce doesn't have many calories so in order to be full I have to eat a lot. Eat lots of things that have few calories that way you can fill up but like I say the protein is a biggie. You can have a good size portion of fish or chicken without blowing your calorie count. Good luck. Stay with it go for a walk or something when those hunger pains hit. You can do it.

The first week is the worst with hunger pain. Just wait till your secound week when fatigue kicks in. Funny part im usually not even hungry half the time.

Today was my first day of counting my calories and limiting them. My goal is 1490 and I came up under that including eating the calories I lost from working out. I just ate dinner not long ago and I'm SO HUNGRY! Before this I was probably consuming around 3000, because I have obsessive eating issues. Has anyone else had this? And please tell me my body will adjust soon and I won't feel like I haven't eaten in days even though I ate like an hour ago.

If I am reading correctly it says that you ate and are under your calories for the day?? If so, then have a snack that is within your calories...Even if you go over by a few calories on occasion that is okay but if you are hungry and still have calories left over by all means...Eat them if you are hungry!! You CAN do this!!

Definitely eat at least five times a day. It's always better to find some filling snack in between your major meals to stave off the hunger pains. I've been at it almost a month and I still have "hungry" days from time to time. It's just my body adjusting as I go. I definitely agree that I have less hunger pains when I add leafy greens to one of my meals. Try to make your protein intake for the day at lunch. Protein is more difficult to digest, so it's better to avoid it at dinner(especially if dinner is late) or avoid consuming a large portion at dinner. Eat a hearty salad with dark leafy greens at dinner. It keeps you feeling full through the evening/night, so you won't snack late(packing on calories). These "tips" have helped me lose. Stick with it! Eat healthy! Let the weight loss be a "bonus" instead of the goal. Focus on being healthy first.

You've gotten a lot of advice, and at the risk of being completely unhelpful, I'm going to put in my two cents and say that I don't think that a lot of it is going to do you any good at this stage. Whether you eat high fiber or high protein or some protein with some fat or swap out these calories for other calories, you've gone from eating 3000 calories a day to less than half that. You're going to be hungry.

The good news is that this is temporary. For me, the first week was painful, but it got easier quickly. The other good news is that this is important: we tend to treat discomfort (hunger) as an illness that needs to be medicated away (with food). I spent a lot of that first week talking to myself: "Yes, you are hungry. This will not kill you." The reason that this is important is that you need to learn to separate physiological hunger from psychological hunger. Satisfying physiological hunger is important: it's imperative that you give your body the fuel it needs to succeed. Satisfying psychological hunger is what got me into trouble in the first place.

At the beginning, for me anyway, it was the psychological hunger that was the hardest to deal with, the loudest voice in my head. Psychological hunger, for me, was food-specific: I didn't just want food, I wanted cheese fries specifically. As time has gone on, and I'm still early on in my journey, the psychological cravings abated. They're still there, but they're easier to tune out, easier to dismiss.

Truly, make sure that you're eating enough to fuel your body. Try eating more frequently. Eat more fiber, more protein, figure out what works for you. If, after a week, you're still incessantly hungry, up your calories by 100 and see if that helps. But stick with it, learn to control your eating rather than letting it control you, and it will get a lot easier.

i eat 1200 cal and i am great

I promise it will get easier. Once I started drinking water consistently throughout the day, I noticed I hardly ever felt hungry between meals/snacks.

It took me about two weeks to adjust. Once my body wasn't getting the sugar and crap and was getting more water/protein/fiber, I felt about 110% better.

Make sure you space out your meals/snacks too. I try to eat something every couple of hours.