This is so hard

Make sure you are eating foods with a lot of protein, and fat as well (fat helps to keep you well fed - thats why the atkins induction program had people eating nothing but macadamia nuts for one week).

Your stomach is like an elastic bag, and it WILL shrink. But it will take a little bit of time. For now I reccomend you check out the recipe section and start teaching yourself about nutrition - the more nutritionally sound your food is, and the lower in calorie it is - the more you can eat! :laugh:

I've heard it takes a few weeks for the stomach to start shrinking, but only one big meal to stretch it back out...

I tell you, I have been on here for some time, and I still get hungry. You just have to remind yourself of your goals and push through.
Drinking water helps a lot, because sometimes your body can't distinguish between hunger and thirst (weird, but it happens).
And don't give up!

I don't know if your stomach can shrink. But I have definatly noticed that after eating like this..

breakfast: yogurt, fruit, granola bar

lunch- tuna fish with light mayo and soy sauce on wheat bread, salad, carrots and soy milk

dinner- salad, baked chicken with spices, 2 red skin potatoes with sour cream and chives, and water

snacks- grapes, 100 calorie pudding, 15 calorie jello, carrots

I can realy see that my stomach doesn't hang over my jeans at the end of the week. Specially with doing cardio 4 times a week and crunches/weight training.

if you are eating similar to that, you will see a difference!! And if you try to buy some of those new things they have out, all the 100 calorie snacks that are cookies and brownies and chocolate. Those should help you not feel so deprived. Or even just have something small once in a while. Like your favorite chocolate or a little bit of icecream.

good luck!

I know it's hard to throw ourselves into something that is going to deprive us and leave us feeling empty. We seem to use food to fill that void in us and our challenge is to find a way to fulfill ourselves and not feel empty, by ourselves using only the skills we have in our minds, instead of relying on anything outside of us to do that for us.

I don't know if this will help you, but I made the decision to really investigate my relationship with food, look at how I was using it to fulfill my emotional needs, and now, I am talking to my friends about how I do that, how I've done it in the past, and now I'm practicing asking for what I need from people and myself. I also gave up judging myself recently. I've been doing that really well for a long time (judging myself-self loathing, etc..) and I am done with that now. Instead, I am telling myself, everytime I want to compulsively eat, "I deserve to be healthy more than I deserve to be fat--will this food make me healthy or fat/ter?" And by asking myself that everytime I think about eating, it's helping me to stop the compulsion because for years I felt I "deserved" to eat when I wanted, what I wanted, however much I wanted---that's a very entitled way to look at food isn't it? Wow.

Another thing I'm doing to help me stick to my caloric intake goals is to eat 100-250 calories every two hours all day long, with no more food intake past 7pm. The only time I deviate and increase the calories are at the lunch hour and dinner, then I increase the calories to 350 for those meals. Amazingly, I have felt the pressure to eat more often by needing to keep to that every two-hr schedule of eating. I'm also training my metabolism to expect food, process little bits at a time which keeps my body working continuously so that it's not hungry. AND the most important thing of all is that I'm teaching myself to eat small portions. That is key for me since I come from a compulsive eating history.

The shrinking of the stomach thing, that usually lasts for a week to a week and a half for me. Then, it's usually shrunk sufficiently for me to feel "leaner" which gives me a boost to continue on. Water intake--we should be drinking 64 oz a day ( Eight 8oz glasses per day) and more if you're exercising or it's hot outside and you're sweating a lot.

Anyway. These are just some thoughts that may or may not help you. I wish you success in your weight loss!