Defeating The Purpose

I'm at a crossroads. I have no idea what to do either. Since I've been counting calories, I've certainly been eating healthier and avoiding some very high calorie foods that I previously didn't know were high calorie. However, I stay hungry constantly. I think about food all the time because I'm always trying to think of what I can eat in my next meal that would fit into my calorie deficit. I've found that I'm so much more hungry now than before. I eat more food now than I did before as well. Before, I only thought about food when I was honestly hungry. Now, it's all the time and I can't seem to stay on track because I'm always thinking about food for the calorie counting. My pattern has been eating at my deficit for around 3 to 4 days, then eating over maintenance for the rest of the week. It's driving me out of my mind.

I remember only eating 2 meals a day before I started counting calories. Now, it's like I'm torturing myself and I'm miserable. I get up, get the kids off to school and eat breakfast. By 10:AM, I'm starving. Where before, I wouldn't eat until lunch time and was never miserable. Food was ONLY on my mind when I was hungry. Now, it's all I think about and getting really hard to control. I ate a lot of cheeses, fried foods, etc. that were high calorie. But, I didn't realize that they were until recently.

I've always been overweight. But, I feel like I could control my cravings more before I started counting calories than I can now. Now, it feels like I actually have a disorder. I wasn't like this before I started counting calories!

I simply don't know what to do about it. If I continue on like this, I'm going to end up gaining more weight. It seems I have two choices. I could continue to drive myself crazy and keep going on this roller coaster, or stop counting calories period. At least, now I know what foods are high in calorie and what foods are healthier. If food isn't constantly on my mind, I shouldn't have that much of a problem with it. This change has been good in a sense that it's taught me what is good for my body to consume. Other than that, it's been devistating and seriously damaged my outlook for eating.

I'm not saying this is a bad way to live. I admire those of you who CAN do it without it messing with you mentally. I just can't though.

I've had problems with excessive hunger as well. In fact, this morning is the first in a long time I am NOT hungry. I actually had to force myself to eat breakfast and now I feel full. This is huge for me. I've been posting and whining about my incessant hunger for quite a while. 

If I were just starting out, here is what I would do differently. Instead of trying to figure out how many calories I was burning and then reducing it by 500- 1,000 calories per day, I would simply track my calories without changing anything first. I'd keep track for a week and figure out my daily average of calories, no matter how high. Then, I'd sloowly reduce my caloric intake by only 250 calories per day. After  I adjusted from that, I'd reduce by another 250 calories per day, and so on. The problem for many of us seems to be that we go into this all gung ho but our bodies take time to adjust. 

I'm wondering if you can't try going back to the way you were eating, but just eat less of the high-caal stuff. I don't know how you used to eat, but say you ate white toast with PB and jam for breakfast (just for example) you could eat whole wheat toast with a bit less PB and light jam. you would probably be no more hungry and you would lose weight. Look at the difference that one change would make.

white PB: bread (180cal) PB 2 tbsp (190 cal) jam 1 tbsp (50 cal) total:420 cal

Revised PB: bread (180 cal + 4g fiber) PB 1.5 tbsp (145 cal) 1 tbsp light jam (25 cal) total: 350 cal

thats a savings of 70 calories, which is you eat it 7 days a week, is almost 500 calories a week alone. That might not seem like much, thats nearly 7 lbs of weight loss per year all by itself. If you adjust most of your meals something like that, you shouldn't be hungry and you will definitly lose weight!

It took my reading this book:

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

to understand why I did exactly what you describe.  I felt out of control and almost crazy about food and I didn't know what to do.  I couldn't diet because it made me obsessed and frantic, and I couldn't keep going the way I normally did because it made me fat.  I didn't know what to do or how to fix it.  The method outlined in this book was the only thing that worked for me.

Original Post by shandykat: It took my reading this book:

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

Interesting. I never heard of it before. I Googled it and came up with a website owned by the book authors. www.intuitiveeating.com.

There is also information at Wikipedia. Link here

Mom ... I am wondering if you haven't hit on the right combination of filling foods to keep you feeling satisfied and not hungry?  The reason I ask is that it took me a good 3-4 weeks or so into my weight loss journey for my body to adjust to eating on a schedule and for me to come up with the correct combination of foods (fat, protein, carbs, fiber) for each meal of the day.  And I even try to have a schedule for drinking water/staying hydrated. 

What works for me is having a set eating schedule for every day, a set number of calories for each meal/snack, and a whole list of food options to meet that schedule and the calorie budget for every meal.  Some days, I plan my entire day's meals first thing in the morning, so I don't have to think so hard about it! Other days, I decide right before I eat ... which lets me decide at the last minute what I'm in the mood for.  Eating on a schedule helps keep me from getting ravenous or feeling starved in between meals.

Breakfast: 8:30-9:00a (usually)   300 calories

Lunch: 12:00 (usually) 400 calories

Snack: 3:00-3:30 (usually) 100 calories

Dinner: 5:30-6:00 (usually) 500 calories

Snack #1 8:00 (usually) 100 calories

Snack #2 9:30-10:00 (usually) 100 calories

It is hard for our bodies to adjust to something new. I used to eat well over 3,000 calories a day of high-fat, high calorie foods, eating throughout the day whenever I felt hungry. But I was killing myself with such atrocious eating habits. For the past three months, I've been eating HALF those calories (1500 per day, for the most part), and eating healthy, well-balanced,nutritious foods -- and I feel so much better, so much healthier. (And I've lost 51 pounds and 60 pts of cholesterol!)  But that first 2-3-4 weeks or so, I really had to tweak things to see what works for me .... to see what sorts of breakfasts I needed to eat to make it until lunchtime, etc.

In the end, I just decided that at 42 years old and 369 pounds, I had to DO something, so I stuck with it, pushed through, and kept going.

YOU CAN DO THIS ... how can we help?

=^..^= MOLLY

I hope you will try looking at the content of the foods your choosing to try and make this a little easier for you. You are right, it shouldn't be such a miserable process. Make sure you're getting enough protein in what you eat.

I imagine most of us go through a sort of possessed state but in the beginning we're also enthused so that kind of works.  Then as pounds drop off that helps keep us going. At some point you do stop being so hungry with a lower amount of calories. Then there is trying to distinguish between feeling truely hungry and feeling deprived. I find feeling deprived more difficult than true hunger.

Molly is about as enthusiastic as they come yet she started a thread called "Molly's rants" that is basically filled with all the little things that drive us crazy about this process. Everybody has tough times. Sometimes we need to change something, other times we just need to tough it out a bit. That's a decision you need to make with your best judgement.  I hope you'll look for support here either way. You deserve to be healthy and happy.

Pretty much everyone above me have great points.  The hardest part about this is the tweaking of what we already like and fitting it into our calories.  If that means you have to switch out one thing at a time then so be it. 

Another tip that might help is to try to keep things around the house that you can snack on before you start getting the urgent hunger pains.  As you can see from previous posters it does take a while to find out what works, what's worth it, and what isn't worth it.  Don't be upset that you're falling during part of the week.  Keep logging those days and pinpoint the highest caloric foods that helped put you over the edge and either eat less of it or try and figure out a lighter calorie version of it.  Can eat that without the cheese?  Can you substitute a condiment with mustard? 

It's a big learning process and with anything we learn, a lot of learning is trial and error until we get it right.

Good luck!  And I hope you don't give up.

I agree with Molly's post.

It makes things a lot easier if you plan out the entire day food wise, the night before or in the am, however being a mom he am option may not be feasible.

I can think of two reasons why you are hungry:

1. You aren't eating enough over all.

2. You aren't eating the right kinds of foods.

For 2. you have to be aware that if you cut your former say 800cal meal down to 300cals per meal, you are bound to be hungry much sooner than before. I do eat meals that are an average of 300-400 cals for breakfast/lunch and dinner BUT I could not last through the morning or afternoon without a snack!

Also make sure you are eating a good amount of proteins in combination with fats and carbs. If you eat a carb heavy diet which can be low cal, that makes your blood sugar spike and causes you to have energy fluctuations throughout the day and will make you hungry quicker.

You could try not counting calories anymore if you are certain that you can gestimate your foods well enough not to overeat and to continue losing weight.

Whatever you decide to do, all the best to you.

Original Post by southcarolinaguy:

I've had problems with excessive hunger as well. In fact, this morning is the first in a long time I am NOT hungry. I actually had to force myself to eat breakfast and now I feel full. This is huge for me. I've been posting and whining about my incessant hunger for quite a while. 

If I were just starting out, here is what I would do differently. Instead of trying to figure out how many calories I was burning and then reducing it by 500- 1,000 calories per day, I would simply track my calories without changing anything first. I'd keep track for a week and figure out my daily average of calories, no matter how high. Then, I'd sloowly reduce my caloric intake by only 250 calories per day. After  I adjusted from that, I'd reduce by another 250 calories per day, and so on. The problem for many of us seems to be that we go into this all gung ho but our bodies take time to adjust. 

 

 This is where I think you hit the nail on the head. I started out overdoing it on a lot of things, including exercise. I started out weighing 292 pounds and was trying to do an hour of TaeBo daily PLUS walking. I've cut out the TaeBo after hurting myself twice doing it and started walking. The only thing is, I didn't start out slowly and work my way up. I started out walking 3 miles at 3.0 miles per hour. It nearly killed me, and I've not walked in two days, heh. I think that might be part of my problem. I'm trying to accomplish what the ladies here do who are much smaller than me. Their bodies have adjusted to working out when mine didn't get a chance to. I did the same for eating at a calorie deficit. I don't know how many calories I was eating before I started counting. But, it had to have been a much larger amount than I push for now. I'm basically putting my body through (bad times) in an attempt at making it healthier. I think I may need to slow it down a bit. I'm going to try to keep at my calorie deficit. However, instead of eating at a -1000 deficit, I'm changing it to -500. If I can get used to doing that easily, I might go to -1000. If not, at least I'll be losing -some- weight, just slowly. As for the exercise, I believe I'm going to try and pace myself. Instead of pushing for 3 miles, I'll go down to two. My problem with exercise has been that I try to compare myself with others. I read here and other fitness forums. These people are very very good at fitness. We're talking running (which I simply cannot do at any extended period of time), power weight lifters, people who workout for 2+ hours a day, the list goes on and on. I guess I felt that I should be able to do those things as well. Which is rather funny because these people are probably less than half my weight. Another problem was that if I could exercise more, I could eat more. I'm just going to slow it down on everything.

 

To the rest of you, thank you for the motivational words. You all were extremely helpful. I find that I feel hopeless when I fail at anything, especially this. When I feel hopeless, encouraging words can help more than you could imagine. As a single mother, I have no one to talk to about any of this. I have a very close family who loves one another. But, I've failed at doing so many other things in my life, I feel like they think I'm going to fail at this as well. I don't feel comfortable going to them about my small failings. When I first told my mother what I was doing, she said she'd give me a month then I'll give up. I love my mother more than anything and she'd do anything for me. She didn't mean it in a bad way. She has every reason to think that, to be honest. The only thing I've ever followed through with is being a mother to my kids. I didn't finish college. I could go on and on. I just want to actually accomplish a long term goal without folding. I'd like for her to see that I can do it. I'd like to do it for my own piece of mind, health, and to be able to be happy with my body. I just hit bottom every once and a while. After failing to accomplish my calorie deficit goal for the week, I get the hopeless feeling. Then, when I didn't lose any weight this past week, that hopeless feeling just tripled. Am I the only one who gets like this?

Anyways, I'm still counting and trying. I'll work on a less strenuious workout plan and go from there.

 

Edit: I wanted to add that my mother has still been very supportive. She's buying me a treadmill for christmas and is actually buying some fat free and low calorie ingredients for Thanksgiving dinner. I didn't want to leave anyone with a bad impression with my mother. Sometimes, if it weren't for her I don't know what we'd do. She's always there for the entire family.

 

While I obviously can't speak for everyone, I think we all do have those times when we get discouraged. In the beginning when it's overwhelming or we just haven't figured out a good game plan for ourselves; in the middle when we hit a plateau; as we get near our goal and we're not quite so inspired and the margin for error is shrinking.

I think you have a good plan for yourself. Stick with it..we're all rooting for you!

It's called "semi-starvation neurosis", and SouthCarolina's approach is a pretty reasonable way to work around it.  It's the only way I could do it without going completely insane and eating 5000 calories at a time.  There may be other strategies, you could try googling it.  :)

Also, your example of what you've been doing is why I HATE "The Biggest Loser".  They make it look like you can go from3500 calories a day of fast food and sitting on your butt to 1250 calories of spinach and tofu and 6 hours a day of exercise, and that's just completely unreasonable.  I think that approach is responsible for a LOT of diet failures, and also why people gain more back than they lost in the first place! 

The american heart association wants us doing a minimum of exercise 30 minutes 5 days a week, that's a great starting point for an overweight, out of shape body. As you lug around less weight and get more used to it, THEN you can ramp it up...

Obviously you've caught yourself in patterns of eating and thinking that are unhealthy, and I think you need to be praised for stepping up and asking for help. Nice job! Too often we think we need to be crazy on this journey. And we don't.

Sounds like you've gotten some advice which will help you. I am working on small (300-500 depending on the day) deficits and minimal exercise, and that's working for me. Keeps me relatively sane and I'm losing.

Also, I wanted to say that I'm finding that when I eat more or less "regular" meals (three squares and a snack) I'm happiest. If I eat more, it throws me off. Also, for me, eating regular instead of low fat foods makes me feel good. I like 1% milk and low fat cream cheese, but all my other dairy is regular, full fat. I'm more satisfied after I eat it. Don't skimp on fats! They help you feel full.

Lastly, one of my sanity saving things is to look at my over all consumption for the week. Some days I'm at 1600 other days I eat 1800 or 2000. It all evens out at the end of the week. I'm really flexible with myself and that seems to work. For me. Everyone needs to find their own path and what fits for their body.

Keep on listening to and taking care of your body and you will do fine.

Are you eating a LOT of fresh (uncooked) vegetables? They are very low in calories (in fact, I don't track or count carrots, celery, lettuce, broccoli, because it takes a LOT of these to even add up to 100 calories. I fill up on these before every meal, and it helps keep me pretty satisfied, and I've lost plenty of weight and am living on about 1600 cal per day - and I'm a 6'2" man. I really think lots of fresh veg, plenty of liquids and avoiding sweets and refined carbs are the absolute best ways to avoid cravings.

 

If you are eating 1200 or 1500 cal of processed foods with things like pop-tarts or whatever, you WILL have MAD cravings. If you eat the same number of calories but of real foods - like meat and veg you make yourself, big salads (but without the junky toppings), keep salt down, etc you'll be much more satisfied and have fewer cravings.

 

At least it works for me... I do allow myself a little square of chocolate some days and plain yogurt with some fresh fruit, but other than that, chips and sweets are dangerous because they tend to induce cravings.

 

Oh yeah, watch out for white bread or bread that says "wheat bread" but is not 100% whole wheat - they tend to be much less satisfying than whole wheat with the same calories and higher Glycemic Index.  If you can't find whole wheat bread, breads like baguettes, french bread seem to be more filling for the same calories, IMO.

White bread sucks. 

Ooo, I didn't know that about wheat bread. That is what I've been eating. I will start looking for whole wheat from now on. I try and get in as much fresh veggies as we can afford. I like to have, at least, one cup of some kind of fresh veggie a day. This has been carrots for the past couple weeks. I have some celery, carrots, and cauliflower in the fridge now. I'm just starting to adjust to buying fresh veggies. I'm used to shopping once or twice for enough food to last a month. You can't really do that with fresh foods. They ruin. I try my best to eat filling foods. I've tried to eat oatmeal in the mornings, but I simply don't like it. I can force it down, but I don't think that's a good idea. I do much better with cold cereals. We mostly eat canned veggies. I do buy fresh fruits more such as apples and bananas. The rest are canned (I pay attention to light vs heavy syrups in them). I buy raisins and such. I'm trying to get started with the healthy foods. I think I've done pretty good in that department considering how long I ate unhealthy foods and how long I've been trying to eat healthier. I try to get in two servings of vegetables in my dinner. My grains are mostly added in breakfast and lunch. I do need to up my fat intake though. I've been eating low fat or fat free foods in order to avoid the higher calorie content. I might stop that and just stick to my 1% milks and fat free cheeses. I eat regular meats. I don't buy the 90%+ lean meat for ground beef. I avoid nuts like the plague. The calories are huge in them. I love peanut butter, but again...calories.

This is the first day I'll be working on eating 3 meals and 3 snacks. I'm going for Molly's approach. With my calorie deficit, I should eat a 400 calorie breakfast, 400 calorie lunch, 100 calorie snack, 700 calorie dinner, 150 calorie snack, and another 150 calorie snack. I have a scheduel for these meals and am now going to try and keep on scheduel with my eating. Those calories are set and will change as weight goes down. Of course, I can vary a little with them depending on the foods I eat. I tend to be a creature of habit. If I can develop a SET scheduel and get my body adjusted to it, it may become easier.

Honestly, if you're eating white bread, you may as well be eating cake without the icing.

 

If you hate oatmeal, you could try All-Bran, which has even more fiber than oatmeal, and is eaten cold with milk.  If that's still too out there for you, Raisin Bran is pretty nice.

 

I eat a mix of All-Bran and Raisin Bran for my breakfast usually.  I like oatmeal, but the hassle of making it keeps me from eating it so much.  I should though, since it is supposed to lower cholesterol. 

Do you live in a remote location that makes getting to the market difficult?  Just curious.

Main 3 problems with canned veggies:

1. too much sodium

2. overcooked+sitting on shelf=depleted nutrients 

3. They are so overcooked and soft that they are very easily and quickly broken down.  Veggies closer to their natural state, in addition to being higher in nutrients, take longer for your digestive system to break down, thus they give you that "full feeling" longer.  Aslo, the insulin bump after eating is less pronounced and gradual (the insulin response after eating is one of the big causes of cravings)

 

I used to eat the same way you do and was NEVER satisfied.  I learned about eating raw or near-raw veg from Jack Lalanne's vids on youtube and it has been a godsend. 

If you're in a remote location or have trouble getting out, it may be more challenging for you.  At least bread can freeze nicely then be toasted. 

Heh, not really. We have a store here, but it's expensive. I try to do all my grocery shopping at a different store that's around 30 minutes from me. The prices are much more reasonable. I knew that cooked veggies don't have a lot of the nutrients that raw veggies do. I'm wondering if I bought frozen veggies and cook them myself, if it would be better than canned? I could easily do that. I have plenty of freezer storage space.

Original Post by momof2kt:

Heh, not really. We have a store here, but it's expensive. I try to do all my grocery shopping at a different store that's around 30 minutes from me. The prices are much more reasonable. I knew that cooked veggies don't have a lot of the nutrients that raw veggies do. I'm wondering if I bought frozen veggies and cook them myself, if it would be better than canned? I could easily do that. I have plenty of freezer storage space.

 I don't see why not.  From what I've read, frozen has better nutrient value than canned.  The key is to blanch them, not to cook them until mushy, but as firm as you can leave them and still find them palatable.  The longer they're cooked, the less nutrients.

I get my green beans frozen here, because the fresh ones in Japan cost a fortune.  It's interesting living in a foreign country - some things are dirt cheap - tangerines, cabbage, onions, carrots...  But if I want some celery, it's almost $1 for ONE STALK.  (Unless I go to Costco across town and there it is $3 for three bunches.  I totally don't get it...) 

Original Post by udokier: Are you eating a LOT of fresh (uncooked) vegetables? They are very low in calories (in fact, I don't track or count carrots, celery, lettuce, broccoli, because it takes a LOT of these to even add up to 100 calories.

I have to log even my fresh vegetables. I just looked it up and I ate 300 calories yesterday just of fresh vegetables! 

I ate healthy food even when I was at my peak weight. The problem for me is portion size. You'd be amazed at the quantity of food I'm capable of putting away.