why is eating 1500 cals so damn difficult?

i'm overweighed by 20 lbs and i'm supposed to eat 1500 cals per day. well i just can't do it. see, i decided i will lose this 20 lbs TWO YEARS AGO and i learned i am supposed to eat 1500 cals. since two years i haven't lost a single pound. simply because i can not eat 1500 cals. i swear i try everyday but i am so unbeliveably hungry that  i always give in and eat more until i satisfy my hunger. that usually adds up to 2000-2500 cals and i am maintaining on it. how do i do it that i don't feel so hungry at 1500 cals? does it come down to will power and suffering through the hunger pains...? cause it seems i tried out all other ideas...

just eat more fruit and veggies =D

they are less calories yet they fill you up.

Or plan your eating times, so that you know when you can eat and when you have to wait a little.

And if you are constantly hungry, like me, then drink lots and lots of water...sometimes it fills you up

 

=D 

If you're choosing the right foods, you'll find that 1500 calories can actually be a lot of food! Have huge portions of vegetables with every meal, and make sure you eat them before you can take more of anything else. Try replacing veggies for high calorie starches... e.g. tuna in a green salad instead of on bread, or chicken with broccoli instead of pasta. I find proteins and fibery foods to be the most filling. If I eat very healthily, I am almost too full to reach 1500 calories! 

How many meals a day are you splitting the cals into a day? If you split the portions into 5 - 300 cal meals that might help... I normally eat 6 - 300cal with veggie snacks every day and sometimes I almost have to force myself to not skip meals... I'm never really hungy... It took about 2 weeks to train my body to be acustomed to this style of eating... 

... hmm.... thanks... this i really helpful and in theory i know this, but somehow i just can't do it. my typical day right now:

wake up 5.45

coffee

vigorous yoga (burns 400 cals :)) (3xweek) (or swimming on Sundays)

breakfast - fruit or whole wheat bread with honey or light cheese

snack - mocha (can't live without that)

lunch - salad or soup or sauted veggies, sometimes w/eggs or cheese

dinner - whole wheat pasta, sauted veggies, sandwiches

go to bed about 10-11pm

i have too much of everything and of course there are also the crazy chocolate binges and going out for food. it seems i've tried everything from 5 meals to 2 meals, not eating breakfast, not eating dinner, drinking lots of water.... ugh i guess it comes down to strong will i really admire you guys that you succeeded!

I have the opposite problem, usually I find it hard to get up to 1200 calories because I'm just not hungry.

But then I have those days, and I just want food food and more food.  To keep myself from pigging out I have a cup of herbal tea.  It's delish and almost no cals!  It might help you curb some cravings :)

But otherwise I agree with eating lots of small meals throughout the day, and eat lots of fiber, fruits, and veggies!

i think what you're going through is torturous. even if you trick yourself into delaying eating, and manage to get down to 1500 cals for a short time, it's unlikely you'll stick with it for a lifetime. if you succeed, you'll probably gain it back and then some. it also means spending the entire day thinking about food/"not thinking" about food. 

i think it's important to follow general principles, but it's easy, and harmful in so many ways, to obsess over calories and have this punishing relationship with food and to punish yourself.

(when learning a new way of doing anything it's not bad to be a bit more careful - tendency for self-deceit is strong - but it's painful to even read your post.)

i read an article critical of the whole thermodynamic theory of calorie exchange and posted it on the forum. another member of the service felt it made sense of her experience - she said that after months of restricing calories and exercising, there was some weight loss. she said she's lost a lot more weight since moving to whole grains vs processed carbs, and now her only activities are housework. here it is again: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story /0,,2198862,00.html

 (the idea is that hormones - insulin - is important to regulate, not just cals in and out, and the way people think it's good to deal with now is by changing carbs.)

i don't know, in fact no one really can say decisively what works. maybe you could try some sort of diabetic-friendly guidelines and see if that helps, but what you're doing to yourself now just sounds wrong, from a psychological point of view.

 that said, from personal experience and my mother: meals that include a good bit of protein seem to fill you up better. i like just a bite of ham or chorizo for a snack.

Are you getting enough protein?  Also, from what you've posted that you are eating, it doesn't appear that WHAT you are eating is a problem.  Everything looks pretty healthy, so your problem may be portion control.   You didn't post any amounts ... do you weight or measure your food?  It is important to know not just what your are eating, but how much.

I had to train myself to do that for the first month or so (it was also necessary for my husband's diabetes) ... and now, on things I eat frequently, I can pretty much eyeball it and know how much it is.

Also, breaking your calories up over several small meals per day can help keep your blood sugars leveled out, which may help prevent those sinking hunger attacks.

Here is my suggestion, based upon your sample menu

Breakfast: try to get in either some complex carbs or protein.  Oatmeal fills me up a lot, as does Kashi golean cereal, each are around 130-140 per serving.  Or, do fruit + 1-2 hard boiled eggs (I usually skip the yolk).

For that mocha, make sure its as healthy as you can get it :-)

Lunch: looks a little light. If its a salad, make sure it has some protein on it, along with low-cal dressing (if you use dressing).  If its soup, perhaps have some fruit and maybe a side-salad... I usually do a turkey sandwich, ~300 calories, plus some fruit and veggies.  It fills me up.

I'd recommend a snack between lunch and dinner, because this is usually 5-6 hours... It doesn't have to be huge, I'd recommend something between 100-150 calories to hold you over.  Perhaps almonds, or an apple, or some crackers, maybe veggies, etc.

Dinner: whole wheat pasta and sandwiches?  That looks like too much from the grains category.  I usually try to have 1-2 servings of grain in a meal, where one serving is 1/2 cup pasta or 1 slice of bread.  Therefore, if I have it on my sandwich, I just go for fruits and veggies.

Honestly, I'd break it up into B: 200 cal L: 400 cal D: 500 cal S: mocha (200 cal?) and two ~100 calorie snacks.  That's 1500 :-)  

No one says that you have to lose the weight quickly by eating only 1500.  If you are maintaining your weight at 2000-2500 calories, reducing by only 100-200 calories each day could result in losing about a pound a month. 

I keep a very detailed journal of what I eat and find that it keeps me honest more than anything else that I do. You might think about really following what you are eating over a few days and then find some ways that you can trade in some calorie-dense foods for some nutrition-dense foods. I have found that drinking peppermint tea occasionally during the day calms my stomach and keeps me from feeling empty. I pretty much stay around 1400-1600 calories per day and am rarely hungry. It took awhile however to find the right combination of food and timing of meals that I could tolerate and for my body to adjust to the decreased calories. Good luck.

I eat around 1200 cals a day and have been able to stay quite satisfied. It is all about finding low cal alternatives for the high cal foods you may be eating right now. Salads have helped tremedously. You can eat a huge filling salad for a small amount of cals.

And I have trouble reaching up to 1500 --

Eat fiber-rich foods -- lots of whole grains, vegetables, fruit.  Beans are really very filling and pack a punch for really not too many calories.  Broccoli, spinach, asparagus and other salad greens are a staple at lunch and dinner.  Quesadilla's, wraps, and burritos made on LaTortilla Factory (or generic equiv) wraps -- how can you beat that?

Eat a little bit of protein, fat, and carbs at every meal -- the fat makes you feel good (provides a mouth feel most of us need) and combined with the protein helps to keep you satisfied for much longer than even the best whole grain carbs.

Drink lots of water throughout the day -- try drinking 6-8oz about 10-20 mins before you sit down to a meal.

It is purely anecdotal, particularly for non-diabetics, but I sprinkle a gram of cinnamon on my cereal every morning -- tastes great and if it really does work to keep my blood sugars steady -- all that much better.

Keep a food journal and keep it honest.  After you have journaled for about a week with no attempt to change the way you eat you will be able to go back and see exactly where your problems lie.  Then you can make your adjustments

good luck

Are you eating nutrient-dense foods?  Getting enough fiber?  Plenty of veggies and water?  All of these things help make it much easier to live on fewer calories.  If you eat much processed mass-produced food, you will probably feel a lot hungrier, a lot of the time.

Eating more homemade, real foods  and a wide variety of fresh veggies has made it much easier for me...  And I'm a 6'2" guy living on about 1600-1700 cal per day.

Something I've found helpful --when you eat something healthy that actually DOES taste good and feels satisfying, write it down. Keep a running list.  Keep a similar list for diet foods that were a waste --tasted crappy, didn't fill you up, etc. When you shop, keep that first list handy. It's easy to forget what you ate weeks ago. You'll eventually find foods that work for you and your tastes.

Original Post by was128:

No one says that you have to lose the weight quickly by eating only 1500. If you are maintaining your weight at 2000-2500 calories, reducing by only 100-200 calories each day could result in losing about a pound a month.

That was going to be my suggestion!!!

1. Find the # of calories that don't leave you feeling hungry.

2. Eat that way for about 3 wks to a month.

3. Lower the caloric intake by 100 - 200 calories per day. Such a minor change that you may not notice it and your body won't rebel.

4. Each time you lower your calories numbers by 100, 150, or 200 calories, maintain that level for 3 wks to a month.

5. At the same time, follow the advice of the others.

It won't be a quick way to lose weight, but it should be easier to make the adjustments.

Before I joined CC+, I had no idea of the # of calories I was consuming, but I knew it was a lot! I also knew that in order to lose weight, I'd be limited to less than 2,000 calories. So I started out eating 2,000 calories per day.

Then I joined here and plugged in the numbers, the recommendation was for 1,550 calories per day. I knew that would be too much of a struggle to begin that way and ensure success. So I plan to do what I had suggested to you. At 2,000 I am not hungry, but I am fighting off the cravings for junk food and soda. I certainly don't want to be fighting those cravings and fighting the hunger feeling, too! When I have that under control, I will make the decrease, bit by bit. I'd rather be successful in the long run, than fighting hunger pangs in the short run.

It's not for everyone. That's what is nice about a place like this. Everyone can share what works for them and something just might "click" for a reader. Good luck!

I didnt read through everyones suggestions but by reading your food plan for a normal day, i would say try to cut out the cheese. About 1/4 c. of any cheese is about 110 calories. And then the Mocha, like someone had mentioned above, if you NEED it make it as healthy as possible. Chocolate has calories, and all that sugar that goes along with it has a crazy amount of calories attached to it as well.

If you want to maintain your caloric intake, you need to make sacrifices in order to reach those. Losing weight and eating healthy isn't about eating whatever you want. You an still eat healthy and yummy, it just takes more time and effort and yes, LESS eating out! ~ Anyway, good luck. I hope all of this advice (from everyone) has helped. 

What I do is I make sure to eat small bites and not really big ones, I count how many times I chew each bite--it has actually worked for me a lot. I used to eat my food really fast and barely chew. Now, I chew each bite about 12-25 times, its become naturally routine for me to coutn how many times I have chewed my food--I do it even when I don't mean to. Also I make sure to drink LOTS of water with my meals to help me satisfy my hunger. If I don't drink a lot of water I will just keep eating and won't stop. I usually drink 2-4 cups of water with each meal and snack.

 So: drink lots of water with your meals and snacks and eat slower and chew more. Good luck!!

I have crazy food binges as well. Last night I REALLY wanted chocolate so I gave in and ate just one ounce (which is 190 calories), its 65% dark cocoa chocolate so it has antioxidents in it which are good for you. Its really not good to ignore cravings because then when you get really deprived you go crazy and bigne and eat lots of calories. Its better to treat yourself with a little something (under 250 calories) every so often that way you can stay on track. Also I chew gum when I want to eat something and I know I shouldn't. I also recommend eating things like whole grain cereal and fruit for breakfast, a good snack is carrots with hummus. A healthy soup and salad is always a good meal as well. I also like Zone bars. Also when I crave something sweet I like to eat green grapes--they hit the spot and don't sabotage my diet. :)