Feel like I'm starving myself to death.

Have been counting my calories for 4 days now and trying to stay around my recommended 1700 calorie limit. All I'm able to eat is vegetables, vegetable soup, rye bread with tomato and cucumber, more freakin rye bread with vegetable soup. I have been to the toilet every hour for the past two days and I just dunno how much more of this I can take :D Today I thought I'd have a bit of chicken with some potatoes and mushroom. I had four medium sized potatoes and according to this counter that's 381 calories. The chicken leg/thigh thing without the skin was regular size yet that was almost 600 calories. How can I eat when in one single meal there's almost all of my daily calories even though the plate looks empty? i.e a bit of chicken and four bloody potatoes.. I know it'll take some time for my stomach to shrink but this is ridiculous. Wouldn't be so bad if it was processed food but this is all local produce cooked at home by me in the oven. Typical that my first post is a rant :S Anyone got any advice? I keep going to bed hungry and my mouth waters when I think about the rye bread and tomato I get to eat for breakfast lol.

I think you need to diversify what you're eating.  Not only do you seem to feel sick of having to force yourself to eat the same thing over and over again, your body's probably feeling the same way. 

Anyway, the fact that in one meal you've eaten over 900 calories is a bit shocking.  If you're trying to lose weight, I would reccomend eating smaller meals, but eating them more often.  Since you have a 1700 Kcal goal per day, I would reccomend eating 6 small meals a day (intervals of 2-3 hours), each summing up to about 300 calories.  Not only will you stop going to bed hungry, you'll feel satisfied (not stuffed to your ears) througout the rest of the day.

Drink lots of water and good luck!

Oh and fill your plate with steamed veggies (not the starchy ones i.e potatoes) so you feel like you're eating more aesthetically.

I eat around 1300 calories a day and its really not that hard. Your new at it so right now its like a big experiment. Instead of the leg/thigh try the breast of the chicken. White meat is less caloric. Also, instead of four small potatoes try a sweet potato. A medium one is around 200 cals I think. Or you could try to eat maybe 2 small potatoes and a side of broccoli. I also like eating salads for a meal. I mean lettuce has like next to nothing in calories. Add a bunch of veggies to it, some protein like chicken or cottage cheese and you will fill up fast. You could even add a side to that like a sweet potato or a fruit.

I may have found my problem.. should I be weighing this stuff before or after it's cooked? Just realised that I weighed the chicken before I'd cooked it and it was still on the bone :/ stuuupiddd since I don't eat the bones.. Correcting those little things took off about 300kcal Things would go smoother if I were smarter :D

I was going to say, sounds like you overestimated the chicken, but looks like you've figured that out. Almost 300 still sounds a little high, unless it's a huge chicken leg.

Are you really eating 1700 calories in vegetables and bread? That's a lot of vegetables and bread.

Yeah I really am eating mainly veg and bread. The bread seems to be the main culprit but I need fibre to balance out all the veg. Tried having breakfast cereal yesterday but it bumped up my carbohydrates and I got an A- day. I'm having trouble trying to fit any other kind of food in. Everytime I look at the packaging it's always at least 100kcal per 100g and 100g isn't much. I wanted to eat fish fingers yesterday for supper but for 300kcal I got 3 fish fingers.. three fish fingers!! what kind of meal is that? I guess my food intake was pretty limited before due to money and fatty food is cheap food about a euro per meal for fish fingers and chips.. now I'm trying to eat healthier and still can't figure out anything to eat that I can afford.

Original Post by harleyquine:

 The bread seems to be the main culprit but I need fibre to balance out all the veg.

Er...what?  Vegetables are pretty high-fiber, I don't think you need high-fiber bread to balance that out.  Recommended fiber intake I think is 25-35g per day, which shouldn't be hard to get if you're eating lots of veggies already.

It sounds like you need more protein.  It's important to have protein with every meal because your body doesn't store it for future use.  Fish, chicken, tofu, dairy, lean red meats, beans, etc - try to get something with every meal.  There are also some cereals that have more protein, like Kashi Go Lean (not sure what you're trying right now).

I've been at it about 2 weeks now and understand how you feel.  I figure I won't lose weight these first few weeks because I'm playing around with different foods and combinations untill I find something that works.  I got a great tip about protien from another post.  It's been helping.  I upped my protein intake by adding cheese as a snack (Fat Free Cottage Cheese, Cheese sticks etc).  I'm not as hungry all the time.

I would suggest checking your protein intake. Your post leads me to believe that you are not eating nearly enough protein to keep you full... some inexpensive protein options are:

Eggs
Egg whites
Lentils
Black Beans
Tuna
Cottage cheese
Peanut butter
Nuts

Also, watch your bread consumption. Try to get the majority of your carbs from whole grains and veggies instead. This simple swith will also help to keep you feeling full longer.

Best of luck!!

I definitely agree with what awestendorf said about protein. You should also make sure you are getting good healthy fats in your diet like nuts, olive oil, avocado, fish, eggs, and even dairy in moderation. For me, the key to feeling satisfied on fewer calories has been making sure to include protein, fiber, and fat in every meal. It takes your body longer to digest them, so you feel full for longer.

Try planning out your whole day’s worth of food before hand so you can make sure you get enough of everything at the right times. Also, trying to get A+ and sticking to the calorie limits all at once can be hard. I started by getting to my calorie goals (it was 1700 now its 1500) and then work on improving my scores from B+ to A. If you are looking for something different this is a sample of what I ate the other day

Breakfast (9am)- Omelette: 1 egg, 1 egg white, ½ onion, ¼ red bell pepper (About 180 calories) Coffee: With ¼ cup skim milk. (27 calories)

Snack (10:30am): Home made muffin (100 Calories…I make 9 instead of 12) http://caloriecount.about.com/low-cal-banana- muffins-recipe-r1191

 Lunch (noon) - Salad: 5 mushrooms, ½ onion, ½ tomato, ½ red bell pepper, ¼ cup corn-I discovered I don’t like lettuce and that is why I didn’t eat salads. So I stopped putting lettuce in my salads. It makes them higher in calories but more filling Dressing: ½ teaspoon olive oil, 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon mustard (around 137 for both).  I add a pre-cooked chicken breast to the salad for (120 Calroes) http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-presid ents-choice-blue-menu-skinless-i87882

Snack (1:30) 2 cup strawberries (100 calories)

Snack (3:00) 1 Fat free yogurt (60 calories)

Snack (4pm) 2 large pickles (20 calories) –this one is controversial because of the salt

Snack (5pm) 1 bag of smart pop (100 calories)

Dinner: 1 cup white rice (230 calories according to the brand I use); 2 cups broccoli “sautéed” in PAM cooking spray with garlic and sliced ginger (ginger is for flavour you don’t want it) (100 calories) ; 4 oz of protein - Chicken, Salmon or Pork (This is usually between 250 and 200 calories depending)  I try to make my protine myself but here is some some stuff you can look for: http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-presid ents-choice-blue-menu-skinless-i87882 http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-presid ents-choice-blue-menu-pork-i137474 http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-presid ents-choice-blue-menu-italian-i137471

Total is 1424!!!!

You have enough left over for 1 more snack. I would recommend 2 triangles of Laughing cow light cheese and crackers (200 calories-depending on the type and number of crackers)

I have found that if I put in what I'm going to eat for breakfast, lunch, & dinner before I eat it, I then know how many calories I'm spending. I look at it like I have a budget that I'm allotted to spend each day.  my allottment is 1000-1200 calories per day.  Some days I spend more like 1500 cal. those are my date nights with my husband. I give myself one day to eat whatever I want and not feel guilty.  It took me two weeks to NOT feel hungry all the time and also to not think about food ALL the time.  I'm on my 3rd week and feeling much better.  I've lost 17lbs and it's helping to see what I eat before I eat it.  Today for lunch I had a Albacore(Tuna) single serve packet, two Roma tomatoes, two hardboiled eggs, two packets relish, two packets miracle whip and only spent 346 calories by my food log.  I was still way under my allotment because I'm just not hungry much.  Good luck, you do need protein so stock up on fish.

Hi.  Sounds like you could be in Ireland (bloody + euro)!  I recommend Ryvita as a lower calorie bread substitute.  Pretty fibrous, too.  I've just about cut out bread completely, which I still find VERY difficult.  Freshly baked bread is about one of the best things in life.  Sigh.  I also eat Weetabix for breakfast (good with low fat milk and bananas).  Not too high carb, and fairly filling.  Don't forget to eat snacks -- yoghurts and fruit are good.  I sometimes eat an apple about 20 minutes before dinner, which (I think) stops me picking and eating too much.  I also keep an emergency snack ready in the fridge (usually a hard-boiled egg), 'cos some days I'm just hungrier than others and having something available stops me reaching for the bad stuff.

I agree with missmissyrowe that it takes a while to settle into this calorie limit thing.  For a while (two weeks) I was starving, and immediately after that I went through about a week of feeling that my calorie limit was way too much and I couldn't possibly eat it all.  Keep going, though.  It does get easier, and once you start losing weight, perhaps more enjoyable!

Hiya everyone. Thanks for the great advice. I'm copying and pasting it into wordpad and gonna try to come up with a better menu based on your suggestions. I like eggs and fish so will see about getting those into my diet. It's early days yet but I've already lost weight. Dunno if I've lost that too fast though almost two kilograms and it's day 5.. probably just the water from going to the toilet so much. Will keep at 1700 for a couple of weeks and see what's what. Tomorrow I have my first cheat day :D got a roast planned with lots of veg so am looking forward to that.  Josephie not in Ireland but I'm Scottish and moved to Finland seven years ago. Was thinking about food choices in Finland last night also. They don't like importing brands here so when I went online to find a 1700-calorie diet menu examples they have foods that you just can't get here and brand names I've never heard of. Makes it a bit tricky. Anyhoo will battle on.. thanks everyone!