Help! Eating all my calories before lunch!

Well Thanks to this site I believe I can see now why I am overweight. 

At home I do fine and barely eat 1500 calories when I am watching what I eat.  I know I should be eating closer to 1700 like it says but I just can't eat that much.

So...here is my problem.  WHEN I go to work I get up at 4:30 am and by noon I have ate 1200 already!!!  Its ridiculous...so now I have to pace out my last 500 calories so I am not starving by the time I go to bed.  There is no way its going to happen I still have 9 hours left!  blah. 

 

Do you still keep the exact same things in your house as before you started Calorie counting?

What time do you go to bed?  Do you have a really long day or just a bit of a time difference?  I'm sure you can work this one out, it doesn't matter what time your day starts and ends, most people are up for around 15 - 16 hours I guess and everyone has to fit their calorie allowance into those hours.

I think it is what you eat, not when you eat. Complex carbs, oatmeal and whole grains can hold you till 10 or 11 am, you can have some snacks between breakfast and lunch time to keep your stomach full. Also, what is your water intake? do you drink enough water? it is not just food that makes you feel full.

No I am slowly changing the foods we have in the house.  More fresh fruits, veggies.&nb sp; Lower calorie options for the same foods.  I can't have artificial sweetners though..so no 'diet' foods.   

I go to bed around 10pm-11pm.  So I have about an 18+ hour day.  I am lacking in the sleep department with 2 young kids. 

I am on my 4th glass of water.  I am not sure if that would be a high or low amount.

I would recommend trying some oatmeal for breakfast because it is pretty low calorie (150 cal for a half-cup).  I like to cut up a banana and mix it in to add some flavor.. pretty much any fruit would work.  This usually keeps me full for a few hours (not easy to do).  I also really like Dannon Light N Fit yogurt too.. only 60 calories and very tasty (not sure about artificial sweetners in this though).  Hope that helped a little for some more filling ideas.

after talking to my personal trainer, i figured that the best thing to do is eat about 4 times a day.

Meaning: for breakfast eat something light. for example follow the recommended grams or wutever per serving. people tend to eat about 2 servings at once so it means 2x the calories. if you eat that one serving and still are not satisfied, munch on some fruits or veggies.

then eat low calorie snack before lunch, because you will likely be getting hungry again.

for lunch eat something that will get you going for the rest of the day. some lean protien & maybe wheat?

then have another snack inbetween lunch & dinner

then for dinner have a meal between 500 calories.

 

so to sum it up, if u want to get to 1700 you will have to spread out yuor calories throughout the day.

for breakfast you can eat about 400calories  then lunch 500 and dinner 500 and then you have 300 you can use for snacks. or you can add some or take away some from meals. just make sure you dont starve yourself half the day and then eat 1000 in one meal.

when i first started eating like this, i didnt know how i would do it. b4 i would only eat about 1-2x a day. & for some reason i was not losing any weight. maybe even gaining some. its because you body stores the food as fat because it knows you wont get any more until waay later. but if u eat alot of small meals throughout the day, not only will you not get hungry, but your metabolism speads up and burns those calories, instead of storing it as fat (food for later) because it knows it will get some in a bit. make sense? lol

sorry this is soo long. but hopefully it will help. it helped me alot. just remember, spread those calories out. never eat more than about 700cal. at MOST in one meal.

 -Lana

I eat about 1500 to maintain, at least on days when I am inactive. So I plan my day in thirds... morning, afternoon, and evening.  In each third I eat 500 calories. Since I have three dairy servings daily, and the body can absorb only so much calcium at a time, I have a serving in each third of my day.  Within each third of my day, I also pace myself... leaving a 100 calories for late morning, afternoon or evening. So for example, I specifically make sure I don't eat more than 400 cals for supper, so I have room for an evening snack.  Since I have become accustomed to eating this way, I am virtually never hungry. On days when I get behind in calories, so a lot is left for late in day, I would get too full if I ate my usual low-cal filling foods all at once... and I might have to switch over to something like nuts to get in all the calories I need.

All great advice from everyone.

Losing weight means starving the body so that as the blood sugars get low our bodies compensate by converting fat to sugar. Assuming that, whilst awake, you get through about 100cals/hour sedentary, the a 400cal breakfast will leave you a couple of hours when your body is running on fat. You then have, say, another 400cals for lunch and hay presto, within a couple of hours you're running low again. I guess this is why dinner time can't come quickly enough, and also supper time is when the hunger pangs really kick in and the body by then is on full 'conversion mode. I call these the 'danger' periods.

To help, try plotting what you eat and exercise each hour during a 24hour period. Assume 50cals/hour sleeping and 75 while you are awake for being alive. This will show you, during the day, your 'danger periods - when your body is 'calorie starved' and the few periods when it is 'calorie happy'. It shows when you should look to snack to get by through the day and, with your schedule, certainly suggests 4 meals not 3 - its just that you need to eat and spread it through your day to get through.

If you mail me, I could let you have a little excel sheet that does this calculation for you.

 

A great snack (if you happen to like them) is a small bag of baby carrots. They take forever to eat, so you feel like you're eating a lot, but its only 60 cal for the whole bag. Celery sticks too, for that matter. From personal experience, the key seems to be to trick your body into thinking you're eating all the time without taking a hit on the calories.

My trainer suggested that I have two breakfasts, one at 645 in the morning, and one at my usual 930. The reason being, I was going to bed at 9pm to 10pm. The gap between the last meal and breakfast was far too large.

So, he has me now drinking a smoothie (I posted a recipe on this earlier, 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, 1/2 cup frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup fat free vanilla yogurt, and 1/2 cup 2% milk --- it's all in half cups, so it's easy to remember. Just equal parts fruit to equal parts milk+yogurt) for my first breakfast because I couldn't stomach "eating/chewing" something so early, and my second breakfast is a packet of oatmeal. Total calories for my morning meals usually stick around 400 calories or so, and I'm full through lunch time at 1130am.

I have to have a snack between lunch and dinner because I head to the gym after work, so usually my days are around 1400 calories total. I keep protein and fiber higher than carbs and such, so that keeps me full meal to meal.

Keep tweaking it until you find something that works for you.