Soo hungry

I do a lot of physical activity, and follow a pretty consistent diet. Every now and then, maybe once a week, I feel really hungry, so I'll eat a little more than normally. Then, all of a sudden, I feel starving. So again, for my next snack, I'll eat a little extra- maybe 1/4 cup oats in my tuna instead of just tuna and veggies, or a half of a banana after eating 3/4 can tuna and 1/4 cup oats, etc. but everytime I eat more, I feel hungrier than before. I feel like I did nothing but eat today, and I feel so hungry I could cry!! And I'm soooooo irritated. What the hell?? Did this ever happen to anyone else?

This could indicate that you're not getting enough calories in your diet. Is your activity level set to "very active"? Adding an extra half banana or 1/4 cup of oats is really just a handful of extra calories; it might be that your body is telling you that you should be eating more on a consistent basis. How many calories are you eating daily?

 . For the past week maybe 15-1600 calories?? I started trying to eat that much because I wan't losing any weight, and then I stopped counting, and I ran out of peanut butter so lately maybe a few hundred calories less. I eat really clean foods-oats for carbs with meats, fruit, veggies, natural peanut butter...I find it hard to keep my calories up without eating a lot of peanut butter, and I think the excess fat in my diet made me fatter (I'm a peanut butter addict). I know you need fat, but too much of any fat can make you fat?? Or will you only gain if you eat more than you burn??

Original Post by gobbley:

 . For the past week maybe 15-1600 calories?? I started trying to eat that much because I wan't losing any weight, and then I stopped counting, and I ran out of peanut butter so lately maybe a few hundred calories less. I eat really clean foods-oats for carbs with meats, fruit, veggies, natural peanut butter...I find it hard to keep my calories up without eating a lot of peanut butter, and I think the excess fat in my diet made me fatter (I'm a peanut butter addict). I know you need fat, but too much of any fat can make you fat?? Or will you only gain if you eat more than you burn??

Yes, that's how it works.  Extra fats or extra protein or extra carbs, any macronutrient if in excess of the amount you burned will be stored as fat.  Eating too much fat will not make you fat.  Eating too many carbs will not make you fat.  Eating right before bed will not make you fat unless you ate more than you burned.

Well in that case, that amount of calories made me fat. I think I ate too little for too long and really screwed up my metabolism.

Completely off topic, but I read that you were eating oats with tuna.  Is that like you cook oatmeal and eat it with the tuna?  Or are you eating dry oatmeal?

I eat a lot of dry oatmeal. Is that bad???

I didn't know you could eat it without cooking it.  I was just curious.  I like cooked oatmeal for breakfast and wanted to incorporate it into for meals.  So you just mix the dry flakes with the meat?  I was thinking about rolling chicken in it to oven bake.

I put 1/4 cup of oats in with the tuna, and add a few spoonfuls of fat free plain yogurt. Its a little plain, so sometimes I put a homemade honey mustard sauce in with it- mustard and splenda. When you eat the crap that I do, you have to be creative

Another cool thing to do is to make fish cakes out of it. tuna, oats, 2 egg whites, basil, worcestershire sauce,garlic, and some pepper-throw it all in abowl and make balls-flatten them out and fire them on a frying pan. you can even top them with fat free cheese slices, or put them between some bread.

I'll have to try the tuna cake thing.  I'm not big on canned tuna (love it as sushi or steak but not in the can), but I bought some trying to be healthy and now have nothing to do with it.  I also have some of the chicken in the can.  That's bound to be better for me than a beef cheeseburger.  Thanks for the ideas!

I tend to get hungry too.  Make sure you are getting plenty of protein, a bit of healty fat and some fiber when you start to get really ravenous.  If you satisfy your craving with simple carbs,  your blood sugar may spike, then drop making you really hungry again.  A "down" or "irritated" mood is another sign your blood sugar has dropped, possibly following a carb-induced spike.

Also I wonder how much spenda you are using.  I've read that artificial sweetener makes your body crave the number of calories it thinks it should have gotten when it experienced the sweet taste. 

Personally I tend to overdo it on the diet soda.   I've been drinking iced tea made with "Good Earth Original" tea recently and its a great alternative.  It has a sweet, cinnamon flavor with no caffeine, no artificial sweetener, no calories and lots of flavor.  Just put 3-4 bags in a 2 Qt pitcher full of cool water, pop it in the fridge, and a few hours later you have iced tea.  No need to boil water or stick it out in the sun.

Original Post by gobbley:

Another cool thing to do is to make fish cakes out of it. tuna, oats, 2 egg whites, basil, worcestershire sauce,garlic, and some pepper-throw it all in abowl and make balls-flatten them out and fire them on a frying pan. you can even top them with fat free cheese slices, or put them between some bread.

Could you broil them in the oven instead of frying them? 

I forgot to add chopped oninos to that, but yea, you probably could. Sometimes I munch on them from the pan while I'm waiting for them to heat if I'm super hungry...They're pretty tasty!