If you're feeling excessively hungry...

...you're doing it wrong. I've seen a number of posts about people who are really struggling with hunger. The common denominator between most that I have seen is that their calorie count is ridiculously low. If you are a person who generally ate 3500-4000 cal./day and you suddenly drop to 1200-1500 calories, you're body is going to think you're starving. I’m not talking about “starvation mode.” That is a completely different conversation for a different time. I’m talking about the plain old fact that your body is going to say, “Dude! I’m only getting a fourth of the food I normally get!” I promise I'm not trying to be mean, but come on. Use a little common sense. Here are a few tips that I can give you from my personal experience:

1) Calm down and exercise some patience. I know you hate your body. I know you hate your fat. I hated mine too; but if you let that hatred drive your decision making process, you'll fail. One of two things will happen: a) You’ll just give up because you are so miserable and hungry all the time; 2) You’ll just binge every few days because you’re so hungry, which is self-defeating. Use that melon on your shoulders for something other than a hat rack. Be smart.

2) Set a reasonable calorie goal. Track your “normal” calorie usage for a few days, and drop that count by 500 calories or so. If you want to go a little more hardcore than that, be mentally prepared to push the calorie count up a little in case you go too far. In other words, find a calorie count that doesn’t make you feel as though you are starving!

3) Be prepared to experience a little discomfort due to hunger. Even though you don’t want to feel like you are starving, you need to come to grips with the fact that you are going to feel frequent hunger pains. How can you not? You’ve cut your daily food intake to the point that your body is having to feed on its own reserves (i.e. its fat storage), particularly if you’ve added a rigorous exercise regiment. That’s the whole point of dieting. The keywords here, however, are "little discomfort." You should not be starving every minute of the day, but after about 2 hours that last 300-400 calorie meal should be starting to wear off. At the 3 hr. mark, you should be good and ready to eat a meal. (This is based on a diet where the person is consuming X number of calories every 3 hours or so, which you should be doing. X is determined by dividing your daily allotment of calories by 5 or 6 meals, which will be consumed about every 3-4 hours.)

4) Make the most out of your calories. If you do, you’ll rarely be extremely hungry. Try an experiment. Make yourself eat 2000 calories worth of broccoli or green beans in one day. Good luck! You’ll be so full you’ll puke. The point is that there are foods that you can eat which will fill you up, which take very few calories, and which are very good for you. I’m not saying that you should eat lettuce at every meal; if you do, you’ll fail. I’m saying that if you are smart about what you eat, you’ll experience less hunger. If you start making the most of every calorie, 2000 cal./day becomes a much tougher goal to hit.

5) Don’t mistake desire for hunger. I can eat a good size meal and still look over at a piece of chocolate cake and want it. This desire can easily be mistaken for hunger, but it’s not. All of us…let me say that again…ALL OF US eat based on some level of desire and pleasure. Eating isn’t some daily activity we do just so we can maintain our health like bathing or brushing our teeth. How many of you brush your teeth for the sheer pleasure of it? Eating certain foods brings wonderful sensations. I heard a guy say once, “I don’t eat for pleasure, I eat for purpose.” I understand the sentiment, but eating for pleasure is a purpose. It’s called eating for the purpose of experiencing pleasure. When you start eating for a purpose higher than pleasure, you’ll be there.

That was very insightful. Thanks!  It really set me at ease and I think I needed that.

Really? I just felt extremely patronized after reading that...

 well thanks, i was just thinking to myself how on earth am i supposed to cut 500 calories a day off and not starve to death?!  lol ok not starve to death but not be miserable either... i mean... if i get hungry, real hungry, i need to eat... otherwise i'm having all sorts of worse issues (like being spacey and not concentrating, nevermind disrupting others with my tummy rumbling).  i guess like you said, i'm going to have to accept some hunger.... if i trim a bit off each meal and try to add in more protein over carbs i'm hoping this will help.... i haven't been exercising at all... my reason being- it's freezing outside, and i wanted to get my eating in check first... so now that i've sort of gotten a handle on that i want to pick up the exercising a bit.

 

 

I heard a guy say once, “I don’t eat for pleasure, I eat for purpose.” I understand the sentiment, but eating for pleasure is a purpose. It’s called eating for the purpose of experiencing pleasure. When you start eating for a purpose higher than pleasure, you’ll be there.

wow you really put a lot of thought into this, didnt you? well, thanks for the info! i love the line about pleasure and purpose llol

I've had similar conversations with my husband (who is "naturally" slim) about the reasons for eating and he says that he eats to live.  I'm the opposite, subscribing to the pleasure principle, and I live to eat.  And I agree that there is power in learning to differentiate between real hunger - you haven't eaten in a few hours -and what I call mouth hunger, that is, wanting to eat because it would taste good or be soothing emotionally, etc.  

yup i certainly enjoy eating :)  and you should!  i think because there was a point where i was really really strict with my diet and super skinny and i ate just to live because i had too... now i've gone the complete other way... i just love trying foods and enjoy eating them.... i'm trying to find a nice balance in here.... i think finding healthy foods that i enjoy eating and having a reward that isn't terrible but isn't perfect is good too. 

eating should be peasurable.  the thing is to get beyond thinking that more is better.  the fact that i'm excessively hungry doesn't mean that i need an excessive amount of food; a small amount can and should be just as satisfying an overloaded plate.

Also (this has been proven) most people mistake thirst for hunger.  Just throwing that out there.

Nik 

This was one of my first things I learned on the road to loss that just blew my mind...


Ok...so you eat..and you eat enough to gain up to an obese level..
You are far from not eating..But you are eating ALL the wrong junky things. Most overweight people are malnourished!
And yeh...it seems right now after learning about nutrition and knowing twinkies and ding dongs dont support a healthy lifestyle...

BUT

It just doesnt match up with just off the cuff thinking.

Your body craves calories AND nutrients.

So eat well and/or take your vitamins. Without taking vitamins I probably wouldnt of been able to kick the junk food thing to the curb. I still have junk..But not like I used too.
The body will trick you into wanting empty calories because it needs nutrition.

I just thought that was so interesting.

You can cut 500-1000 per day. Its best if you are overweight to cut 1000 if you can. The body can be resistant to loss at higher weights in some persons. Also it cuts out that human error factor in estimating portions wrong.

Easiest way to start any type of diet is to just improve your food types first and stop gaining. Work on quantity next.

I think the food for pleasure is where a lot of us have difficulties..if we try teaching ourselves to eat for fuel instead of pleasure all the time..might help keep us from sabotaging our diets all the time :)

there's nothing wrong with getting pleasure from food, as long as it's not your primary or only source of pleaure.