I haven't started a weight loss plan properly yet - just signed up today and starting that tomorrow - but I 've restricted my calories a bit today, or attempted to. I must have had quite a bit over 1400 calories. I'm absolutely starving.
I'm so worried I'm not going to be able to do this. I'm 5 foot 0 and been around 10st7 for the last 5 years. I want to get down to 9 stone. I'm doing the 12 week programme, have downloaded the app and the meal mixer thing. My immediate 12 week goal is to break my bad habits and hopefully lose 10 lbs in time for my friends wedding.
I'm just worried about being hungry. It's so distracting and unpleasant. It's almost unbearable. How do people deal with this - any tips?
Thank you in advance
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Persephone33
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If you're hungry, you're not eating enough. Hunger is unbearable. It's the primary reason people "fall off the wagon" when calorie counting.
Look into what you're eating rather than how much. 1400kCal of fattening food will not result in weight loss. You can verify this for yourself by eating 1400kCal of chocolate cake for a few days if you wish
Eating healthily often requires stumbling up quite a steep learning curve - a lot of your current staples need to disappear from your plate, and you'll need to start buying different foods and learning to cook them in appetizing ways. If you like eggs, a good start might be having 2-3 scrambled eggs in the morning, cooked with proper butter and a dash of cream (not vegetable oils or margarine - stuff from a chemical plant is not food). Bake some wholemeal bread and have a small slice with you eggs. Try to get into the habit of eating some green vegetables with every meal (even breakfast). Throw the breakfast cereals in the bin.
Likewise with your other meals! No pour-over sauces and pasta. Cook some meat and vegetables.
Are you doing the NHS weight loss plan? if so the 1400 calories/day is a generic one, if you complete the NHS BMI calculator it works out a lower and upper range of calories to loose weight and its recommended to aim for the middle nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-we...
You shouldn't be hungry but if you think you have eaten a lot and still feel hungry then drink 2 glasses of water since it maybe that you are a bit dehydrated so it fluid you need not food
Follow this link to our chat thread and a list of all the activities we run. We've found active participation to be key to success, especially with our weigh-ins and Daily Diary.
Thank you! I'm not in denial or anything but that sounds a lot like my current diet. I do eat scrambled eggs, I only ever eat wholemeal or spelt sourdough from the wholefood shop, I only ever eat proper butter, I do not eat pour over jarred sauces (if I have pasta which is not that often at the moment I make my own sauce, tomato based with olive oil, by I am tending to avoid pasta these days).
I think the issue is 1. I have a massive appetite and don't know when to stop 2. I am extremely uncomfortable with the feeling of even mild hunger 3. snacking while I'm out and about - convenience foods (I'm a gardener by trade and go from job to job in my vehicle). Stuff like, I will stop at Lidl and get one of those marzipan eggs with plum and madeira filling - it's about 450 calories. That's the only kind of thing that seems to truly satisfy me sometimes. Guess I'm a sugar addict.
The other thing is that I have already put this weight on years ago, when I worked in an office and was eating jamaican street food for lunch etc. I haven't really put on any weight for about 5 years (although I've fluctuated between 10st - 10st7) . What I'm eating is maintaining my weight, so, it's just what I need I guess, give or take. To lose weight, I have to eat less than I need. Therefore, hunger!
The water is a good idea. I am thinking of trying intermittent fasting, because it seems like only a big meal will satisfy me, so if I skip one I can have more of the other...it seems to be nighttime hunger that really distresses me, so if I make dinner my bigger evening meal that seems to work. And cutting out the convenience foods!
Are there any tips to deal with the actual hunger - any distraction tips or something?
Thanks everyone for replying so quickly and letting me ramble on.
The calories in the marzipan egg is irrelevant - it's the fact that it's a marzipan egg
You're undoing all your good work by not eating enough, so you're driven to binge on rubbish. The combination of those two things - inadequate proper food plus an intermittent sugar rush - is what's causing the problem.
Of course you have a massive appetite if you have a physical job. Your body knows what it's doing. Just have bigger meals. You do not have to eat less to lose weight - the confusion arises, I think, because we conflate 'weight' with 'fat'. They're two entirely different things. Bodyfat is stored for a reason, and the amount you have at any given time is under hormonal control. Fat is not just a big bucket that your body uses to dispose of unwanted energy.
If you eat less - such that you're feeling ravenously hungry - your body will aggressively conserve bodyfat because it thinks there's a food shortage. As you've already noticed, having a bigger evening meal and avoiding rubbish does the trick. So just run with that. Keep the stodge to a minimum - especially grain-based products - and the flab will disappear in its own good time. If you want to speed things up you can go full-blown low-carb (join the LCHF group if you want tips on that), but broadly speaking, eating enough of the right things - and avoiding marzipan eggs - will result in the bodyfat ratio that you want. In time.
For what it's worth, I also have an outdoor job and I eat close to 3000 calories a day (in two meals) when we're working on a big project. My bodyfat is about 15%. I think I'd die if I were limited to 1400!
I do one of two things, depending on what time I'm starting.
If we're doing a lot of manual work we start at 6:30am and take a break at 11am. I don't eat anything before or during the morning shift, but I bring about 350ml of milky coffee with me in a thermos. Brunch at 11am is 4 eggs, bacon, sausages, and some vegetables (whatever I have on hand) cooked in the bacon grease. We restart at 3pm and I bring some salty beef broth with me. I have a very large evening meal about 7pm. Meat and vegetables, typically cooked in coconut milk (just cos I like coconut).
If we're starting at a more normal hour - 8am - I have my coffee and my breakfast (same food, although a bit less of it) before work. At lunchtime I have a 2-egg omelette. Dinnertime is about 6pm.
I drink about 4L of water per day, but I'm not recommending you do that. It's hot here.
You should not need to eat even if you're doing heavy manual labour - your body stores fat to tide you over between meals, and it's been shown experimentally that the power output of your fat-based energy pathway is exactly the same as the glycolysis pathway. If you find you need to snack regularly - you can't go more than a couple of hours without eating - it's because your body has "forgotten" how to burn fat, and I suggest pressing the reset button with a couple of weeks low-carb adaptation. This won't give you instant results, but it'll set you on the right path: you'll lose weight, you'll have a much-reduced need to eat carbs, and you'll find that you can go longer and longer between meals.
I'm always a little confused though about the whole activity thing. I mean, of I do like 3 hours of gardening a day is that 'very active'? I don't think I usually do more.
Sounds like an achievable plan you are tackling over the next weeks. You said you are afraid of being hungry? I can tell you it is temporary. You can think of it as a scratched knee when you fall down a bike as a kid. It hurts in the first moment, but not for long! It will fade and it will be only a bit if a sensation a couple of days later when you touch the scar or the plaster. So one advice is patience, the other don't touch the scar, speaking don't think too much of you having a "painful" hunger. It is there, but it is way less painful than you imagine. When it comes, try to visualise how happy, strong, and determined you might feel once you have achieved your goal. You can be proud of overcoming little obstacles on the way. Don't think about what you miss out on (that wonderful flavour, that comfort food, the ritual evening snack) and rather think of what you will gain from remai ing strong. The wonderful feeling of a snack is gone after minutes, but the achievement of being strong stays with you for long.
I just saw this post now, even though it says 3 months ago. How are you doing with your diet? I'm exactly the same height as you, so I know that EVERY POUND shows up on the scale!😣☹
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No physical changes so far...
12 Weeks Done
Why am I so hungry?
Already doing it
