How to eat in a calorie deficit and not be bloody starving!!

I've made many mistakes.
Mistake 1: giving up bread and pasta but still eating lots of white rice, rice cakes, popcorn, potatoes, chips etc. Basically compensating carbs for other carbs.

Mistake 2: thinking 'healthy' will help me lose weight. Loads of nuts instead of sugar or crisps, loads of fruit.

Finally realised I wasn't losing any weight despite denying so many foods.

I'm now on 800 cals a day and I'm fine, not hungry, though I still miss cake and bread. I had 13kg to lose, been doing it about a month now.

My 'secret' is to do an intense 9 day kickstarter. It rebalances your appetite and helps you realise the difference between hunger and wanting the taste of food. I was hungry for a couple of days. You use shakes and food for these first 9 days but then go to 2 decent meals per day. I do 2 days with one shake per day and loads of herbal tea. The third day I have a shake and around 500 cal meal. Keep going for 9 days like that. By the end of it, 2 meals per day (usually around 300 and 500) feels amazing!! I have lunch (1ish) and evening meal (6:30ish) and then don't eat after that. I am using the fast 800 recipes, loads of books. You can have sausages, bacon, smoked mackerel, steak, roast chicken, Thai curry - loads of really nice food but it takes time to cook. You can batch cook many of them.

I think when calorie restricting hunger is inevitable. I try and reframe the hunger as a positive thing and say to my self “hunger is my friend”

I haven’t read the full thread so apologies if I’m repeating. Search for the TDEE calculator on line (if you haven’t already) and work out what your maintenance calories are. Anything less than that gives you a deficit. I am working on 1400 a day to lose a pound a week and it just wasn’t working until I added in extra steps. You can’t outrun a bad diet, but it does assist! Use a tracker like MyFitnessPal or nutracheck to log everything you eat. You could try having 4 smaller calorie meals a day instead of 3, or add in regular snacks. Find out what works for you. Energy in versus energy out is the only way to lose weight so calorie counting makes sense to me. It does get easier once you get used to eating less.

I got from 12 stone to 10 st 2 doing IF and have maintained though gone up recently to 10 st 6 so getting stricter.

Dont eat til lunch then omelette / bulky salad minimal snacks normal dinner but on smaller plate. Usually have piece of choc or a biscuit most days

Dr Fung is not legitimate research, he is a quack

Distract yourself from thinking about food.

I tried 1500 - 1600 calories and lost 1.5 stone and it is difficult to not think about food at times, but avoiding an extra 100 calories here ( a slice of bread etc) and there is possible.

I did a spreadsheet of all the food I was eating (including, calories, fibre, protein etc) and it became easy to see where you can shave calories off, what are high calorie foods and drink, how smaller portions help.

Good luck

I would also say eggs, BUT I have eggs for breakfast every day and a couple of weeks ago I started getting belly ache straight afterwards, awful pain! so I've stopped them for a while. Miss my eggs!
Also look at MCT oil, it really helped my cravings.

Unless I’ve misunderstood, calorie deficit means burning more calories than you consume. So you need to know what calories you burn that day to know if you’ve achieved a deficit.

Obviously the lower the calorie intake the easier it is to achieve deficit through burn off but your body needs x calories per day for general health. Also the discomfort of hunger won’t help your willpower.

So in my unqualified opinion it is better to eat what you need and increase activity to burn off excess calories. Good luck 🙂

Eat protein in most meals and you'll feel full. I struggled with restricted calories, but 1.5 years later I'm fine with it now. Salad is a good extra. Snacks like apples and popcorn are good fillers. Good luck. Freeze your feddo bars for a longer lasting treat that's lower in calories than a full size bar. You'll need to do 10,000 steps a day as well as the calorie counting.

I found things that are harder to eat, like apples, raw carrots, raw mange tout etc helped. Sparkling water

Have you been eating yoghurt and granola for breakfast under the illusion that it's a healthy option?

It's not! Granola is a treat breakfast for me now - got a shock once when I realised after actually weighing out the portion of Nice n Nobbly I would usually have that I was basically sprinkling the equivalent in calories and sugar of a chocolate croissant on my Greek yoghurt.

Ditto a cereal bar is about one of the worst things to eat if you are trying to lose weight.

As everyone else above has said - you need a massive rethink of what you are actually eating.

On work days
I now often skip breakfast or perhaps just have a boiled egg. I'll have a big glass of water and a coffee.

Around 10.30am I start to snack on the veg crudités and tomatoes I've brought with me from home. At lunchtime I have salad type thing which is usually a lot of protein (I roast chicken/ beef etc on a Sunday and the leftovers do my lunches for a few days).

Evening meal can be quite high in calories but I focus on it being nutritious and tasty. Boiled potatoes coated in proper butter, good quality meat or fish, lots and lots of veg.

I probably eat around 1250 -1400 calories a day (I do have breakfast at a weekend) and don't feel deprived or 'on a diet'.

I've only seen one person mention psyllium husk, surprisingly!

I am not trying to lose weight right now (although I should be, BMI creeping up again) so next monday, i'll be using psyllium husk if my healthy food leaves me hungry.

If you want to close the window on two meals a day while losing weight, but there's a period that's a bit tough to get through, mix a tea spoon of psyllium husk with 30mls of water and a spoon of yogurt. It doesn't have to taste great, it's food medicine to stop hunger pangs until you eat. I stopped needing it after a while, so the body gets used to two meals a day, but to begin with it helped a lot.

Protein, protein, protein and some fibre thrown in. Try and incorporate 100g of protein in to your daily meals. If you like granola, m&s do a great high protein one. Cut out bread. Pasta is not your friend. Aldi do some great protein products too.

I have a snack of 2 low fat babybels for example rather than crisps etc.

You need to massively increase your protein intake. Ditch the granola as it's high calories and won't keep you full. Eat more eggs, cottage cheese, fat free yoghurt, chicken, tuna etc. it keeps you fuller for longer.

Definitely more protein and a less refined sugar. Eggs would keep you full longer than a cereal bar or granola.
crisps are empty calories.

eggs, lean meat, fish, tuna, skyr, protein shakes. Brown bread. Lots of veggies.

There's a reason for the good old MN cliché 🥗🥗🥗🍗🍗🍗🥗🥗🥗

Reduce carbs, include a small amount of whole grains and avoid refined white/ beige carbs.
Minimise sugars (for many this will include artificial sweetners as in some people they trigger a similar hormonal response) Fruit is better than refined sugars because of the fibre (and nutrients) but save it for later in the day.
Maximise fibre and potein
Include some healthy fats

Try and eat foods in their most natural form.

Get your muscle mass up with weights and maximise your movement. This will help your metabolic rate as well as the active calories.

As a middle-aged shortie, without exercise I'd be maintaining on about 1500 calories or less. A good muscle mass and regular exercise spares me from having to exist on what looks like a permanent restrictive, low calorie diet to most people whiie accompanied by ravenous teenagers and a 6ft husband who can eat 25+% more

Given some of the rather grim things people seem to be prepared to eat, there’s an alternative approach is this book https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fat-Girl-Slim-Ruth-Watson/dp/1844001695.

The Author is a restaurateur and cookery writer, and the recipes are pretty full on - quite a few ingredients need specialist shops, some are time consuming. But it’s all real food and the book is absolutely stuffed with commentary on the mindset that foodies need to lose weight by calorie counting.

Intermittent fasting, more protein and more water

Cut the white carbohydrates.

Eggs for breakfast

Lots and lots of green and red vegetables. I’ll eat 400 grams of broccoli and 3 small tomatoes plus a grilled pepper as a meal. It’s a plateful!

Lean protein- so the vegetables I list above plus a grilled chicken breast, some tuna steaks, or other sort of fish.

My really sweet treat is a couple of scoops of vanilla protein powder in about 200 grammes of Greek yoghurt (Fage 0% fat ).

Cut the granola and the pasta. Have your pasta sauce on steamed or grilled courgettes. Not just one courgette - eat 3!

I cook from scratch as much as possible. I meal prep for when I have days of meetings.

Have a look at “low calorie density, high volume“ eating.

This is probably ill advised but I find if I take naproxen I feel sick and therefore don't feel hungry or want to eat.

Protein is also very important for the preservation of lean muscle mass when in a calorie deficit. If you don't prioritise it and exercise alongside over half your weight loss will be muscle which will lower your metabolic rate and mean your calorie allowance goes lower.

I disagree with people saying skip breakfast, you need a high protein breakfast and if your schedule allows you are much better bringing your dinner forward and not eating in the evening to give a 12 to 14 hour overnight fast.

I would make sure each meal has over 0.5 plate veg (and don't blend it like soup if it is whole it will keep you fuller), and the rest mainly protein. Minimise starchy carbs (bread, rice, potatoes).

Don't drink calories, stick to water, black coffee, herbal teas etc.

Lots of protein, IF and walk lots. I’ve lost 3 1/2 stone just by doing this! Wish I knew this years ago!

Being hungry is normal.
Look at more volume less cal. I managed, breakfast, lunch, dinner and 2 snacks on 1500. You are starving hungry at the beginning when your body is used to more, but that levels up in a week or so. I lost 100 pounds and bar first few weeks never felt like I was depriving myself.

I hear you OP, I am trying to keep myself on 1500 diet (my weight it 13 stone), which is especially hard having to cook for the rest of the family, and also end up having a filling evening meal. My way to cope is that I just push myself for a late 20-30 min cardio workout to shave 200 calories from my daily intake. Progress is shamefully slow but at least I stopped being focused on my hunger. Lost half a stone within a month of trying hard…