Why am I hungry aaalllll the time?

[TellHimDirectlyInDetail]

I'm about a stone over weight. I walk about 30 mins 3 days a week. Do 10 minutes on exercise bike 3 days a week. I do pilates for an hour and 15 mins once a week. So I'm not very active.

For breakfast I have overnight oats and dried prunes. For lunch I have salad and potatoes. For tea I'll have something like a veggie curry or steak pie and boiled potatoes and veg.

In-between the meals I am constantly hungry and will snack with fruit in the morning and in the afternoon with chocolates. I don't tend to snack after evening meal.

Why am I hungry all the time. Even if I don't snack it's just because I'm too busy to get something but I'm really hungry.

overnight oats and dried prunes. For lunch I have salad and potatoes. For tea I'll have something like a veggie curry or steak pie and boiled potatoes and veg.

That level of carbs would definitely cause my blood sugars to spike, flood with insulin and then drop dramatically, so that my brain would literally getting signals that I am starving.

Eating low carb high fat totally turned that around for me. No beige carbs, do no potatoes, rice, bread, careful on some root veg like carrots, beetroot and parsnips.

Now I eat my fill of green, leafy vegetables plus enough fat and meat to make the veggies palatable. It took a couple of days where I could almost hear my brain screaming feed me carbs and do it now then the feeling just went away.

I was off the sugar rollercoaster that you are stuck on

Real hunger is a much more gentle sensation. It wanders over, says I wouldn't mind a snack and wonders off again. Comes back in a few hours. I've also noticed how often I want to eat for non hunger related reasons, because I'm bored, want an excuse to stop what I am doing and all sorted or other reasons.

I seriously commend you to low carb high fat. There is a brilliant thread on MN called low carb bootcamp

@TellHimDirectlyInDetail this is mumsnet and carbs are the enemy dontcha know 🙄 carbs are bad, the devil, the cause of all weight issues. My diet is carb heavy. I have porridge, seeds and golden syrup for breakfast every day. I eat sweets, chocolate outside of lent, chips, crisps, potatoes, bread, crackers, cereal. I just eat them in moderation. I've lost nearly 2 stone now since September. I have never had a blood sugar spike and drop that's been noticeable to me. My bmi is 22. People on here are so weird about food.

Pushing my first meal back helps for me so my other meals can be bigger
I don't eat breakfast so first meal is lunch (between 12-2 depending on work) then I have a small afternoon snack if I need one like Greek yoghurt and berries or some apple and cheese, then tea

Oh that makes sense. I was wondering if there was an alternative granola that I hadn’t come across! Thanks

Do you not have any protein with the salad and potatoes?

WTF have I just read?
Telling someone they are hungry all the time because they eat oats for breakfast, which aren't at all healthy is madness.

This is orthorexia.

Definitely need protein and fats to keep you full.

I find when I feel hungry it’s taste that I am wanting rather than food. So I tend to use more spices/tasty things as they make me feel more satiated. I would also eat foods I really enjoy eating. I’ve noticed my belly rings me every 1.5 hours saying”food?drink?”. These days I say, no, exercise. Gradually the belly listens. The days where I sm out snd about I don’t feel hungry at all, which makes me think the majority of my eating us boredom.

It doesn't sound to me that you are over eating. That's very similar to my diet and I don't gain weight. I eat salad for lunch every day but always with some protein - tuna or eggs. Also I spice it up with chilli oil or pickles.
I'm not a great believer in giving up carbs / low fat/ calorie counting.
Just eat a balanced diet.
Try drinking more instead of snacking and be a bit more active.
It's good for you to be hungry at meal times.

This ^^

This × 2.
I'm having pizza for dinner, because I want to.

A few years ago I'm sure porridge was meant to fill you up and give slow release energy. Lots of people advocate eating itbeforea marathon or long run. I dont eat it because I feel hungry quite soon afterwards.
I don't think I could live without carbs though!😂

I do eat overnight oats at the moment for breakfast but generally speaking I cant tolerate porridge type breakfasts because they used to make me ravenous by mid morning

Im having to eat them now for other reasons but once I dont need to eat them anymore I'll be goingn back to my cottage cheese and dry fried ham slices for breakfasts or eggs if I can tolerate them now

The carbs in your potatoes, pastry and other potatoes will probably make you peckish. Try eating nuts or bits of cheese when you're hungry to get fat and protein in

You can stop the sniping

It has taken decades for some of us who were brainwashed with the 'low fat/high carb' mantras of the 80s and 90s, to finally find out that this was really poor advice for us

If you're not one of the people that struggle with this and starchy carbs help you and are ok for you, great. They're not for me, and have caused me now huge health issues over the years. I wish I knew then what I know now.

I could cry when I think about all the diet plans, including those from the NHS which included a high number of piece of bread and potatoes a day and I followed those religiously not knowing how it was affecting me

So I still eat 'carbs' in the form of fruit, veg, pulses, dairy but I have to be mindful about starchy and refined carbs in other forms and that information may help others. If its not applicable to you just be grateful

Maybe it's the chip on your shoulder you can't stomach. Sniping indeed 🙄

Totally agree with this, I've lost almost 3 and a half stone since May, ate bread, porridge, rice, potatoes and pasta the whole way through, as you said it's all in moderation, I would have been hungry all the time without them

One of the most interesting results of the Zoe project on "healthy eating" for me was to discover that there is absolutely a difference in response to foods between different people.

Not everyone responds the same to different types of food. The Zoe project started their analysis with a 'twin study' in order to rule out genetic and environmental differences between people's different responses to different foods.

If you tolerate carbs well, if your body deals with them without causing significant blood sugar swings, then everything in moderation will work really well for you, for loosing, gaining or maintaining weight depending on your actual weight.

There are also lots of us who have discovered, belatedly, that our bodies do not tolerate processed and starchy carbs at all well. The clue is whether we ever feel 'hangry' and/or that desperate urge to eat even though we are objectively not hungry. Anyone whose body has that response will find restricting starchy and processed carbs truly life changing.

It's not for everyone.

However, If you are one of those who have struggled for years, even decades and have finally discovered the cure, it is very tempting to want to evangelise incase you can save just one other person from that dreadful rollercoaster. I certain wish someone had given me a clue.