To think you need to deal with a certain amount of hunger to lose weight?

[Cushionwoman]

I feel this way.

I've done exercise and healthy eating. Yes I felt better. But did I ever really lose weight? No.

I'm now sticking to three healthy, smaller meals with no snacking and it's working.

I do go to bed hungry though.

The only other time in my life when I've actually lost weight I had to do this too.

Is that the true nature of a proper lose weight diet? A certain amount of hunger and discipline?

Or is it just me?

... and she should know ;)

I lost weight without feeling hungry. changed diet, upped exercise. it ws extremely slow though.

No I'm never hungry eating low carb. I might be thinking that some chocolate sounds just lovely, but I'm not hungry.

I agree. I do 5-2, two days a week, I'm starving.

For me, the thing about losing weight and keeping it off is doing something that is sustainable. Anything that leaves you feeling hungry or deprived will not work, you will give up. I have changed what I eat, but nothing is forbidden, nothing is banned, I never feel hungry deprived or like I'm on a diet. Yes I have some weeks that are better behaved than others but I don't fall completely off the wagon craving something specific or because I'm hungry. You can lose weight and still live your life and not be hungry

I agree.
People go on about their relationship with food.
For me the key is the relationship with hunger, acceptance of some hunger.

Nope.

I lost 6 stone on the GI diet and was 99% never hungry.

(I then put it back on due to emotional eating ).

I'm now 3 weeks in again... and so far, not felt any hunger at all. My moods are more stable and whilst I'm sadly not a size 12 yet - My resting heart rate has gone from 78 beats per minute... to 63 in 3 weeks (thanks to my Fitbit monitoring).

It was going vaguely low-ish carb that allowed me to also intermittently fast - I do 16:8 rather than 5:2 and honestly never feel hungry.

I agree that 'banning' anything at all is a nonsense and not sustainable, reducing carbs has been easy and if I fancy a little bit of something I just make sure it's not sugary crap. I find I am unable to eat more than a few pieces of high quality, high cocoa content chocolate - who knew?!

I also agree that most of us are likely to confuse 'feel a bit peckish' or 'mh, I fancy a few Jaffa cakes' with hunger - true hunger hurts.

Yes usually you need to be a bit hungry. I have lost weight on low carb diets without getting hungry but they make me dizzy and lightheaded

After a week or two of eating smaller portions your stomach will need less to fill it up anyway, I think, so you won't be so hungry when you get used to it.

A lot of it is craving hunger. Craving for crap, sugar etc basically. Also, if you are used to eating large portions, or snacking, yes you will feel hungry.

I eat more when I am dieting and sticking to it than when I am not. I do Slimming world though, where you can eat free foods 'freely', or actually until you are no longer hungry!

No magic to it, just fruit and veg really.

As others have said, it's not hunger you're feeling. It's boredom, cravings, addiction, whatever. Most of the western world has no idea what real hunger feels like.

Well if your diet consists of drastically cutting down your calories to something like 500 a day then yes I'd say that is legitimate hunger. Not just a 'craving'.

I sort of agree.

What it really means to me is yes if I want to eat the foods I want because I can't have as much of them!

Generally though I don't need to feel hungry but I will be eating things more often than not that would be my 2nd choice (although still lovely nice foods)

So Iv sort struck a balance. il have a lighter lunch so I can have closer to the dinner I want or il forgoe a couple of snacks to have the glass of wine I want or il have a 2nd choice dinner on a Sunday so I can have the takeaway I want on Saturday. So sometimes I'm a bit hungry or have eaten food that I might not be whooping with joy over so I can have things that I can whoop about

Does that make sense? I feel like I'm rambling!

For losing weight, yes definitely. But part of dieting needs to include learning to deal with a lesser amount of food which your body isn't used to and will send hunger signals for.

Problem comes if you want to maintain that loss and you aren't eating in a way to fill up.

fluffy on a completely unrelated note but one I randomly want to shout about, I was in hospital the other day hooked up to a monitor (but could stand up and move a little). As a total slight geek I decided to see if my fitbit matched the monitor. It did! Not sure of its effectiveness mid a run, but glad to see it matched for gentle movement.

pacific

I also agree that most of us are likely to confuse 'feel a bit peckish' or 'mh, I fancy a few Jaffa cakes' with hunger - true hunger hurts

that is exactly right, Iv been in situations when Iv been truly hungry (through no fault of my own) and it's very different to the "hunger" Iv felt when trying to lose weight.

YANBU as such, but you are wrong.

Quickest way I ever lost weight was a low carb high fat diet...and I felt stuffed all of the time. Only diet I have ever been on where the weight stayed off too...

I've often wondered about this. If your body needs 1800 calories a day and you're on a 'diet' and only eating 1300 then there is a deficit, so surely yo're bound to feel a bit hungry

I lost some weight a couple of years ago and definitely found out what being properly hungry felt like. I had to learn not to give in to food at the first pangs of hunger and that waiting an hour or two until my next meal would be fine and found I would then really enjoy my meal so much more. And yes, I was going to bed hungry (though not ravenous) and would sometimes go to bed early as you don't feel hungry while you're asleep

My understanding is that you start to need food so your body tells you that you're hungry. If you don't eat at that point your body says ok, I not getting food so I need to take energy from my reserves. So the hungry switch goes off for a while and your body feeds off what it has stored. If I ignore feeling hungry the hunger feeling always goes after a few minutes for a few hrs. I think it's ok to feel hungry at times, especially between meals. As long as you are eating 3 proper meals a day. I've just started calorie counting to lose a stone of baby weight and am surprised at how much food my hunger keeps telling me to eat! But I do love being hungry now when I'm sitting down to a meal. It really shows me how rarely I was properly hungry at mealtimes.

I wish someone, somewhere, would be able to give actual stone cold solid facts about weight loss. It's always tempered by people advocating no fat, no carbs, no this no that, drink your own piss and eat a pound of spinach. I'm not trying to be snarky just worn down by 20+ years of dieting on and off. My blubbery status is down to too much cake, pizza and wine but at a deeper level I wish I knew why I'd developed such an unhealthy attachment to food. I swore last weekend that this will be the last summer I'm fat and I mean it, but I can't find the motivation. Now there's a thread I should start!

StrictlyMumDancing - I love my charge HR I got it in January and have worn it ever since. It's really made me more active and I keep thinking 'I really should get up and walk around as Fitbit won't be happy'... or, 'I should go for a walk after work as I've not got 10k steps yet and it's not green'.....

I like 'order' and tangible goals... so it's fab for me! I plan to show the Dr next time I see her.... not sure she'll be as impressed though!

1300kcal of carbs will leave you feel ravenous, 1300kcal of protein/fat will leave your feel stuffed

Gross generalisation, but in principal true.

Well, not a 'generalisation', more of a simplification.
Must go to bed