Calorie Counting and TOTM

[FinchHinch]

I'm calorie counting and losing slow and steadily on 1500 per day. (I'm 5'2" and 13 stone). It's taken me a while to get the right balance of being able to eat what I enjoy, feel full and not get hangry. But I am there now.

The only problem is the week before my period is due. I am ridiculously hangry, I could eat my own arm off. I'm thinking of upping my calories in that week to maintainence (around 1800/1900).

Has anyone done similar? How does it impact your weight? I feel sad at the thought of maintaining/gaining every 4 weeks. But it is unbearable how ravenous I get when I'm due on.

I do calorie counting, I’m on 1600 a day and I’m the same the week before I just want to eat. The group I’m in suggest raising your calories by 400 if you need to, it’s better to do that and maybe maintain than trying to stick to your calories and ending up binging. I just up my calories for a day or 2 if I feel I need it

You might not want to hear this but I would really try not to up your calories. Get some low calorie nice snacks and put them in your calorie tracker first thing in the morning. Increase the veg and salad you have with your main meals. Double down when it gets tough and you'll see even better results!

I find it I eat more meat that week it deals with the hunger, so I have beef jerky which is 75cals for a 25g pack. Also full fat cottage cheese or eggs help with keeping me feeling full.

I would agree with trying to add protein, it fills you up more.

If you are craving things like chocolate, unsweetened cocoa stirred into cottage cheese with some sweetener of your choice (I like Stevia personally) with frozen berries, is pretty rich tasting, but loads of protein and fairly low calorie.

And add more non-starchy vegetables to things. A very large amount of things like courgette, cabbage, broccoli, is low calorie and high volume to fill you up.

Thank you, I might give this a go and see how I feel. I agree that it's better to have an extra meal than ending up binging and going way over, which I'm also afraid of.

I don't eat snacks. I literally eat 3 meals a day. I much prefer to have a proper meal that fills me up than picking at little snacks and little meals that leave me unsatisfied. I suppose I could look at increasing my veg intake in between meals.

I don't eat meat, but do eat fish and make sure I get a decent amount of protein in with every meal already. I think just bumping my calories up a bit to squeeze in a protein shake or a couple of the protein yogurts would help me at TOTM.

Yes will definitely look at increasing my veg intake and bulking meals out with it.

It's not that I crave sweet things or chocolate. It's more than I just get ridiculously hungry. Usually I have lunch about 8am and that does me until 1pm. Then I have my tea between 6pm-7pm and I'm fine for the day. Today I was ravenous by 11am. Had my lunch at noon and was hangry again by 4pm. Last night I was starving by 9pm and there was no way I could've gone to sleep with how hungry I was!