Is anyone else like me - can overeat healthy cereal?

[oopsadaisy77]

Moral support really. I brought some seeded tubs of porrige ingredients whole grain porridge, skimmed milk powder and seeds. No sugar. After one pot I wanted another. It’s really frustarting I have constant urge to keep eating where others would stop.

My husband says he would understand it if it were cake - big honestly it’s anything healthy cereal of all things.

I don’t know why but nice to know I’m not alone and would be good to have someone who can emphathise. Previously posted and someone else suggested low carb, but I’m. Worried I just have a huge appetite.

Yes that happens to me with carbs and especially grains. I can eat a pile of toast, tons of cereal and pasta.

I skip breakfast now because otherwise I just keep eating.

Cereal and apples are trigger foods for me. Much more difficult to stop. I think this is childhood associations - these were foods that i ate on my own without supervision, so i feel 'ok' about multiple helpings.

Tbh it's better not to think of any food as healthy or unhealthy. It's all just food. No individual food type should be more present than it needs to be.

Beechview is that working? I actually wake up excited about breakfast! Thank you for replying I’m finding it such a challenge and it’s so alien to my family who have maintained their weight by general healthy eating advice.

Annandale apples me too how interesting.

So you weren’t restricted of those foods when you were younger?

I think I just really enjoy eating it’s that simple and when I start I feel slightly euphoric and want to keep going.

Yes oops agree about the euphoria...

I was semi allowed to eat fruit from the garden as a child (ie it happened with only occasional comments). We had a big garden with a lot of apple trees. And apples stored in the spare bedroom over the winter. Near my bedroom. Cue little mouse trips in the night for lovely apples. That's why i eat the evidence whole apple including the core and the pips.

I'm a healthy weight but I find standard cereal portions very small and would definitely eat double. Any idea how many calories it is?

Op it works for me. It’s not easy because I love cereal and toast and could happily live off only those foods.
I have to keep myself really busy in the morning to see me through to lunch as I’m craving those foods.
It actually works really well as I have black coffee then get out and do some exercise then do a whole load of chores before lunch at 12.
Look at the 16:8 diet. It’s basically this and a lot of people find it works.

I eat the core and pips too- mainly because there’s often not a bin around. It actually sounds quite idyllic but I guess not if you eat too many! I would have been the same. Really interesting and thank you for sharing re euphoria. My husband feels that when he first starts eating but says when he is full it stops... not me.

Spreading chestnut tree - it was 270 kcal alongside a glass skimmed milk so decent amount of kcal!

16:8 interesting! I just don’t know if I have the will power I have such compulsion in the am but maybe a huge black coffee and keeping v busy- really hard with little ones that eat toast (which I can’t touch) and porridge - seeded porridge which I love!

Ps thank you, thank you for sharing.

Is it something like MoMA porridge? I've just googled them and they're around 250 calories which is a tiny breakfast in my opinion! Could you make up your own version, aiming for around 400 calories? (I've never calorie counted so don't know how easy that would be, but Public Health England recommend 400 calories for breakfast).

Sorry, cross-posted

I'd also recommend low carb. I can do the same, ok not with cereal, I've never been a fan, but on carbs I can over eat very easily and just keep going.

Low carb basically reduces your appetite, and you no longer get that urge.

There is a boot camp on here and the excel explains how to do it, you should eat breakfast on it, so it would probably work for you.

Low carb is basically as a proportion of your daily intake. So it's high fat, medium protein, low carb as how you eat in a given day.

Yes momo cereal! But I added coconut milk too (sugar free) as well as water so hence extra 20 kcal but I did have glass milk too - skinny.

I think low carb maybe helpful just need to get my head round it as I like to have carbs / sweet treats - that’s my problem!

It's becayse it's your problem you should probably do it. If it wasn't you wouldn't need to 😁

Good point!!!!

Cereal (healthy or not) is a major problem food for me. Maybe it is linked to my childhood actually, we had it for breakfast almost every day, and sometimes for supper too, but always generous portions compared to what is suggested on the box (but not actually massive). I still can't get my head around a 40g portion of shreddies - it's about three mouthfuls! But that 40g portion with milk is about 200 calories so if you're regularly eating 2 or 3x that and then getting hungry a couple of hours after it's not good news for your weight.
We bought DD a box of that chocolate pillows cereal this week (not healthy at all I know) and I really fancied a bowl but I'm currently calorie counting, so I poured out a small bowl, literally just covering the bottom of the bowl. 55g! The suggested serving was 40g.
Porridge I find more satisfying to eat, i.e. I can have a bowl and stop, but that might just be all the arsing about it takes to make it. I always end up cleaning it out of the microwave. But I'm still starving shortly after.
I haven't eaten breakfast for a while now, mainly due to starting work earlier rather than trying to lose weight, but it is helping me eat fewer calories overall. I'm not really hungry until mid-morning or lunchtime anyway and what does it matter if you have your "breakfast" at 7am or 11am and it isn't cereal or toast?

It's what carbs do to you! Our biology is set up to want more and more and actually if you've been doing it a long time (eating a lot of carbs) you may have made the receptors in your brain resistant to the hormone that tells you that you are full (leptin)

Try eggs for breakfast instead. I guarantee you'll find it hard to overeat them.

Carb foods are the ones that will keep you in constant (biologically driven NOT willpower) hunger.

You see I wouldn’t say it’s true hunger you know that feeling of having not eaten all day for some reason and your stomach gurgles, it’s not like that, I guess it’s more just not satiated - and just a craving for more.

Mooncuplanding you see from my personal experience I wonder if that’s true - although complex carbs are mean to be good for the microbiome, Bowel etc.

Have you tried coats? They are porridge oats made up with a grated or blitzed carrot too. Made up with low fat milk or unsweetened soya. Cook as normal although some times it takes a bit longer to cook the carrot through depending on how coarse lay you grate e carrot. Personally I blitz it with the milk and add some mixed spice too as it cooks quicker and tastes yummy. And once cooked stir in a spoonful of quark which increases the protein level but also makes it taste really creamy.

This method increases the quantity so you feel more satisfied but also lowers the GI of the meal so you should feel fuller for longer.

I always find carbs without some protein trigger me to want more and more

Of course complex carbs have benefits, but you start to negate those benefits if you over eat them and gain too much weight...then you start to have negative impacts on your health.

Low carb isn't no carb, there is no such thing as no carb diets. It's nigh on impossible. Even cucumber has carbs,

I think It really hard to work out what biological or psychological. If it’s psychological I feel it’s not about the food but my mental health. If it’s biological then it is about the food and ensuring I work with my own biology. Interesting the only foods I overeat or crave or carbs. That can be whole grain bread or white the fact the former is complex makes no difference - I’ll still overeat. Maybe if I put on a graph perhaps my intake after that would be less following complex but I don’t notice any difference.

So there my problem. I’m also massively interested in low to no carb at that “time of the month” as have hormone issues and was recommended by the gynaecologist to try low carb- but at that time of the month it’s carb craving hell!

Golden blue I haven’t tried coats- sound interesting porridge with carrot..? Then I like carrot cake 😀 thank you for your tip

I have tried adding protein powder to porridge and it helps with fullness so great idea thank you. I just generally want to to ramp down my appetite.

I had to give up carbs, otherwise I could live off big cauldrons full of porridge and several slices of thick bread.