Absutely starving all the time, where am I going wrong??

[WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo]

So I've finally decided to do something about my weight, it's spiralled out of control. I've done this before through SW but put it all back on.

I'm following basic, healthy eating and I am ravenous.

Here's what I've had over the last couple of days.

Friday

Large fruit salad (( melon, strawberry, banana, apple)) couple of spoons of full fat Greek yogurt. Flax seed and a drizzle of honey.

Lunch was home made carrot, and lentil soup. With 4 nairns oat cakes.

Dinner

Lentil mousakka (( I make the topping using a tub of philedelphia, splash of milk and handful of chedder)) with a large, green salad, olives etc and cherry tomatoes

Saturday

Two scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast

Lunch

Huge Greek salad with chicken breast

Dinner

Homemade beef and chorizo burgers topped with cheese. Potato wedges and salad

Today I've had

Breakfast

2 egg mushroom and spinach omelet with a sprinkle of cheese. Handful of spinach and cherry tomatoes on the side.

Lunch was homemade leek and potato soup with around a 1/4 bag of kale shoved in for good measure (( 1 large leek, 2 medium potatoes and an onion between me and my partner)) Around 4 oat cakes.

Snacks I'm just having fruit, I darent buy nuts as I end up necking the whole bag. I have around 4 cups of tea a day and plenty of water. (( at least 4 pints a day as I make a point of having one with each meal))

What the hell am I doing wrong? Portions are good, I'm not one for going hungry is it my body rebelling at not getting a packet of yum yum a few times a week as a scooby snack?

@WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo

Shed I think a lot of the weight has come from being so sedentary.

I'd gone from being big but very active and always on the go to hitting a big wall of depression and only leaving the house when I absolutely need to. Sometimes that would be for an hour max, sometimes not at all and in between doing the bare minimum at home. But food wise I've always eaten healthyish meals....... If Jamie Oliver came round and expected to find a load of readymeals and junk he'd leave disappointed.

I think in my case the weight really piled on massively when my activity stopped so drastically. I'm shocked at how I'm struggling now I'm actually leaving the house.

Firstly, please stop blaming the lack of exercise and depression. According to many experts, losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise - but according to Dr Jason Fung (author of The Obesity Code) it could be as much as 95% diet and only 5% exercise.

Sounds like you know about food and cooking, so St Jamie would be pleased!

But also sounds like you also need to rebalance the macronutrients, so you're keeping your carbs low and the fats high, with medium protein.

Codename you have misunderstood me. I meant that 1800 might be more food than someone might expect to be eating to lose weight. It was connected with the points that the OP might be able to eat more than she is currently eating and still lose weight.

@FairiesWillFly

Hi, what you are struggling here with is your blood glucose. You are eating shit loads of fruit which is full of sugar (and no it's not 'healthy' sugar- people who watch their health don't eat fruit) which is giving you an insulin spike and then crash which makes you starving. You need to drastically get rid of the carbs and up the protein and fat. This will prevent your glucose spikes and fill you up and you should not feel hungry after an initial 3 days doing this. Hope that helps you x

Finally. Someone sensible turns up.

You have to work really hard to burn that many calories!

@BIWI not when you're fat! I burn that many in an hours HIIT easy. Before you tell me I'm over estimating I am calorie counting and losing weight with textbook calculations thanks

@womanaf

I’m eating 2900 calories a day and losing lots of weight because a) I’m fat and b) I exercise.

Op, take yourself off to the Team RH Facebook page. Lots of free content there that will explain it and help.

👏🏼

@Ilovesausages

Codename you have misunderstood me. I meant that 1800 might be more food than someone might expect to be eating to lose weight. It was connected with the points that the OP might be able to eat more than she is currently eating and still lose weight.

Ok, sorry This is what I'm trying to debunk. The idea that you have to eat tiny portions and 1200 calories maximum to lose weight is just not true, and sets up heavy people to fail. Our heavy bodies can't function properly on 1200 and there is absolutely no need for us to try.

I've input My day into MFP and this came out.

I'm off to team RH now, good to know the hunger thing is normal Fairies

Sorry, this.

I think if I were you I’d try:

1. Shortening my eating window slightly. I do 18:6 so only eat between 1-7pm which has totally knocked my huge appetite on the head. You don’t have to go that far; just extend it a bit as you feel able.
2. Try and reduce the carb percentage a bit. I don’t do well on low carb but I try to keep an eye and not go too high either,
3. Up the protein a bit
4. Drink even more water!
5. Within reason, don’t be afraid of a little hunger.

Well done, it sounds like you’ve made massive changes and are on your way. Just fine tuning now.

How long have you been dieting? I'm on week 4, the first two weeks were really difficult but then in the third week it suddenly became ok. I'm sure in my case it was about blood sugar, my body was used to having lots of carbs and took a while to adjust to a different diet.

Also are you sure the hunger you are feeling isn't anxiety? I've realised that one of my issues around food is fear that I will be hungry later if I don't eat enough now. It's quite hard to deal with, and I think you have to retrain yourself slowly to feel comfortable eating less and also to realise that it's ok to be hungry for a while and could even be good to feel hungry in the run up to a meal. Good luck!

@WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo

MFP is showing that your ratios are wrong - as many of us have said

You need the carbs to be the lowest, the protein in the middle and the fat to be highest

@justanotherneighinparadise

Finally. Someone sensible turns up

Thanks for that. I think you'll find that there's been more than one of us trying to tell the OP that she's eating too many carbs/too much sugar

Oh, and @WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo you should ignore the MFP goals. They're based on outdated nutritional advice.

Intermmitant fasting is literally the only thing that sorted out my ravenous attacks. Really really works

The mfp goal work for some...

Please, please have a read of The Obesity Code by Dr Jason Fung. Calorie controlled diets work for some people but not others. I was definitely one of the others and have put on 8 stones over 22 years, yo-yo-dieting for most of them and spending a lot of time eating what I thought was a lot of "allowed" foods on Slimming World yet feeling hungry all the time.

This book opened my eyes and really explained the science behind weight loss.

I read the book in Mid-June. Started intermittent fasting 16:8 on 24th June, combined with low carb, and in just short of 8 weeks I've lost 18.5lbs. More importantly I don't get hungry and can cope easily on two meals per day and no snacks. I also feel that this is a diet I could easily carry on with rather than the "fall off the wagon" mentality that I had with SW

If you join Audible for a free trial you can get 2 free credits (via Amazon) - use it to buy The Obesity Code by Dr Jason Fung and listen to it if you don't want to pay £10 or £12 for the book.

I second the recommendation for dr jason fung's books. I've read them all and it's changed the way I think about fat.

I'm not afraid of it now and that was why every diet i tried when I was afraid of fat so diets = hunger so they never worked.

dr sten ekberg and dr eric berg have good clips on youtube about how to fix insulin resistance and if you watched those you'd be on the right road.

wrt to counting calories, I still control portions..... there's no way to avoid that. Like, I do still get a bag of nuts and weigh out 20 gram mini bags. I still make sure I don't grate more than 20-25 grams of parmesan over my food.

Jason Fung is all over YouTube so you really don’t need to buy his books if you don’t want to. Just watch the videos. Doctor Unwin is a UK doctor who is also worth listening to. As is Gary Taubes and Ivor Cummins.

These doctors/scientists/engineers have completely changed my way of viewing food also. I now see just how poisonous much of our western diet is and can’t ever imagine putting crap in my face again. I feel like I’ve been hypnotised.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=DFY0iPmzNqU

m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKC3hiyLeRc

The first video is discussing the calorie in calorie out argument and why it isn’t the be all and end all so many people you want to believe it is.

The second video is Jason Fung discussing obesity. If you are 20 stone you are very very likely to be insulin resistant which basically means when you eat carbohydrates your body will have over time gone from releasing a small amount to clear the glucose (insulin sensitive) to having to release a large amount across the day (insulin resistant). Insulin is the fat storing hormone, sonwe want to try and keep that as low as possible so your body starts to burn your fat stores instead of the sugar you are currently feeding it frequently (remember fruit is high in sugar even though it’s sold to us as healthy). Carbohydrates also spike insulin which is why you hear the term ‘low carb’ banded about.

I’ll see if I can find an Ivor Cummins video as he too is excellent.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=X-vsr2whJhA

@ScarletPower

Please, please have a read of The Obesity Code by Dr Jason Fung. Calorie controlled diets work for some people but not others. I was definitely one of the others and have put on 8 stones over 22 years, yo-yo-dieting for most of them and spending a lot of time eating what I thought was a lot of "allowed" foods on Slimming World yet feeling hungry all the time.

This book opened my eyes and really explained the science behind weight loss.

I read the book in Mid-June. Started intermittent fasting 16:8 on 24th June, combined with low carb, and in just short of 8 weeks I've lost 18.5lbs. More importantly I don't get hungry and can cope easily on two meals per day and no snacks. I also feel that this is a diet I could easily carry on with rather than the "fall off the wagon" mentality that I had with SW

If you join Audible for a free trial you can get 2 free credits (via Amazon) - use it to buy The Obesity Code by Dr Jason Fung and listen to it if you don't want to pay £10 or £12 for the book.

I was just going to post about this book and the author. Good job I RTT! Echo everything you said.