I'm losing weight but I'm so hungry 😭

[Clemopesea]

I've been about a stone to a stone and a half overweight for pretty much all my adult life, yo yo-ing back and forth on various diets (I've tried them all including keto). After a shit time and 3 back to back miscarriages I comfort ate my way into oblivion and had a nasty shock when I realised I was now nearly 2.5 stone overweight and had just tipped into the "obese" BMI range. at 5ft 3 with a desk job my TDEE is 1700 cals so a 1lb loss requires me to eat no more than 1200 calories a day. I've been doing this for 8 weeks (that's the longest I've ever stuck to a diet) and I've lost nearly a stone which is obviously great. However, I'm starving all the time and I'm finding it is seriously affecting my mood. I follow a Mediterranean style diet with plenty of protein, healthy fats, fibre etc (which I always did, just ate too much of it) and I am just starving. To the extent that I'm often so hungry it wakes me up at night. I eat two meals a day, 400 cals for lunch and 600 for dinner with 200 left for milk in tea or a small snack etc. I cannot do any high impact exercise due to a knee injury but I walk 10-15k steps per day and do some yoga. I'm completely healthy otherwise. My thyroid is normal (not just within NHS normal ranges but genuinely completely normal).

I would have thought after 8 weeks I'd be getting more used to the smaller calorie allowance but I'm so hungry I can't bear it. I tried upping my calories to 1400-1500 but weight loss completely plateaud. With all previous diets I've felt hunger like this but always assumed it was because I hadn't stuck to them so hadn't adjusted. Am I destined to just feel starving forever now?

Ugh - there goes another one  @EarringsandLipstick

I'm sorry to say most slim people I know just put up with hunger.

That's just nonsense.

I'm slim. I exercise a lot & I eat, broadly, healthily. However I love chocolate & eat too much of it. I also skip meals when I'm stressed (this is a really bad idea & I will always feel the consequences physically & emotionally).

I'm aware that my relationship with food can be quite disordered. I often don't feel hungry when I'm busy or focused, but I never 'put up' with hungry to be slim.

I did have to reevaluate my eating habits when I reached perimenopause, including really trying to avoid eating late at night. But thinking that putting up with hunger is a natural choice is really bizarre thinking.

Try volume eating. Basically get as much bulk as possible into your diet for the fewest calories.

There is a subreddit called r/volumeeating which has loads of recipes and tips.

Well done on your weightloss. Do you think you'll be to maintain it whilst continuing to feel hungry? Or do you think you'll get used to the reduced calorie intake?

Yup.

Hunger, persistently, is not normal or sustainable.

Just look at the amount of posts on this thread alone saying 'when I've dieted before...'

At some point, the 'diet' will fail.

The only solution is a sustainable way of eating that may at times be challenging but is not leaving someone waking up during the night starving, or feeling persistently miserable.

Thank you - I am already less hungry than I was and more in tune with my body (I previously used to eat when not hungry). I also now eat healthier food and have no inclination to 'finish' my diet and revert to previous bad habits of junk food and refined sugar. As far as I am concerned when I reach my goal weight I will continue to eat the same diet as I do now but in larger quantities (for weight maintenance rather then reduction). Will also weigh once per week and nip any increases in the bud swiftly

I lost weight on a similar diet (lowish carb, Mediterranean-ish, but I wasn't counting calories and ate quite a lot of olive oil) and what helped me was adding in much more veg than seems normal. Even if you use fat in preparing them, they're so low in calories, the bulk is worth the extra tablespoon of fat.

I like cauliflower pureed or roasted with herbs and spices, I eat that hot or cold with any meal or in between. Also good is an entire head of cabbage (red especially good) cooked slowly in an iron pan with olive oil and a bit of salt until it's dark and soft. It reminds me of caramelised onions. I can make a pan of that, make a hole in the middle, fry eggs in the hole and if I eat that for a late breakfast I don't need anything else until dinner. But any non-starchy vegetable you like will help keep you full.

A soup dense with veg is also good for fullness and satiety. Again I wasn't counting calories so I did add fat to soup, otherwise you may find like drinking water it only keeps you full for a shorter time.

Good luck OP, it's not easy 💐

Earrings "I often don't feel hungry when I'm busy or focused"

this isn't a quality everyone has though. Your feelings of being hungry may be a lot different than others.

I get annoyed if I'm a busy with a project and hunger cuts into my train of thought.

when my dad was dying, I ate constantly, everything in sight, probably four meals a day plus chocolate. I lost a stone and a half so quickly, it was amazing.

our bodies all work differently. My mum has been slim all her life and hungry all her life.

People regain weight @EarringsandLipstick because people don't change their mindset. They think they can stop dieting when they reach goal and start drinking wine and eating biscuits again.

Losing weight requires a calorie deficit and hunger is inevitable. Maintaining weight once the goal is met does not need to involve hunger, but it does require vigilance. I can handle hunger whilst losing weight - it's short term, knowing that when I reach goal I can eat more volume (of the right foods)

OP I could have written this word for word. I am hypothyroid, but even before I was, this was my journey entirely, even down to hating the taste of low fat / low sugar. I also feel starving as soon as I hit a calorie deficit. If I go low carb the headaches are crippling. I can't do my job, look after my kids etc.
I am overweight and would love to lose weight but physically I just feel so so ill whenever I try. I've read through all the comments & like the OP I feel like I've tried and failed it all!

Absolutely. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

I didn't mean to suggest that this was necessarily a good thing. I was including some details to make the point that I'm far from perfect regarding eating habits & have to address issues too.

I simply wanted to make the point that it's nonsense to say that slim people actively choose hunger to be slim. Perhaps some might. Certainly no-one I know.

People regain weight because people don't change their mindset. They think they can stop dieting when they reach goal and start drinking wine and eating biscuits again.

There's part of this that's true.

More widely, people cannot live with restrictive diets that cause hunger over any prolonged period. Biologically we are driven to avoid 'starvation' (as our bodies see it) by eating whatever will fuel us quickly & easily, in that situation.

Someone who eats healthily mostly should be able to have a controlled amount of wine or biscuits or whatever treat they enjoy or as part of a social event.

It's finding that balance that's tricky of course.

Earrings You're missing my point. I mean, if you don't feel hungry because you're absorbed in stuff, you might not feel hungry in the way others do.

I definitely know lots of people who go hungry to stay thin. I'm not saying any of this is good or bad. I'm saying, people who "forget" to eat because they are busy are probably not a valid comparison to me and OP.

Biologically yes we are driven to avoid starvation which is why dieting is so hard and requires a shit tonne of determination and resolve (and inevitable hunger)

Honestly I find lower carb easier than low carb and two meals a day so at least you feel full at some point. I don’t sleep well with a low carb dinner so try to have carbs then and low carb during the day.

Hi OP,

First of all a huge well done! You have lost nearly a stone and moved your BMI out of the obese category which will improve your health.

You have lost this weight quickly on a pretty low calorie diet. Nothing about that suggests there is anything wrong with your metabolism etc. You ate low cal you lost weight pretty rapidly.

So you now feel you have 1.5 stone to lose. You have described how in the past you have yo-yod and tried various diets. That's the life you want to leave behind so no juice diets, no meds etc no fads. You say this is the longest you have stuck with a diet.

The fact that your diets have been short-lived in the past shows that they were not sustainable long term. You have done brilliantly to lose a stone but now things have got tough and you need to start listening to your body. You need to start finding a sustainable way of eating that can last you a lifetime rather than continue to fight your body until this diet proves unsustainable like those of the past.

Calorie counting is a brilliant basis for adjusting as you can start to add what you need but track it so you don't go overboard.
You say your calorie need is 1700 but you have been eating 1200 so you have at leat 500 calories to play with to still be under your calorie allowance every day.

So perhaps decide that you will eat between 1200 and 1700 cals each day and have a slower but much more sustainable weight loss for this next phase. If you lose only 1lb a month by being 100 calories under your needs that is 12lb in a year. 24lb in two years.

If you are hungry you could have for example:
A ham salad pitta bread = 250 cal
A big bowl of mango = 200
A boiled egg with toast and marg = 300
Or two boiled eggs = 150
Strawberries with a little melted chocolate to dip 200-300 cal depending on how much choc
A slice of toast with avocado = 300
Sliced beef and tomato pasta salad = 450
Tesco chilli and rice frozen ready meal = 470

It's time to start being realistic about how you can enjoy a sustainable and enjoyable way of eating with a slow/moderate weight loss rather than a hungry existence that is not sustainable.

If you do have a day or even a week where the diet is forgotten don't think of it as the end just a blip before you return to keeping track.

@EmmaEmerald

Sorry, perhaps I did misunderstand.

I still think you might also not be getting my point! I accept hunger levels & sensations of hunger will differ.

But regardless, long term feeling hungry to the point of misery is not sustainable. I know a lot of thin / slim & body-conscious women. Some 'deprive' themselves in ways I don't think are great. But I'm not aware for most that they accept & endure hunger as a route to staying thin (and that was the point being made, that I disagreed with, that most slim women were hungry).

@Winter2020

Great, practical post. Lots of sense there.

To manage your hunger I would recommend the 18:6. If you stop eating at 6pm hopefully you won't feel hungry when you go to bed and will sleep through any hunger pangs

If she's currently stoping eating at eight pm, and feeling hungry and being kept awake, why would stopping eating two hours earlier make her less hungry?

@VanGoghsDog maybe because of this

www.sciencedaily.com

Ugh, it won't link properly

Excerpt from article:

Eating late increases hunger, decreases calories burned, and changes fat tissue
Date:
October 4, 2022
Source:
Brigham and Women's Hospital

In this study, we asked, 'Does the time that we eat matter when everything else is kept consistent?'" said first author Nina Vujovic, PhD, a researcher in the Medical Chronobiology Program in the Brigham's Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders. "And we found that eating four hours later makes a significant difference for our hunger levels, the way we burn calories after we eat, and the way we store fat."

Limit I always find those articles to be baseless
and correlation is not causation

what is "late" anyway?

You are not starving. You are experiencing hunger. Which is normal. There is a ping between meals that all animals feel hunger. Without that all animals get fat.

Starvation is an extreme caloric deficit which causes death.

if you still have available body fat, you ain’t there yet .

8pm isn't "late"!

But either way, if you believe that, you might have posted it initially.