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?

If a food tastes nice to me I like to eat large amounts of it, that's how I am and how I always have been

As I say, I think there's a psychological element to this. It's not physiological, otherwise it would be specific foods that you can avoid. If it's something unusual with general 'eating' then I'd imagine that's what's up. And that's why everything you're doing physiologically isn't hitting the spot in terms of fixing the problem.

I've had extensive therapy for this issue, I'm totally aware it's psychological. TBH it's linked to my ADHD, it's dopamine seeking behaviour. This is how I control it because other methods don't work.

Glad you've got it sorted!

Today I have been significantly less hungry due to the extra 200 calories, that's made a massive difference. I'm still hungry but it's completely bearable. It remains to be seen whether I plateau again on 1400 calories.

I think OP has had a number of helpful pieces of advise but is actually holding herself out some sort of starving martyr.

In understand the desperation to lose weight but clearly feeling like this is totally unsustainable and exactly why people yo yo diet.

No I'm not, as already mentioned I've taken the advice to up my calories and have breakfast. Have you read all my posts?!

I've eaten 1200 calories today and am now pleasantly full. I've had (if it helps)

m and s salmon and greens with potatoes, (ready meal)
Skyr cherry yogurt
Apple

Heck burger in a bun with lots of lettuce tomato pickle, was delicious, more salad on the side
2 chocolate biscuits 😋

Lots of tea and coffee with unsweetened almond milk (preference rather than a diet thing). A couple of pints of water and a vitamin/electrolyte fizzy tablet thing.

I didn't have breakfast today.

Excellent OP.

I am sorry if I came across as unkind, I have just been sucked into diet culture and restrictive dieting and find it so frustrating when I see other people do it.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how much you can eat if you’re religiously (and honestly) tracking.

Sounds similar to my 1200 days. I'd have been v hungry. Today I had:

Breakfast smoothie with unsweetened almond milk, quarter avocado, cottage cheese, half banana, frozen cherries, flaxseed (this kept me full for ages and ages I have to say)

Tuna salad made with tuna, celery, red onion, chilli, coriander, cherry tomatoes, greek yoghurt, lemon

Home made Turkey koftes with home made tzatziki, olives and crudités

1 apple with 10g peanut butter

And I'm much less hungry today. Remains to be seen how it will impact weight loss.

Sadly I've had years of yoyo dieting so I know exactly how much I can eat for 1200 calories, that's what I find so depressing about it 🤣.

I will say I've broken my arm so am very sedentary! So probably not working up an appetite!

I could work up an appetite flat on my back!

if a diet works you wouldn’t do it twice. Time to change tact.

@Clemopesea you have my sympathies it’s really hard if you have a brain that’s wired differently. It wasn’t until I had my two children and watched them develop and their eating habitats that I realised how much is genetics. One child doesn’t eat when they aren’t hungry has no problem leaving food on a plate, regulates their eating easily. The other (who is autistic but late diagnosis) has always struggled to regulate the volume they eat. The “I’m feeling full switch” doesn’t kick in until it’s too late (Interoception) they will just keep eating. So I have to regulate the amount they get but it’s getting harder now they are at secondary school. The point I’m making is I had no idea that it was exactly what I struggled with most of my life coming from a slim family I was always the fat one. Honestly have a read of the book “Why we eat too much” or listen to the audiobook it’s helped me come to understand the bigger picture to appetite regulation and I’m currently losing weight slowly for the first time in years.

This is the only thing I can stick to which works, trust me on this. Keto is not for me. Intuitive eating is not for me. I have had to have a good long chat with myself and accept that I have a problem with overeating because I enjoy the process of eating food, because I use food as a comfort when sad and as a way to celebrate when happy, and that as a 5ft3 woman with a desk job I simply cannot consume as many calories as I want to consume. It isn't because I don't understand the science of diets. It isn't because I'm not eating the right things or because I'm addicted to processed food, or because I have a thyroid issue or a hormone issue, or because I don't understand portion size.

In any case, I've upped my calories.

I haven't ever restricted access to "junk" food or sugar etc with either of my kids and I can't believe how amazing they are at self regulation. They can have a packet of haribo in front of them and completely ignore it, or just have one and then leave it. I could never do that. I would inhale the entire packet.

Food addiction is very hard to overcome because you have got to eat to stay alive. If you're addicted to alcohol or gambling, you know in order to overcome the addiction you can never drink again and you can never set foot in a betting shop/casino etc again. You can't do that with food. For a food addict like me, doing intuitive eating is like putting an alcoholic, alone, in a room full of open wine and saying here you go, have at it. It isn't because I'm uneducated and I'd be fine if I just ate more protein and cut out refined carbs or what have you.

You’re preaching to the converted. Also 5’3 and love my food, with a desk job.

Food is addictive. I would love to just eat and eat. Thankfully maintain a healthy weight but I really have to work at it and do it consciously. Rather than intuitively.

Hope the calorie increase has worked.

Sorry OP. Perhaps some counselling would help?

It's fine, I've had loads - I'm not doing a sob story, just trying to explain to those who think I shouldn't be calorie counting that I won't be able to do this another way.

OK

Calorie counting works quite well for me but you did dismiss my post by saying how starving you'd be. I am not 'starving' on 1200 calories 4 times a week. Just trying to help.

I'm not, I'm just saying I know I'd be really hungry on the food you listed in your post. 1400 calories for me yesterday was much better, so I'm going to see if I continue to lose on that, even if it is slower.

Just wanted to update my thread to say I've upped my calories to 1400 and I feel so much better and have still lost weight this week. So I'll be sticking to that.

When I was losing weight and was starving I had an overactive thyroid

My thyroid is fine, it's been checked :)