[AilsaPearl]

I am almost at my goal weight of 145 (1-2 lbs away), I'm 5'7. I've lost about 45 lbs so far, and I find that in the beginning I was eating anywhere from 1300-1600 calories a day, exercising, and feeling full. I ALWAYS eat the "right" foods like lots of lean protein, veggies, fruits, salads, beans, nuts, etc etc. I'm not filling up on pastries and chocolate or anything, but for some reason the past 2 weeks I've felt extremely hungry! I do eat breakfast and snacks throughout the day, I can usually get through the day alright, but then at dinner I find myself just still really hungry, and I end up totaling about 2500 calories for the day, sometimes just 2000, sometimes almost 3000! My question is for losers and maintainers alike, if you are truly hungry, well hydrated, and it's not boredom or cravings, do you eat until your body is satisfied? Or do you just stop at your calorie goal? I have never been this hungry in my life, and it's not PMS or hormone related I don't think...
I just feel bad for eating so high over my recommended calorie goal but if you're really hungry do you just do it? Any advice? Thank you!

[sontaikle]

Congrats on your weight loss!

You might want to read the following thread in the maintainers forum:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/livi...intenance.html

[kaplods]

I've come to learn that I can't trust most "hunger" cues. "False" hunger is either very difficult to distinguish from "true hunger." The difference is either too subtle for me to recognize, or there is no difference.

That being said, I use an exchange plan with a calorie/exchange "range" rather than a hard limit. For each exchange category (veggie, protein, fruit, fat, dairy, starch) I have a minimum and a maximum. The exchanges between the minimum and maximum I consider my "optional" exchanges. I can use them, but I don't have to.

I do sometimes eat out of range, but it's usually not planned (and it's usually a result of poor planning, or other poor choices that either increased my hunger or led me to be careless with my counting).

Some people succeed with "intuitive eating," but it relies to heavily on differentiating between "true" and "false" hunger and I'm not sure the distinction is easily learned (or even if there is one, at least not for everyone).

The only hunger signal I always respect is the light-headed "about to pass out" feeling of a sudden drop in blood sugar. But that isn't a symptom that comes on unless I have eaten almost nothing. I've never had it happen at the end of a day after I'd eaten all my allowed exchanges. Instead it happens when I haven't eaten for many hours, and usually when I haven't gotten any where close to my "maximum" allowances.

[carolr3639]

Hunger and satisfaction is how people lived for thousands of years. That being said, your weight loss may have signaled your body that it has been in a famine and that is the reason for your increased hunger.

[cherrypie]

It's always been my experience that I get really hungry before I drop weight. Especially if I've been at it for a while.

[kaplods]

Originally Posted by carolr3639

Hunger and satisfaction is how people lived for thousands of years. That being said, your weight loss may have signaled your body that it has been in a famine and that is the reason for your increased hunger.

I'm not sure this is true. I think that for millions of years, we ate when food was available. Some ate more than others, and the ones who had the ability to eat more than they needed may have even had the advantage. Calories just weren't abundant enough to get obese.

Until very recently (only about the last 60 years or so), humans had to burn quite a lot of calories just to survive. If you didn't move, you didn't eat. You also had to burn a lot of calories just to maintain body temperature (in winter).

The human body isn't much different than animal bodies, and when you take away the NEED to burn calories to acquire them, animals get fat. Polar bears who have access to human dumps - get fat and sick, because they go for the "easy calories." Many animals in zoos get fat if they're allowed to eat as much as they want, because they don't have to burn calories to get calories (or to avoid being calories for some other critter).

I don't think hunger was the primary mechanism by which people maintained a healthy weight - I think the environment played a much bigger role. People didn't get fat because food wasn't abundant enough or "cheap" enough (not only in terms of money but also energy expenditure) to allow many people to get fat.

In the 1940's, during WWII Nutella (essentially a spreadable candy bar) was developed as an inexpensive "health food," because calorie- shortage (underweight) was still the primary souce of malnourishment.

Food hasn't ever been so inexpensive and easily accessible. And birth control also hasn't ever been so common (in the natural world when food supplies are unnaturally abundant, overpopulation occurs before widespread obesity).


If we were eating all-natural food, and performing all-natural behaviors to acquire that food (and avoid becoming food), in an all-natural environment without artificial birth/population control, then our natural instincts would probably be sufficient.

However, since our environment is so artificial, the means by which we have to regulate our healths also have to become increasingly artificial (ironically to mimic the natural).