Anyone else get these? This has, in the past, been a huge obstacle for me.. And now that I'm getting back on the weight loss bandwagon, I'm really scared about dealing with this again. I have chronic migraines.. Meaning like several times a week.. Hunger and calorie restriction has always been one of my triggers. I'm hoping that eventually my body will just adjust, but until then it's gonna suck.
For those of you that have dealt with this too, how do you cope?
It could be your blood sugar crashing. Or dehydration. Or lack of protein. Or just consuming too little food.
Start documenting when you get these headaches - when did you eat least. What did you eat. How many calories, etc.
I am a very headache prone person - anything and everything can give me a headache and I've just had to learn to listen to my body.
I have found that if I eat a high carb diet and then restrict calories, I get a sugar crash headache. Solution? Eat more fat and proteins to process the calories/food more slowly.
Or, I forget to drink as I'm not eating as much - document how much you drink, making sure to get at LEAST 8 cups a day (more if you are exercising). But also, too much isn't good for you either.
Then, how many calories are you eating? If I restrict too much and get too hungry, I will get headaches. Only you can find that magic number, but starvation diets are not good for tons of reasons.
But basically, document and figure it out. It's probably not weight loss, but what you are DOING to achieve weight loss.
I would suggest eating a lot of low calorie food (ie, lots of veggies) so that you can have the volume in your stomach to avoid hunger. Good lean protein will help that as well. If you get hungry between meals, have a piece of fruit. That will cut back on the hunger and I always find that natural sugar helps if I get a headache.
A lot of people on this site say that you get used to hunger and it's not a bad thing, but I tend to disagree. I don't get hungry because I don't want to feel deprived. Living a life where I feel deprived isn't on my list of fun things to do. I eat like I described above so I never really get hungry. My dad lost 90 lbs eating the same way. Be sure to eat breakfast. You really can eat A LOT of food and lose weight. You just have to eat the right food.
I sometimes think I am hungry when I am bored or thirsty. You just have to learn your bodies cues.
Last edited by gatorgirl6; 09-06-2012 at 04:13 PM.
What are your favorite small meal/ snack foods, especially high protein stuff? Typically I try to eat lots of small meals rather than three large meals so that I don't have huge sugar crashes or periods of hunger. But my food choices aren't always great. I used to eat a lot of nuts, but then got bored with them.
I eat peanut butter with apple, hummus with raw veggies, cheese sticks, protein bars (low carb ones), yogurt smoothies (1 cup lowfat yogurt - plain with frozen blueberries/peach/strawberries, nuts, an egg or two, a slice of ham.
I would suggest eating a lot of low calorie food (ie, lots of veggies) so that you can have the volume in your stomach to avoid hunger. Good lean protein will help that as well. If you get hungry between meals, have a piece of fruit. That will cut back on the hunger and I always find that natural sugar helps if I get a headache.
A lot of people on this site say that you get used to hunger and it's not a bad thing, but I tend to disagree. I don't get hungry because I don't want to feel deprived. Living a life where I feel deprived isn't on my list of fun things to do. I eat like I described above so I never really get hungry. My dad lost 90 lbs eating the same way. Be sure to eat breakfast. You really can eat A LOT of food and lose weight. You just have to eat the right food.
I sometimes think I am hungry when I am bored or thirsty. You just have to learn your bodies cues.
With respect, it doesn't matter how much fiber you fill yourself up with - or how much protein you eat - or water you drink - or whatever. Hunger is going to happen. Does eating the way you do help? Yes - massively. Protein, fat and fiber are significantly more satiating than sugar and other carbohydrates but to suggest that there is some dietary plan one can follow where they are not going to be hungry is simply rediculous.
You might personally be somehow genetically blessed in that you don't get hungry often and when you do having a piece of fruit fixes the issue but most people are not so fortunate. Even if you have genetics where hunger is uncommonly felt one of the primary drivers of hunger is leptin and the more fat you lose the lower your letpin levels are going to get.
As an example - Someone might not feel much hunger going from 250lbs to 240lbs but the same person going from 140lbs to 130lbs might feel a significant amount of hunger.
. . . the more fat you lose the lower your letpin levels are going to get.
As an example - Someone might not feel much hunger going from 250lbs to 240lbs but the same person going from 140lbs to 130lbs might feel a significant amount of hunger.
I thought it was all in my head that I was more hungry now than 60, or even 30, pounds ago. I kind of feel better about it now!
to suggest that there is some dietary plan one can follow where they are not going to be hungry is simply rediculous.
I will revise my statement to that I don't ever stay hungry. When I am hungry, I eat. This does mean I eat a lot, but it is as I said before veggies, fruit, protein, etc. Obviously every body feels hungry when their body believes they need food. I just satiate that with a low calorie snack. I eat a lot of small meals. I do not believe that you need to experience prolonged hunger to lose weight.
I agree that no two bodies are the same and we all experience differences in our weight loss journey. I was just trying to give an account of my experiences. And what I expressed is in no way "rediculous."
I would argue that for the majority of us, hunger isn't a single sensation, it's many - and some of those sensations can and should be prevented/avoided, and some may have to be endured in order to lose weight.
If I get a hunger headache, it's virtually always because I chose to ignore the hunger cues that had I responded to, would have prevented the headache.
There are a lot of hunger cues I can ignore, but those leading down the headache path are not one of them.
I've learned which hunger cues I can ignore or tolerate, and which have to be dealth with, and how to deal with them.
The worst thing I can do is wait until I have incapacitating hunger issues such as severe headaches and moodswings, light-headedness, that weak-in-the-knees feeling, nausea, vertigo (which if I ignore can progress to passing out). In my case, blood sugar issues are probably the culprit behind the "can't igore, or bad things happen" kind of hunger.
The stomach gnawing feeling that most people talk about when they talk about hunger, is the easiest (and safest) for me to ignore.
If OP's headaches are half as bad as my average hunger headache, I would not recommend trying to endure them. Preventing them is generally easier and doesn't have to jeapardize weight loss.
One of the reasons I've had to lose weight by gradual changes, is that I get quite sick when I don't. My body doesn't react well to any drastic changes even in weather (I have fibromyalgia and autoimmune disease, and hypersensitivity to change is characteristic of both disorders).
If the hunger headaches have a mild component (mine do, I have a mild headache long before I get an incapacitating headache) then I have more luck responding to the mild headache than trying to get rid of a killer headache once it's taken hold.
From what I understand of migraines (which mine thankfully aren't, as severe as they can be, I have to be thankful for that), it's generally more effective to prevent a migraine than to get rid of it once it's taken hold, so if you CAN prevent the migraine by spreading out your calories in a different way, or responding to the pre-headache hunger cues - then make the extra effort to do that.
You may have to be hungry sometimes, but you shouldn't have to experience pain as a result of the hunger. If your hunger is directly or indirectly causing severe pain, it's not only unneccesary, it's impractical.
Volumetrics eating is an awesome way to stay really satisfied and get a lot of nutrients in. I've been known to make obscenely large meals that are low in calories/points, just because they're bulked up so much with non-starchy vegetables.
For example, pasta. I'll take my 2oz portion of pasta (sometimes even cut it down to 1oz), sauté onions, an array of colored peppers, sliced mushrooms, and spinach and mix it into my pasta and add tomato sauce. It's a huge bowl of food that sometimes I can't even finish because I've added so many veggies.
Peeling zucchini and/or yellow squash into ribbons (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/e...ipe/index.html) and mixing it 50:50 with fettuccine and making an "alfredo" sauce is another favorite pasta dish. I even add in asparagus and peas for more bulk, nutrients, and general deliciousness . You can also mix your pasta 50:50 with spaghetti squash or just eat the spaghetti squash instead of pasta (http://homecooking.about.com/od/vege...gsquashsbs.htm) .
My Asian noodle bowls and stir fry meals are mainly veggies. I'll use mushrooms, peppers, broccoli, and usually a frozen stir fry mix too. A little bit of oyster/hoisin/sriracha or whatever you like, and you have a great meal.
If you’re using ground beef in a recipe, food process 8-16oz – your preference - of mushrooms into small pieces for each pound of beef when you brown it. You’ll never notice it.
Be creative! Whenever you're making something, think of how many vegetables you can add into it to make it more nutritious. It will fill you up!
Yes, thanks for the recipes. I bookmarked the page - don't know if it will work or not...
I suffer from headaches, too. I was never able to figure out what any of my triggers were. My doctor told me that the older one gets, the fewer migraines. This is certainly true in my case. But it sure is a trade-off. Do you want to have headaches or do you want to be old? LOL. In my case, old is better. It is such a relief to not have a headache all the time.
I totally agree about bulking up your meals. I bought a giant bag of stir-fry veggies at Costco. I put about 2 cups in my little steamer, cook and add to whatever I am eating. Sometimes my dish comes out really delicious. Other times it is just a way of filling up. You have to experiment a bit. Of course, you can do your own veggies, but I was looking for something super easy so I wouldn't have any excuse for not doing it.
hunger headaches?
