[vouge09]

While I am not a vegitariarian I do appreciate your adivce as well!

[canadianwoman]

Originally Posted by jellybellyjess

Any suggestions on nice filling healthy snacks?!

A couple of boiled eggs and a hot cup of tea always works for me.

[Shannon in ATL]

Like CountingDown, I tend to eat more now than I did before, and more often. Afternoons are my hard time as well - the gap between lunch and dinner is longer than between breakfast and lunch, because DH often gets caught up in traffic and gets home late. I have a smaller lunch and then actually have two small snacks between lunch and dinner, with protein or fiber or both. Works for me so far. And, it also took me about 6 weeks to stop thinking about food all the time. I don't know that I was actually hungry all the time during those six weeks, but I sure felt like I was!

[ringmaster]

I asked this a few weeks ago. I think for me when I eat healthy foods my body still craves the unhealthy stuff too. So I windup eating both sometimes. And our bodies think that full feeling is our hunger being satisfied. I try to keep my calories around 1500-1600 which I think is a healthy amount. I'm eating vegetables, whole grains, getting in fiber to help try and fill me up.

I'm also trying to go vegetarian.. I noticed when I have 20grams of protein from tofu I get hungry faster than if I had 20 grams of protein from chicken. Vegetables proteins get digested faster than animal ones. I'm debating if going all vegetarian is going to make it too hard for me to lose and keep my weight down.

Sometimes my stomach growls, and I think it's what the above poster said our stomachs are still producing stomach acids and takes time to shrink down.

I'm right there with you though, it's so hard in the beginning when you feel so hungry.

[vouge09]

I agree that if you starve you will want ANYTHING!
Today my boyfriend wasn't hungry so I was waiting to eat when he was hungry and pretty soon anything on TV looked so incredibly delicious. Even on cartoons!

[megwini]

Originally Posted by geoblewis

Something to keep in mind, our body seems to only be able to process at the most 600 calories per meal. Any more than that goes to the storage system (fat). Most people feel satiety at around 400 - 450 calories.

Does this mean it's hard to lose weight if you eat more than 600 calories at one meal? I've been eating about 200 calories for breakfast, 150 calorie morning snack, then 800 calorie lunch, 600 calorie dinner, 150 calorie evening snack.

[geoblewis]

From what I remember from what I've read from several sources, when we're trying to lose weight and we're in a deficit eating mode, the calories we're eating are the calories that get burned first, then if we need more, our bodies convert stored fat for fuel. If you're eating more than 600 calories at a meal, you may be putting the extra calories into storage.

You're not necessarily sabotaging your weight loss efforts. If you're still expending more total calories than you take in, you're still burning stored fat.

Georgia

[megwini]

I'm only asking because I tend to have tupperware with me EVERYWHERE now, so one viable option for me might be to get my lunch and split it in half, eating at 1 and then again at 3 (and dinner at 5). That would be having 400 calories at 1, 400 calories at 3, and 600 calories at 5 (also, I exercise every other day at around 4, so I probably burn calories then). Possible also to take a bit of dinner home and turn my evening snack into 400 calories and have dinner be 400, if that would help.

[vouge09]

I think that the first week is the hardest. Make it past that and you can do anything. I know that I have already lost. I can feel it. I am so tempted to weight myself but I am going to wait till Thursday.