I've been counting my calories for about 5 weeks and it seems I'm about 2000 calories over, every week! I don't know why I'm having such a hard time keeping to 1580 cals a day, when I used to be able to do 1360. I'm really discouraged by my apparent lack of discipline, and it seems I'm only getting further away from my goal. I realized from past threads, 3 years ago I was 148lbs and trying to lose weight but here I am at 160 and doing even worse! How I'd love to be back at 148 when I thought I was fat! I'm working out, planning my healthy meals in advance but it seems like I'm always hungry and even the healthy snacks are adding up to disaster. I don't know how to get in control!
What are you eating? Are you getting enough veggies in? For me, that makes a huge difference. I also started using Chia seeds. They really help me feel fuller. I make these 100 calorie muffins and put chia seeds in there and that helps. My husband has a very hard time staying full, since he was a baby. He would consume double what a normal baby eats. Now he makes these smoothies that help him a lot. He puts in: 2 celery stalks, 2 huge cups of water, a bag of strawberries, an apple, 1 tablespoon of chia seeds and a banana. He blends all this and drinks it throughout the day (and he also eats the muffins I bake). He has lost 45 lbs. already and he's doing great. Another thing that helps me? I don't eat breakfast. Yes, I know that we're supposed to eat breakfast, but I've realized that I like to consume most of my calories at night so I just don't usually have anything until lunch time except a cup of coffee with a splash of nonfat milk. I don't know if any of this will help you, but I sure hope it will. Either way, don't give up! You can do it, but just figure out the right path...sometimes we need to learn from some bumps in the road.
It's hard for us to give advice if you don't tell us what you eat. The amount of calories does not determine wether you are still hungry. I can eat 1000 calories a day and not feel hungry (I wouldn't but I've had days like that happen)
What helps me not feel hungry is:
- Eat something high proteine with my carbs
- Only eat whole wheat/complex carbs, the other kind mess with your appetite
- Stuff myself with veggies (low cal, high fiber) when I feel like I cant shake the hungry feeling
- Drink carbonated water
- Have a lowcal cracker with a THICK layer of sugarfree peanutbutter
Hope this helps some, but would love to give advice based on your average day of eating, there's really no need to be hungry on 1580 calories unless you lift weights everyday and train for a marathon or something.
By the way, congrats on losing the weight before! That means you have it in you to do it again!
Like others said, WHAT are you eating? 2000 calories can be very different depending on what you're eating.
I have to eat over 2000 to maintain and for me it is a LOT of food because it's all stuff like chicken, veggies, eggs, etc. I am sometimes literally eating all day and still ending up short.
Here's something I posted in the WW forum for someone who was having a similar problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sontaikle
I don't really know much about points plus, but I know that it isn't all that different from calorie counting. While you can spend all of your points on whatever you want, you need to choose wisely to make sure that you are eating meals that fill you up and keep you feeling full.
Like I said I don't know much about points plus, but let's look at meals with relatively the same volume of food, from the same place.
The Cheesecake Factory has some wild portions, so let's use them especially since they have their new lower calorie menu with equally delicious food.
This is my favorite meal: The Tuscan Chicken. It's a lot of food and the menu lists it at 590 calories, MyFitnessPal says 585. Either way it's not that much and it's all chicken and veggies pretty much. Yum!
Here's another meal that I've seen brought out on the same plate as the above so it's probably around the same amount of food, maybe just a little more. The Fettucini With Chicken and Sun-Dried Tomatoes has 1,830 calories according to MyFitnessPal.
Same amount of food, VERY DIFFERENT in terms of calories. I would also bet that the Tuscan Chicken would keep you fuller longer than the Fettucini. WHAT you eat is sometimes very important when it comes to hunger. I can eat 1200 calories and be satisfied for the day if they're made up of things like the Tuscan Chicken.
Explore WHAT you're eating and see if you are spending your points on things that are leaving you hungry.
Thanks for everyone's replies. I work out about 3 times a week doing a variety of 1-hr gym classes like zumba/strength training or sometimes I'll just go run/elliptical if I can't make it to a class, as I'm training for a 10k race in May.
A typical day's meals looks like this:
BREAKFAST:
Fat free yoghurt with blackberries and/or banana
OR
Special K/Cheerios with fat free milk + banana
LUNCH:
Turkey sandwich on light bread with hummus and baby lettuce
Pop chips or lentil chips (sometimes)
DINNER:
Broiled cod over baby lettuces with sweet corn, dried cranberries, black olives with low fat dressing.
*sometimes instead of salad I'll do roasted Brussels sprouts or grilled asparagus etc
SNACK:
Fat free yoghurt with blackberries and/or banana
OR
Special K/Cheerios with fat free milk + banana
OR
Hummus with baby carrots/lentil chips
Obviously I don't eat this exact menu every single day but it's quite typical...maybe it's ham instead of turkey or salmon instead of cod etc. I'm keeping track of my foods with MyFitnessPal and have given up sweets for lent so no ice creams or cookies or chocos for me! Am I not getting enough protein here to keep me full?
You might want to think about sneaking protein in there. I used to eat Cheerios every day but it kept me feeling hungrier and when I took it out and added eggs I started losing weight because I was eating less overall (this was before I was calorie counting!)
You might want to consider a form of calorie cycling, where you don't eat the same amount each day. You can try eating a higher amount of calories on workout days so you give your body some fuel and a lower amount on days you don't work out.
Or you can plan around your hunger. WHEN do you get hungry? If you are hungry at around the same time each day then plan your snacks and meals around that hunger.
Just because we are "supposed" to eat three meals a day doesn't mean you have to. Think outside the box a bit and see how you can best get all of your calories to fit your hunger schedule and life schedule.
I second luckymommy on not eating breakfast, I just have black coffee and water with a splash of juice. I like to have a big dinner and if I eat breakfast I don't have enough calories left over. I totally hear you though! In order for me to lose anymore I'd have to be down around 1300 and I just don't have it in me!
Don't even get me started on pasta! I used to eat entire SERVING bowls of spaghetti in one sitting... like, almost an entire (dried) pound of it! I love it, and it was the hardest thing to give up when I went paleo/primal. Well... and the garlic bread, too... lol
To OP: Have you ever considered Intermittent Fasting? It was kind of suggested here with the skipping breakfast thing. I have found it really helps me control my caloric intake. Sometimes my IF is just skipping breakfast, other times it's skipping dinner, and sometimes it's a whole 24-hr fast. However I do it, it DOES help me unconsciously cut calories and I find it's a really easy way to do it.
I agree about the protein thing, too. Protein is satiating, and back when I used to eat meals of mostly carbs, I was always hungrier throughout the day.
Struggling with Calories
