Thanks for your help

Jess

I also agree that carbs are the likely culprit. I am stark raving, rabidly hungry on a low-calorie high carb diet. Even good carbs. After reading a book that claimed humans should eat 80% fruit and 20% leafy veggies, I decided to try it (kind of dumb considering I have IBS, but on a low-carb diet my IBS wasn't bothering me, so I thought maybe I had "outgrown" the problem in some way).

The rabid hunger was back with a vengeance, and I ate so much fruit that I did lose weight - but mostly by way of severe diarrhea.

On South Beach (the "good carb" diet), I stalled weight loss on fruit. I could use the diet to stop gaining, but I couldn't use it for weight loss. I needed to "count" something (I use a low-carb exchange plan).



"Big scary no-no word" is more hype than reality (watch the documentary Fathead if you can. It's on netflix).

Turns out most of the "fat = bad" research was misused or misinterpreted Gary Taubes books Good calories bad calories and Why we are fat and what to do about it do a very good job of exploring and explaining the research - or so I hear about both. I haven't read the second one. It's supposed to be easier to read. Good calories bad calories does read like a college textbook.

Newer research suggests that cholesterol levels aren't closely tied to fat consumption at all, and have more to do with simple carb intake and genetic factors. As for diet, the most dangerous combination appears to be the misture of high carb and high fat levels. That is a diet that is high in both protein and fat (even saturated meat fat) but low in carbohydrates is safer than combining refined carbohydrates and fat.





Many cheeses and nuts and unsweetened nut butters, eggs, tofu, tvp (be careful about overdoing soy. There are some studies that link overconsumption of soy to some health issues), unsweetened yogurt, lots of nonstarch veggies, fruits in moderation.

My biggest recommendation would be experimentation, and browsing some of the low-carb and moderate-carb diet books and cookbooks for recipes. The book Volumetrics is helpful too (using the fiber and water in foods -to fill you up).

Some people find it necessary to restrict carbs more strictily than others. And carbs may not even be much of a problem for you. Just reducing the number of refined carbs and eating more high volume/low calorie foods may be enough for you.

I'd suggest using the least restrictive method that works. South Beach (in my opinion) is a good place to start. Not that you have to follow the diet explicitly - just get a feel for the foods that the diet suggests eating more of and the ones limited. If "inspired by South Beach" doesn't work for you, you could try following the diet more closely "as written."

If South Beach doesn't work well, consider reading some of the Paleo and lower carb diets, and experiment with carb levels.

Just give every experiment at least a month's trial, ideally two or three - because normal weight fluctuations can easily be mistaken for effects of the diet. It's possible and even likely on any diet to lose no weight two and even three weeks in a row, and to even gain weight once in a while. It's easy to blame or credit the diet for normal fluctuations.

Use a food journal and document not only your food, but also your hunger, moods and general health (headaches, etc). You'll eventually start to see patterns that will help you find the healthiest diet for you.

I personally don't seem to have a problem with carbs and so don't know much about their impact, and the same really goes with my knowledge of protein. I do know though that on days when I don't get enough fiber I tend to feel... I'm not sure if it's really hunger, but just unsatiated. With a good amount of fiber (greater than 25g per day) I often find I need to make myself eat more in the evenings to get above my lower calorie limit. If it's a low fiber day, on the other hand, I crave not just a snack but another entire meal in the evenings.

A simple way to add a few more grams of fiber to your regular diet would be to have raspberries or blackberries with your yogurt in the morning instead of strawberries. Both have about double the fiber in strawberries (which are a good source of fiber, but raspberries and blackberries are even better ). You can also look for a cereal bar that is high in fiber. Those changes alone could add 5-8 g of fiber to your daily intake.

I also agree with the suggestion that you should make sure you're getting enough good fat in your diet. In your sample menu the tuna, hummus and starchy vegetables all provide good fat, but if your greek yogurt is non-fat then you may not getting enough to get you to at least 20% of your calories from fat (according to my nutritionist, 25% of calories from fat is ideal). If your greek yogurt is non-fat you could try switching to a low-fat greek yogurt, and you could also add things like an ounce of nuts as a snack, or olive oil to your cooking at dinner, or a few slices of avocado to your salad at lunch.

Good luck, and I hope you find what works best for you.

I think I'm using my own minimum requirement to apply to her, hence my error. RDA guidelines for most women put them at .8g x kg body weight/day for protein, right? If so, OP is definitely under, and I may concede to you on the point of protein

You did mention originally her carbs were high and protein low, now you're saying you're specifically talking about protein. Could you clarify? Not trying to quibble, I stand to learn about modifying my own diet from you and others who know more about carb-protein intake than I do.

My personal philosophy comes from Alan Aragon who knows way more about this subject than any person should plus he has a huge amount of field research.

Set your protein and calorie levels and go from there. How you balance out your carbs vs your fat is secondary and more individual preference in the context of weight loss.

So when I say carbs are high and protein low my main issue is that protein is too low. To keep calories the same if you raise protein you would automatically lower carbs.

Some people do better with carbs, some people do better with low carb. My wife for example is very lethargic and grouchy without carbs while some people find carbs slow them down and make them lethargic. A lot of this has to do with insulin sensatvity which also ties into ones weight as well as their genetics so someone who doesn't do well with carbs at 300lbs might do great with carbs when they are down to 150 lbs. So you have to experiment a little to see what works best for you.

Fat is also very filling but you have to be careful with fat because it is so calorically dense. That's why you should weigh you peanut butter, not measure it.

Just my two pennies worth.....I have been eating protein and veggies for lunch and dinner, and oatmeal for breakfast. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have felt hungry in the last eleven months. Added to that I drink twice the amount of water you drink. I don't touch fruit as the sugars in it make me crave carbs. To date I have lost 129 lbs, my hair is good and so is my skin and nails. I have energy at a more intense level too. I agree with people who say you should journal (I do it here), and I have charted my daily weight to account for cyclical changes. Come here often and focus your energies into dieting positively - it has really helped me. Good luck

Great- thanks JohnP!

Thanks guys. I'm going to take all your suggestions into consideration

This thread is interesting to me as I just have accepted that "hunger" and thinking about food choices is now going to be a permanent part of my life. For me, eating without thinking and never being hungry allowed me to maintain a 100 lb. weight gain.

For the last few months I haven't been planning as well and haven't felt hungry and the pounds have started creeping back on. I figure that feeling I call hunger is my fat cells clamboring for attention to get refilled...

So I get that people are trying to be helpful with tweaks to nutrient balance, but for ME I don't want to lose that feeling.

Thats a really interesting point of view. I think I'm not used to actualy feeling hunger. I've been "hungry" in the past few years, and I guess thats why I've gained so much weight. Maybe I need to accept this feeling as being something I need to get used to and appreciate.

I really like that idea. Thanks.

Maybe I read this wrong, but are you keeping track of calories and meals in your head, or are you writing them down? I have had times where I just kept a running tally of calories in my head, and it really does make you think of food constantly. If you are not already doing it, I would strongly suggest logging your food on paper, phone app, or computer. Once it is down, you can forget about it.

Are you constantly feeling hungry, or do you have periods of time when you are hungry? I have learned to not hate the feeling of hunger because when I am having a few day period where I feel like I could clear out the cupboard with my mouth, I know I am going to show a loss on the scale. If I have eaten all I should for the day and still feel a little edge of hunger, I feel like my body is dipping into my fat stores for energy, which is a good thing. I am not feeling hungry at all this week, and have eaten below my calorie goal because of it, but I can pretty much guarantee the scale is going to stick at 145 this week. I lose in whooshes, whoosh weeks are hungry weeks. This is a stand still week.

Some days I'm constantly hungry, others its just when I'm sat down. And I use fitday to track my calories, but don't have access to a computer all the time, so sometimes I have to remember what I have eaten and when til the evening.

The potato, cereal bar and banana certainly aren't her only carbs! She's also getting carbs in the yogurt, honey, cranberries, strawberries, salad (greens & veggies), kiwi, carrot, humus and her dinner vegetable. Nearly everything she's eating has carbs in it. Even when something has a small amount of carbs it adds up throughout the day. For those of us here who are on a lower carb diet her menu looks pretty high in carbs (especially sugar carbs given all the fruits and the honey).

Many people don't have to pay any attention to their carbs, other people do. I'm one of those people that feels best (and loses weight best) when I'm below 60g of carbs per day. If you're on a low cal/low fat diet that probably sounds pretty low, if you're on a low carb diet that probably sounds a little high. I like it in the middle When I input my meals into fitday and it gives me the macronutrient pie graph my protein is highest, fat is the middle and carb is the lowest. When I eat within that ratio I am rarely hungry and sometimes have to specifically tell myself to eat something because i'm just not real hungry but I'm worried about my calories being consistently too low and slowing my metabolism.

I was having trouble feeling hungry all the time and as a result was overeating when I did eat until I juice fasted last month for three days. I ate raw foods for four days and then juice fasted for three and then eased back into regular foods for the next few days after the juice fast by eating a lot of raw food and smoothies.

I am still about 50lbs overweight and it was a lot of work but it has helped me take control of the food I eat and I am much less obsessed with thinking about food. I am someone who LOVES food but feel I have had great benefits from practicing control and mindfulness for the week of raw foods and juice fasting. The four days of raw food was harder than the juice fast. I also did the juice fast with my sister and best friend for support which made it much easier.

I did a lot of research on raw foods and juice fasting beforehand so let me know if you have any more questions about it. It is definitely something you want to study about before you start.

I think when many of us talk about eating to avoid hunger (whether it be low-carb or not), it's easy to assume we mean we that expect to never desire off-plan food, and we expect to never feel a single hunger pang.

That's certainly not what I mean.

Hunger isn't one feeling, it's dozens (if not hundreds), and we call them all hunger, which makes it seem like we're talking about one thing instead of many. Some hunger signals are easier to ignore or adjust to, and some are so intense, and unrelenting, it makes resisting food almost like holding your breath - you can do it for a while, but eventually instinct/reflex wins out.

For me, I've learned that only high-carb foods trigger that kind of out-of-control hunger - hunger I call "rabid hunger." This hunger (for me) isn't from food deprivation. Eating nothing at all, even for a week doesn't trigger this kind of hunger (there were times in college and high school during which I routinely went days, up to a week without eating anything at all).

At the time, I didn't know it was carbs that triggered "rabid hunger," I just knew that I found it easier to eat nothing, than to eat anything. I was less hungry fasting than I was eating. I didn't understand why, and it became a contest of will - how long could I go between meals (ideally days), because eating made me hungrier than not eating.

I never gave low-carb dieting much consideration. I was convinced it was unhealthy and dangerous, mostly because the popular low-carb plans I tried, all started with a virtually no-carb phase as a "jump start." If I restrict carbs that low, I experience the same effects as my week-long fasts in college and high school - irritability, headaches, nauseousness, lightheadedness, dizziness, even passing out. I never got to the moderately low-carb phase.

When my doctor recommended that I try low-carb for my insulin resistance, but warned me "not too low" (though admitting he didn't know what too low would be), I initially thought he was nuts, but after a second opinion (from a doctor who'd lost nearly 100 lbs on a modified Atkins) I started experimenting with different carb levels and different carb types, and discovered that I could avoid "rabid hunger" without having to resort to zero carb or zero food.

It's hard to describe "rabid hunger" to anyone who hasn't experienced it. On a very high-carb diet, even when my stomach is uncomfortably, even painfully full; my brain and blood chemistry is telling me that I'm starving. I can't think of anything but food. It's a desperation that is so intense, it's maddening. It's like an intense itch that can't be scratched. Only eating scratches the itch, but only during the act of eating. As soon as my mouth is empty, the itch is back, just as intensely as ever.

Low-carb eating is like being released from rabid-hunger prison. It's nothing short of miraculous. I can even "forget to eat," which I would have told you was impossible except on starvation or zero-carb diets (where nausea replaces hunger). Low enough carb and my husband will recognize my hunger before I will (I start to get irritable).

I don't expect to never feel hungry, I just want to have the ability to concentrate on other things besides how hungry I am. On high-carb eating I can't do that. Normal hunger I can deal with, but rabid hunger is another story. Avoiding rabid hunger is top priority, and the only way I can avoid rabid hunger is to prevent it - by avoiding high-carb (especially processed) foods and keeping my overall carb count moderately low.

It's not about "never being hungry" it's about keeping hunger in check - keeping it within manageable range.