I think a lot of problem is for some people its easy to grab say some peanut butter. Not for me, can't eat it. Grab some avocado, nope not me I don't want to go the emergency room. Grabbing good fats and high calorie things like nuts and such doesn't always work. Planning doesn't always work either.

Its hard to understand things that you don't have to think about. I see that, and I understand it.

My husband doesn't understand how I can eat a sugar free Popsicle and never get hungry, and not be able to eat an other ounce of food without getting sick.

A lot of people don't understand how a person can eat tons of junk food and lose weight, and eat super healthy and gain weight, but I understand that if my thyroid medication isn't exactly right or I didn't take it at the right time it messes with my body badly.

It doesn't mean anything if someone doesn't understand it just means that they don't have to live with those things. I know I don't understand emotional eating, or boredom eating, I wouldn't ever want to deal with those things.

It's hard to not try to understand things you don't live with on a daily basis, but those things are very real and hard to deal with for those that have to deal with it.

When I read the title of this forum, I took it in the opposite manner. I thought it was about people complaining because thier diets were not allowing them to eat enough. I was going to raise my hand and say "Me!" to that one.

On that note, my husband can usually eat more than me. Except when it comes to pasta. Pasta fills him up right away, and I could eat it until I explode without feeling full from it at all. It's odd how we all react differently to different foods. I wish I'd go ahead and find the ones that filled me up right away already!

Hi forestroad - Glad you found the chart helpful And thanks for posting what goes on in your head. I liked the whole angle/devil conversation hehe made me think of Tom and Jerry for some reason. I think we all stuggle with that angle/devil on our shoulders we just can't beat ourselves up about which choice we make the next morning. I also checked out your blog and I just wanted to tell ya you're looking great (I'm addicted to progress pics). Nice job!

I've been thinking about getting a volumetrics cookbook, maybe that will help you too. One thing I like that is big and fills me up is a GIANT omelette (I only have time to make it on the weekends).

1 whole egg
3 egg whites
1oz fat free feta
onions
peppers
spinach

one whole wheat english muffin w/ tbsp jam

350 calories

Daniela, thanks for your reply..

And thanks to those in my position for explaining things better than what I did! lol!

When I switched over to 100% healthy & clean food I became full faster, because I was no longer eating mostly starchy white carbs, etc... Kwim? So it can be tough for me to get in all my calories... and like someone else said, it's really hard for me to eat when I'm not hungry, it makes me want to literally throw up.. I was given some great advice and the have done better the last couple days, than I was before with my low calorie level...

Hope I didn't upset/offend anyone... and sorry for taking things so personally...

I don't think anyone in this thread posted anything inherently mean or offensive. Emotional content is so difficult to convey in posts, because of the lack of body language and tone of voice (and even in person-to-person conversations there are often misunderstandings). Sure someone may have felt and therefore meant their post to be harsh or biting, but I think it's fairly unlikely, and besides more conducive to communication to assume that there was no ill intent.

But that is really difficult, at least here, because so many of us have histories of people being cruel, judgemental, critical, or condescending because of weight issues. Add that to the fact that obesity and weight loss are often considered impolite or inappropriate topics of conversation, and there are so many taboos involved, not to mention all of the backhanded compliments involved.

I think we sometimes try to uncode messages that weren't coded, because of our experience with passive aggressive social "code" for discussing inappropriate subjects or criticism guised as a compliment. Ah yes, the lovely backhanded compliment.

"You have such a pretty face," means "Geez, you're fat."

"You have so much potential," means "You're a lazy, loser."

"You have a great personality," means "You're ugly as a hound."

"You're so creative, means "You're weird."

"I love your enthusiasm," means "You've got no talent."

"How thoughtful (a gift)", means "Ugh, this gift sucks, you don't know me at all, do you?"

The problem with experiencing more than your share of backhanded compliments, is that everything can look like a backhanded compliment. If someone says "you look nice today," you start wondering if they meant that you look crappy every other day. And if someone says something that we find a bit critical, we think "what are they holding back, what are they really trying to say."

For people who hold nothing back, this is very confusing. My husband nearly always says exactly what he means, but I still tend to get really crazy upset sometimes because he'll say something that reminds me of a backhanded compliment from my mother (the queen of backhanded compliments) and I'll go ballistic on him, and he's so befuddled. When I tell him what I felt he was "really saying," he says "If I had meant that, I would have said that."

In fact, he often tells me "if I say something that could be taken two ways, please assume I meant the good one."

I can say from experience on both sides that emotional NOT eating - not allowing yourself to eat certain foods, or enough food - is much, much worse than emotional overeating.

I simply take issue with people who seem to want to post "lolz I didn't eat enough today!" just so everyone can say "How awesome! Now you can have a goody!" I don't mean to offend anyone, but some of these threads seem nothing but attention whoring.

aww, shucks Thanks-- and ditto to you! P.S. That giant omelet recipe looks fan-frickin-tastic...you now know what I'll be eating this weekend

I guess I was misleading in that statement. As I said earlier I am a recovering anorexic, at least thats what I consider myself, I don't think its something that goes away. I never really considered it to be emotional eating or not eating in the traditional sense. I just know that I have no experience with over eating due to stress, depression, etc... I wouldn't want to either, just as I am sure people wouldn't want to deal with the some of the things I deal with.

Well, as does happen occasionally today I am going to be short by about 300 calories because I can't really plan due to a weird schedule and not knowing when my husband was getting up, etc.

SO THERE!!!

It does actually happen. Especially since I have such a wacky nonschedulable schedule and it is impossible for me to plan every day.

I know for me, and I have posted a couple of 'can't get enough' posts in the past, it's been part of a kind of commitment-induced panic about losing the weight I need to.

Sometimes I am so swamped with the fear that I've made myself fat so many times, that my body will just give out over night, and I won't see another morning on this earth. Less so now but definitely at the beginning it could be overwhelming.

When your eating gets as disordered as mine had, it is really hard to know how to put it right. Conventional wisdom, from my early dieting days, was 'the lower the better', calorie wise. It was 1,000 calores as a given, and meal replacement shakes that totalled maybe 600 for the day were freely available in supermarkets. I estimate I've been dieting for 37 years now. If low and lower had been the answer, I wouldn't be here today, rejoicing that I'm 3 stone OVER the top end of normal weight.

So I tried 1400 to ease myself in, then 1300, then 1200, then 1100 - and my weightloss stalled, the lower I got. If being morbidly obese had been panic-inducing enough, this was even worse: I'm doing everything 'right' and it's not working: I'm going to be fat for the rest of my very short life.

Eventually I believed people and was brave enough to go to 1500+, and my weightloss is going nicely, thankyou, averaging 2.1lbs a week so far. In the early days of eating more, I did get panicked and ask for help meeting 1500. I could go and eat a candy bar but one always lead to more (I haven't beaten that yet) and, in any case, gives me fluid retention problems. Being in a no-man's land between eating everything that wasn't nailed down (before) and 'healthy foods' (as per all previous education, lean, lots of salads etc) became panicky too, didn't want to go back to before, low-fat+low-carb+not very much wasn't helping either.

I understand anyone's frustration, if they're hungry on their diet and that is difficult for them (I'm lucky, I'm a recovering emtional eater, I've never over-eaten out of hunger and don't mind feeling hungry at atll). I assure you though, I've never asked the 'enough' question out of attention-seeking but out of terror that my attempts to stop shortening my lfe would never work.

I love the way this thread has reminded all of us how others push our buttons and we theirs!

Yes but....I thought I'd never say it but some days I can't eat enough :O It's because I'm a recovering binge eater - some days if I eat a lot of low calorie protein, salad, fruit, etc. I feel very very full but have only eaten 1200-1300 calories. I find it easy to eat more if I eat cheese, bread and pasta but those foods are triggers for me binging so I'm trying to avoid them and only have a little bit or eat them occasionally. I find it very hard to either not eat too much or not eat to little and to eat roughly the right amount of calories for me to lose weight. I can understand that's annoying, I never over ate at mealtimes anyway and it was because I was binge eating that I put so much weight on and became so heavy to it makes sense that by stopping binge eating and avoiding trigger foods I would struggle to eat enough. I'm still learning the best way to use calories. I've always found salad fills me up a lot and at the moment salad is what I feel like eating. I'm always less hungry this time of year too.

Some posts along the lines of "I can't eat all the calories I'm allowed" seem to be to be braggety-bragging as if the poster is so delicate and precious that she just can't eat much. My sister is like that; brings in nothing but a yogurt for lunch and claims after that she's just stuffed, but let someone bring in pizza and she's the first one to pounce. And after all, somthing's making her overweight, and it sure isn't the yogurt. Or it's like the woman here at work who says to the other woman wearing a size 14, "I'm getting so fat! These pants are a size four!" That's the kind of thing I took the OP to mean. Oh, and the size four woman? I'd like to throttle her; what an insensitive thing to say to our overweight co-worker.

I think sometimes this is just another reflection of the "culture" of dieting.

Sometimes it's something said out of fear (I can't let anyone know - even myself that I eat as much as I do).

I'm not saying it isn't an accurate and very legitimate experience for many people, but I think there are others for whome it is attention-seeking or defense mechanism. I don't know it's as common here as in the "real world." Still, even when a person is obviously denying or in denial about how much they eat, it's part of a bigger problem.

There was a time when secret eating was a big problem for me. I usually didn't deny that I ate a lot, but I didn't advertise it, either. I was very self-conscious about eating in front of people. My thoughts were crazy, whenever confronted with some foods, or quantitites of foods -

salad (can't eat a salad, people will notice I'm dieting - or think "who does she think she's kidding eating a salad in public?").

regular soda, desserts of any kind, pizza... (people will think "no wonder she's fat.")

the last piece of anything, even if it's the first time I was offered any - or even if my "share" of the pizza was the last slice (everyone had two slices or more, and I'd only had one). I couldn't help feeling like all eyes were on me, if I took the "last piece."

If someone where to comment on my small appetite, or say "you eat so little, I don't see how you can be overweight," I sometimes felt panicky. If I kept my mouth shut, I felt like a big liar, but I didn't want to tell my "secret" either.

Sometimes I think it is a cry of "see, I don't eat THAT much, it's not my fault."

Other times, I think is said, because a person thinks it's something that is "supposed" to be said.

And other times it's said, because it's completely accurate, even when not dieting, quantity may not be the person's issue.

Stomach fullness is largely determined by volume, and a person eating a lot of fat, may not have a large stomach capacity.

Also some people are afraid of even the healthiest of fats, while dieitng, so the idea of eating avocado (which on many diets is "forbidden," because of it's fat/calorie count) to add calories without much volume is frightening.

Also, many people have a list in their head of "diet" and "non-diet" foods, and the only foods on the "ok list" are so low in calorie, it is impossible to get an appropriate calorie count (if you're only eating low calorie vegetables, and little fat or protein, it's going to be fairly difficult to reach a substantial calorie count).

If you are on a plan in which you can "eat anything" as long as you calculate in the exchanges/calories... then it can seem ridiculous to complain "I can't eat enough," because we know there are tons of high calorie, low volume choices.

Sometimes the real problem is something like "Help I have 300 calories to use, but my stomach is full from the four pounds of lettuce I just ate, and I'm afraid to eat anything that has more than 100 calories to the pound."

It can be easy to think "you think you've got problems, you don't know what problems are" whenever we encounter a person with a problem we can't relate to (or would gladly trade for one we have). Sometimes though the person's problem may not even be what they think it is, and without someone helping them scratch the surface, well we all know what a lonely place that can be.

I'm not judging anyone here - this is by no means, an easy situation to be in, or to watch from the outside. Things are just sometimes complicated.

WOW Kaplods!!! Do you live in my head and get my thoughts out on paper so they make sense?!? LOL You described me to a T above. I used to use humor a lot to make light of the amount I would eat if I thought someone was looking at me with disapproving eyes. I remember I would say something like I need that last piece of cake for weight maintenance or how else would I keep up my sexy figure if I didn't have an extra serving of pasta. It makes me sad when I look back at that. I used to feel so lonely like I was the only one that thought that way.

Even if I can't relate to someones problem it's nice to try to understand so you can be supportive. I think learning about each other helps us to be more empathetic.