Hi Gals,

I just got done with "dinner" and was reading some articles on livestrong and it spoke of asking yourself why you are eating. That by asking that everytime you eat you can make sure it's not due to social convention or boredom/feeling emotional. So obviously I asked myself why I ate. And my answer was "it's dinnertime."

Now, if I follow the guideline of eating when hungry I'd not have eaten my dinner. But I only ate like 500 calories the rest of the day and I exercised for an hour and a half. I notice lately that I'm not hungry a lot. And the moments I am hungry I choose food that fills me up but is 'low' in calories. So if I followed this approach of eating when hungry I'd probably not get enough calories. But we all say that is bad. So I just wonder - would my body eventually start asking for bigger meals then? How do you know you are eating what your body is asking for? After all this caloriecounting I know what I "can get away with eating" in a day so I do. But I don't do so because my body asks for it everytime. Lately I often forget to eat because I am busy and just really not hungry.

So, just wondering - what are your experiences with eating when hungry? Do you reach your daily needs? How often do you eat? What is your view on this topic?

for me, it was super important to force myself to eat. at my heaviest of 180lbs, I remember not feeling hungry ever to be honest.. but when I did eat I ate stuff super high in cal. Even after i started exercising frequently and eating healthier (but not as often), I wasnt really losing that much weight. It wasnt until my new diet (where I FORCED myself to eat EVERY 3 hours) that things started to change... i went from not being hungry to STARVING every 3 hours and thats when I noticed the lbs started dropping faaaaast... my metabolism is crazy now.

So, to answer this thread, although I think its important to remind yourself to not eat when you're not hungry and to eat if you are really are, timing is super important and definitely comes into play. Sometimes you have to force it.

I am struggling with this, myself. Some days I'm just not that hungry, and I look at my calorie count at the end of the day and it's only around 800! I have noticed that working out the day after one of those low-calorie days is harder; I feel noticeably weaker. So now I make sure I eat at least 1200 a day.

If you can tell it's going to be one of those "I'm not very hungry" days early on, you don't have to necessarily force yourself to eat more--just eat slightly higher calorie foods (like making your snack trail mix instead of an apple, for example).

I have some days like this too and I think it's natural enough. Are you genuinely not hungry or just so busy that you forget to eat?

Make sure you're getting some good food into you but yeah maybe eat slightly higher calorie foods on those days if you're only eating a small amount. I'd imagine that you would feel more hungry again after a while but I'd be wary of not really eating at all really. Listen to your body though, and as kelsey said be aware if you feel weaker the next day.

I ALWAYS feel hungry! I workout super hard and I eat pretty much on a schedule though, so when it's "time to eat" my tummy is growling and I'm definitely ready for it.

Becoming conscious of when I was really hungry and when I just "wanted" something for whatever emotional reason was really important for me in losing and now in maintaining. I still track my calories, and I found that weeks when I don't eat all my allotted calories are often followed by times when I do want to eat a little more. So I don't force myself to eat when I'm not hungry unless I know I will need it for a big exercise session or something. I keep a fiber bar and a baggie of nuts and dried fruit in my exercise bag for the occasional times when I didn't want to eat my packed lunch and will end up eating it for dinner after I get home from exercise.

It is a pain though for my thriftiness habit when I don't end up eating all the perishable food that I've bought for the week. Sometimes I've prepared something out of it just to stick it in the freezer for a rainy day.

Sometimes I have hungry days and sometimes I don't. The more I listen to my hunger cues, the more I self-regulate and yes, that means 1200-2000 calories days happen naturally. This is one of the reasons I track my intake AND weight, I can then tell what is going on and if I have slipped back into habitual overeating, as opposed to being genuinely hungry. I have to check myself constantly.

I am of the school that is opposed to forcing mealtimes unless you KNOW that waiting for a hunger cue will get you into late night binge trouble. Some of that just depends on our particular struggles and habits, you know?

For me, though, I am trying to avoid 'clock' hunger and focusing on the feedback my system is giving me more and more. That is the only way I improve my broken fullness and hunger cues - consciously focus on feeling the difference until it has become natural again. And with me, realizing as well that I DON'T always self limit and my leptin is a little wonky, so if I am still wanting to eat but have had enough calories for the day ideally I will not eat more food unless I ascertain a gnawing, physiological hunger instead of just boredom.

For most of the day I eat if I'm hungry. I'm always hungry when I wake up, and I feel sick if I don't eat something pretty soon after waking, so breakfast is never an issue. And I wake up late - 2pm usually, at the moment - because I'm unemployed, so regular mealtimes are a bit wonky anyway. Tea, the main meal of the day, happens anywhere between seven and eleven in the evening, and then I try not to eat after midnight, because I don't like going to bed on a full stomach. I keep finding I'm not actually getting hungry in those hours between teatime and bedtime, unless it was a particularly early tea, in which case I may end up having some fruit.

The bit that worries me is a lot of the time I'm not hungry at teatime either. I eat anyway, because I have to cook (because if I didn't then the boyfriend wouldn't have to wash up, and then I'd have to, and by god do I hate the washing up). Like today, it's been nearly eight hours since my breakfast of one slice of wholemeal toast with mackerel on it and ten strawberries. And I'm not hungry. Left to my own devices, I'd probably have an omelette or some broccoli in a couple of hours, and that'd be it for the day. And that can't be healthy, can it? But I have to cook tea, because the boyfriend's the sort to not bother eating if he can't be bothered to cook (which is always), and I worry about him not eating because he's five foot eleven and eight stone nine. So I end up eating when I'm not hungry.

This is a bit long and rambly, isn't it? Short version: I seem to have trained myself to not notice hunger. This is awesome for ensuring I don't overeat, but I suspect not that healthy long-term.

I never thought this would happen to me, but I've had to count calories to keep my weight up for the last several months. (I reached my current weight of 125 in June 2011.) I'm just not hungry like I used to be. I stopped counting calories in August and eventually started dropping weight. I've been (roughly) counting calories since Jan and have slowly gotten back up to a steady 125. I still have to watch it, and I'm still struggling with low appetite some days.

I got off the Pill in June 2011 and my appetite shot up for a couple of months and then dipped way down. So I find it possible that this is all hormonal. It does have a pattern: during the first two weeks of my cycle, my appetite is so low that I sometimes have to just force myself to get my calories by any means necessary (I work out fairly intensely and do want to fuel myself & my muscles ); during the third week, my appetite is more normal; and during the fourth week, I am actually pretty hungry. For all I know this may all change again soon. That's ok! I've learned that calorie counting is good for practically anything.

I hate you.

Yeah - I agree with JohnP, I'm jealous..I'm always hungry. Although it varies between stomach, mouth and mind hunger.

Same here.

F.

The only way I can feel "not hungry" on a weight loss diet, is eating so low-carb that I am nearly constantly feeling shaky, nauseous, on the verge of passing out with a blinding headache and so susceptible to mood swings that I'm ready to bite heads off (spitting them out immediately of course because I'm not hungry).

To feel decent, I have to eat low- but not too-low- carb, and have to find the illusive balance between high-carb's hungry enough to gnaw my own foot off and low-carb's too nauseous to look at a glass of water without wanting to heave.

I feel like this is a slippery slope I've been down before. When I really am honest with myself, I got to the low 120s in 2008 by not eating much or often. A lot of times it has come back to bite me. I wasn't really that hungry after eating a lot less but I also got joy and felt successful when I went to bed knowing I didn't eat all my calories. The weight came back on way too quickly when I was eating normal calories. Now it is even harder to loose weight for me, but I know I need to do it right.

I grew up in a house with pretty normal sized parents and siblings...where eating 3 meals a day was pretty required. I didn't gain the weight until I went away to college...but I had this mentality that's must eat 3 times a day. Now I try to eat when I am hungry but I know if it has been 4 or 5 hour since lunch and I'm not super hungry that I still need to eat something. Maybe I don't need a 5 hundred calorie meal but perhaps an apple and some string cheese, or a banana and peanut butter...something with protein.

I also try not to eat past 7pm at the latest so I've made sure I eat breakfast no later than when the students go to recess, or so, then lunch is regulated by the school schedule but I try again not to over eat or eat food in the staff room. I keep nuts and fruit with me in my bag but what I've learned is that I don't HAVE to eat them every day, but I am sure glad when they are there.

Right now it's almost 9pm here and I'm thinking of ice cream- but I know if I eat it now I will feel icky and the scale will go up tomorrow. Sometimes it's mind over matter for me...

I find that I can't really listen to my hunger cues. I tried and that led me to losing more weight because I wasn't hungry and then I had a day where I was feeling famished and felt my self control slipping. Not the ideal situation.

I thought about food too much as well when I decided to just eat when hungry. I would wonder when I would get hungry so I could have my meal. I wondered when I should eat the meal and if me getting hungry would coincide with my lunch period...

It just didn't work. I found it was much easier on my mind if I just knew when the next scheduled "food period" was. At 11 am I often have lunch. I made the lunch the night before so I know what it is. I don't have to think about it; it's there and I just have to get it at 11.

I also stay ahead of my hunger this way. If I skip a meal time (or eat later than usual) I will feel hungry and find it more difficult to stay on track.