UGH! I always know when I haven't eaten very smartly on a particular day...like today. Here it is 1:05 in the afternoon, had lunch an hour ago, and I am SO HUNGRY!!! GRRRRRR. I've consumed around 550 calories so far today, trying to stay under 1270 and so I was hoping not to have to eat anything else in order to allow for dinner and a glass of wine. My food choices today were kind of random...

breakfast was a stuffed portabello mushroom from Fresh and Easy (bought by the hubs) and about 5 little pieces of orange chicken (left over from days ago and wanted to get rid of it)

I had last night's dinner for lunch, which was Knorr Fajita flavored rice with ground turkey and spinach added (not very calorie dense, but the rice was still a packaged rice)

oh, and might I add that I ate a piece of Sees candy (the kind with the brittle inside)

I guess I better go back to eating high fiber cereal or oatmeal w/peanut butter for breakfast, because I feel like I do when I wake up hungry in the morning! This is GREAT proof of how eating processed or packaged foods just doesn't cut it. I think since the holidays started I've lost a little track of what I normally eat - time to go over to Fitday and take a look at my logs!! I do have a chest/back workout to do at the gym tonight, which will burn some of the calories...I'll have to squeeze as much cardio in afterwards as I can before the hubs finishes his workout, too. That should do it.

Until then...I suffer! I'll probably have some chicken broth to ease my hunger, and maybe a snack of string cheese before the gym, though. For now, MORE WATER!!!:crazy

How do some of you handle these not-so-smart-eating hungry days???

I usually handle them badly and end up stuffing my face in the evening. If I get desperate enough I will eat a protein bar for 200ish calories, which helps sometimes but on really bad PMSy days does almost nothing.

LOL...the funny part of it all is the reason I don't do that! I want to be able to have my wine

How's that for priorities?!?!?!? Guess we know where mine lie...

If I am saving cals for dinner, like you are with your wine, then I will snack on veggies. If the hunger is real and is going to be distracting, then you need to eat something, and just try to go as low cal as possible.

of course, you're right! I did just have chicken broth (sodium free) with cayenne pepper...it actually did the trick for now. I didn't bring anything else to work with me today - I didn't anticipate getting this hungry!

I've been starving all week and I think it's because I went off plan so bad during all of the holiday parties. Now I'm having such a hard time getting back on track. Last year I did so good. I didn't really go off plan and so I didn't get all those cravings, but this year I gave in and, as usual, I couldn't be happy with just a little nibble here and there. I'm really trying to get back on track, but it's really hard when there are all these goodies lying around and seeing everyone else here at work nibbling on them off and on all day. I try to resist, but my appetite has been crazy this week. Even after having oatmeal for breakfast, I still found myself hungry not long after. I have to get this hunger under control. I went shopping last night and that kept my mind off of food, but when I got home it was late and I ate a couple of truffles before I went to bed. It's so frustrating. I didn't have these cravings when I was following the Atkins diet. I enjoy being able to have carbs on WW's, but if I can't get this appetite under control I'm going back on Atkins.

I know this was not an answer on how to control your hunger. It's more like how not to, lol.

I still really appreciate the input!

I bump up the calories for that day and add in a small snack or two, and I just make it up later in the week. I eat 1700-1800 cals/day though, so that might be easier than me. I can't get through a workout if I'm hungry though, and I figure 200ish extra calories are a lesser evil than skipping the gym.

I also find that my hunger levels cycle. When I go through a week or two of OMG SO HUNGRY, I don't sweat it. I eat a little more, and worst case, the scale stalls for a week. Usually once I come through a hungry phase, I see a bigger drop, like 4-5 lbs in one week, when I should only see a 2 lb loss according to my logs.

550 calories after lunch is nothing, for me at least! I stick to 3 pretty large meals throughout the day and I found that has helped me cut out my snacking almost completely. I do eat a bit more calories than you a day, around 1500, but breakfast is usually around 400, would be less but I need my coffee, lunch is around 500 and dinner's about the same. Yesterday I was able to have my glass of wine with dinner and I was still under my calorie goal!

You may want to play around with how you distribute your calories if what you've been doing isn't working anymore.

I was just reading some tips on dealing with hunger while dieting on some site that I was on the other day and of course it had all the usual ones like eating something with protein or something high in fiber, etc. etc... But one of the last tips was a quote from someone (sorry I can't remember who...) and it said to just think of it as "hunger is just fat leaving the body"... which made me laugh... But I decided to try it out... and it actually has been working for me... well, for and hour or two, at least...lol... Although surprisingly enough, that has sometimes been enough to get me through to my next meal... so, I'll take it...