I am so hungry I could eat my own arm!!!!! These last couple of days have been excruciating. I was so hungry on the way home from school that I ate a bag of popcorn (350) which used up most of my calories I had allotted for dinner. I am at 1130 for the day right now and that only leaves 170 for the day! What am I going to do??

I'm trying so hard to really kick it up and lose some weight. It has taken me 14 months to lose 30 lbs- too long!! I know 1300 a day seems a little low but I don't know how else to do this except drastically reduce my calories. Any advice?

I hate it when I do that.. eat something crappy with alot of calories and then im starving later. I think you will be fine if you go a little over your calories or sometimes when I am low on calories I will eat a ton of veggies like a giant salad with minimal dressing. I am slowly learning how to add ALOT of food in a little calories.. it usually comes down to fruits and veggies

Do you have a Trader Joe's nearby? They have several low calorie salads that you could eat for dinner. I believe their Pacific Blue salad is only 200 calories with dressing. You would only come in 30 calories over for the day.

If you don't have a Trader Joe's, you could make your own salad. 4 oz of chicken is only about 140 calories (you can buy pre-cooked grilled chicken like Tyson's). Add in some lettuce, veggies, and low calorie dressing and you could probably have dinner and only come in 50 to 100 calories over for the day.

But I also think maybe you need to be eating more, not less. If you are hungry, that's a sign to me that you aren't eating enough. 14 months doesn't seem like an excessively long time to lose 30 lbs. It's a banner month for me if I lose 2 lbs. As you get closer and close to your goal, the weight is going to come off slower and slower. And when I don't eat enough, I don't lose any weight. I doubt that drastically reducing your calories is going to get you any closer to your goal.

I've done that, too! My solution? A nice bowl of cereal! Most cereals are about 220 calories for a cup of them and 1/2 cup of skim milk. I just had a bowl of Fiber One Raisin Bran Clusters. Yum!

I hesitate to say this becuase I don't think it is what you want to hear but maybe you are not eating enough calories. Or a better way to put it is maybe you dropped your calories too sudden. What were you eating before you dropped down to 1300? Maybe you need to move down slower. (Like if you were eating 1500 before first drop down to 1400 then 1350 and then finally to 1300).

I don't know if you already doing this but maybe you could be adding some more exercise and allot the extra calories to having an extra snack.

Also it can depend on what you are eating. Protein helps you stay fuller longer.

Best of luck!

You know, we all screw up sometimes. Forgive yourself, let yourself eat something light for dinner (I would go the salad + protein route, myself) and make a note that if you gorge on popcorn (or whatever) again, you will go hungry in the evening! I personally tend to think of calorie consumption the way I think of money--I have 1300 calories to spend, what is the best way to spend them? (And it is possible that once in a while, spending 350 calories on salt and vinegar chips is, in fact, the best way to spend the calories!). For the most part it means eating tons and tons of veggies, and going really easy on the fat and carbs. The trouble is that I am really bad with money...Where are the credit cards in world of calorie counting?!?!

p.s. Maybe you should buy the marvellous 100 cal bags of popcorn and keep them in your kitchen for snack emergencies?

p.p.s You've lost a TON of weight so far. Have you been doing 1300 all along, or is the low calorie intake related to a plateau? Have you tried the zig-zagging method? It works for lots of people, and it is a bit more forgiving than 1300 a day.

I don't know what hour it is for you, so I hope you've found/will find a good solution for that. I'd personnally also go with a dinner all the same -- salad with chicken, a couple of tomatoes, well, something yummy with lean meat. It'll put you a little above your calories quota, but it may also very well prevent a late-evening 'snack' time (we all know how THIS tend to end more than often!) that can be pretty worse than a regular dinner, especially if you end up getting it because you're ravenous.

I don't know if upping the daily calories count is what you need, perhaps it is if you're often hungry like that. (I say that because there are days when I'm just hungry, period, even though other days on the same calories intake are just fine, so I'm not sure if hunger, as genuine as it is, can always be counted on as a sign. But if it happens regularly enough, then you might want to look into that.)

too late now but I would have eaten a normal dinner and started fresh in th morning

Yeah, AllyCat30, I've been there. It seems there is no choice but to go somewhat above the daily goal. But the other posters have made some excellent suggestions of how to eat a decent dinner for 200 cals. Those are some great ideas.

Ally, you're fairly young, aren't you? Do you have any idea how many calories you are burning in a day? (I can't remember if you've posted this before.) I do think you've said that you have trouble feeling hungry, even if you've just eaten not too long ago--is that you? Anyway, see if you can figure out from FitDay or another calculator how many calories you burn just as a baseline. If you're burning over 2000, then 1300 may be too low for you to eat.

Jay

I would echo the sentiment that you should (have) eaten a regular dinner. Ending up one day at 1500-1600 calories isn't going to hurt.

You said that you don't know how to do this, other than drop your calories. How is your exercise? How much are you doing, and what are you doing? Have you advanced or increased your exercise since you started last year? This is just as important as dropping your calories when you plateau.

Basically, if you started out doing a 1 mile walk daily...a year later you should be doing more than that. Walking 2 miles daily, or adding a couple days a week of something else-weight training, yoga, Pilates, a class of some sort, or something. If you started out using light weights, and started doing a dvd with 3 pound weights-a year later you should have worked up to heavier ones, etc. Basically, as your diet will need to change throughout your journey to keep seeing results, so does your exercise.

That is just another option for you to get things going again...

Chiming in a little late ...... You've got to eat dinner. No matter what happens during the day, chances are come dinner time you're going to need some FOOD. So eat. It doesn't have to be a huge meal, but it's got to be a meal nevertheless. Tomorrow (today) is another day. Maybe instead of eating a bag of popcorn on the way home from school you can have a fruit or granola bar or some other 100 calorie snack on hand. That would save you a couple hundred calories. Always be prepared. Try and keep something with you.

You have several posts along this same line and a lot of people have suggested that you try upping your calories. Have you tried this yet? You're not going to gain back what you've lost by increasing you calories to 1500 or so. Try zig-zagging your calories every day. 1400 one day, 1600 the next day. Go use the calculators to figure out exactly how many calories your body needs in a day just to function. The body is extremely adaptive and efficient. By giving it the exact same number of calories day in and day out, it has adjusted and is obviously maintaining fine on 1300 calories. If you insist on eating only that much everyday, then you will need to increase your exercise to get an additional calorie deficit. Also, what are you eating? Too many carbs (esp. stuff like rice, pasta, anything processed) and not enough protein and good fats will absolutely cause you to get hungry faster. Decrease some of the carbs and replace them w/lean proteins/fats. Try the advice offered and let us know what happens.

Jo

Thanks so much everyone for the advice! I had to eat something so I decided on some steamed scallops with whole wheat angel hair pasta and zucchini and squash. I also had a small green salad with low-fat dressing. I probably went over my limit by a couple hundred calories but I felt much better and I didn't gain any weight this morning when I weighed in.

It is just so frustrating how slow is is coming off. I haven't lost anything is what feels like weeks. I do work out- quite a bit actually. I do both weight training and the treadmill usually 30-45 minutes 5 times a week. I am also into endurance horse riding in which I ride for hours at a time and in my mind that equals about 4000 leg squats. I'm not training for the Olympics or anything but I feel that I am an fairly active person. I just don't get it. I would be thrilled with even a 1/2 pound a week loss at this point. I missed my Easter goal (still haven't made it) and now I am going to miss my Memorial Day goal. Bleh. What's the point?

The point is that you've lost 34 pounds! Even if you never lose another, those 34 pounds are gone and can be gone forever, and that's a big difference. Look at your BMI change, if nothing else..."overweight" is a lot less risky than "obese".

That said, if you keep up the lifestyle changes you'll only get healthier, and remember, this is for life. Life means that sometimes you're going to have bad days, and sometimes you'll eat more than usual and that's okay, as long as the overall change is there.

And I bet if you keep at it, you will keep losing...bodies can be stubborn things at times, but they can't defy physics, even if they do look for loop-holes. Good luck!

Well, AllyCat30, you tell us! What is the point?

I think you aren't eating enough, if you are that active. Others have suggested that you increase your calories--why not try it for two weeks and see what happens? Not hugely, just go up to 1500-1600. In two weeks you'll know whether it's working.

Jay