I do drink a lot of water — all day long, I am sipping water and herbal tea. Sometimes I’ll throw in a caffeine-free diet cola, but not often.
That’s exactly it — the cheese is my fat and protein and I try to satisfy my craving with 10 rice crackers (I carefully count out the rice crackers every day.)
The cheese isn’t fat-free, just a bit lower in fat than the regular cheddar. I have found that I’ll easily scarf down just as much full-fat cheese and feel no more or less satiated than I do with the lower fat stuff, so I try to minimize the damage.
The fruit was something I added because the protein didn’t seem to cut it. For the past two weeks, I’ve been eating egg-white-cheese quiche for breakfast, but I was still hungry. The Fiber One bars were something I started because I simply didn’t know what else to eat.
When I came home from work, I had five egg whites (as I have been doing every day) and seven walnuts. I was still hungry. So I just had 2 pieces of Weight Watchers bread, toasted with hazelnut butter, and I feel okay right now.
I suspect the answer may simply be to get used to feeling hungry. It just isn’t the answer I wanted.
But this thread has gotten off course. I put it in Cafe Society because I was originally looking for recipe or food ideas, but it’s turned into something else. (My apologies, Mods.)
If you eat more fat and protein, you won’t feel hungry (or as hungry) – that’s the beauty of it! I try to eat between 1500-1600 calories a day, and eating the foods I listed above sometimes actually has me struggling to meet that amount. As in, I’ve eaten ~1300 calories and I’m not hungry anymore and am trying to figure out how to add 200 more calories before the day is done.
Eat the whole egg, yolks and all, when you make eggs. The cholesterol in eggs won’t hurt you, and the yolk has fat that will sate you. Eat a whole ounce of walnuts (I don’t know how many that is, but about 25 almonds is an ounce, so it’s probably that many if not more).
Or just try eating like this for a couple of days and see how you feel. I don’t mean to push this like it works the same for everyone.
Uh…when was the last time you had your blood sugar checked? Rapid weight gain and excessive thirst and extreme hunger are three warning signs for adult onset diabetes. It’s very possible that you’re eating so much because the glucose isn’t getting into your cells, so your brain keeps sending out the hunger signals. Meanwhile, all that excess sugar in your blood is pulling water out of your cells, leading to water weight gain and increased thirst.
It’s also not uncommon for a shift in chemical intake, like quitting smoking, to trigger diabetes in someone who was borderline before. I’d get checked out by a doctor before deciding it’s simply a lack of satisfying recipes.
It appears you are not managing your blood sugar very well. That is a key to your being ravenous. When you eat carbs and sugars you need protein to “flatten the tail” and avoid the plummet that follows a sugar spike. Add oatmeal and a cup of skim milk to breakfast.
I keep a container of Trader Joe’s Just Chicken in the fridge to snack on between meals. Protein is your friend.
Rice crackers have a glycemic index (GI) of about 90 (where pure glucose has a GI of 100). They basically get digested very quickly, give you an insulin spike from which you drop like a stone and leave you feeling more hungry than before (because now your blood sugar’s dropping and you need more fuel, fast). Potato chips have a GI of about 50-60. IME, high GI foods just leave you feeling more hungry than before you ate them.
For me, one of the best ways in preventing hunger has been not just by reducing carbs and calories, but by ensuring that any carbs I do eat are low GI, taking a long time to digest, keeping me much fuller for longer.
ETA You’re probably better with 10 potato chips than 10 rice crackers. Seriously.
I don’t know about you, but I’d never be able to eat only 10 potato chips and I know this is a common phenomenon. I’m a pretty healthy eater and my weight is fine, but crisps are incredibly moreish. This is partly because they are physically addictive - the potatoes contain solanine, a relative of nicotine, and there’s usually some MSG in there too.
Maybe some other sort of crackers would be better. They’d almost definitely be nicer.
Getting checked for diabetes might not be a bad idea, OP. That is an enormous amount of food to be eating and still be hungry. FIVE egg whites? :eek:
That’s true, I’ve never been able to do it unless I count out 10 and 10 exactly, and then hide the rest. Even then its near-impossible. Still, they’re still better in terms of evening out insulin spikes than rice crackers are.
Some sort of whole-grain crispbreads or crackers (I like oatcakes, shame they’re so hard to get hold of in the US) would definitely be better and nicer though. Rice crackers are just blech on so many levels.
We have diabetics in the family, so we tend to check our blood sugar fairly often, but I agree that a blood sugar check wouldn’t hurt.
And I’m well aware of the symptoms. I don’t have a sudden or strong thirst. The sipping of water and tea all day long is something I’ve always done, though. Neither is the ravenous hunger new. I used to simply smoke away much of it. The weight gain is the only thing that’s a change.
I’d second the recommendation that you get yourself checked for diabetes - especially if you haven’t had a regular checkup if a few years, you could probably use one anyway.
With respect to your hunger, I’d second all these suggestions and add that, when in the best shape of my life, I was a little hungry most of the time. If I ran out of food at work (finished my lunch early, for example), I just didn’t eat until I got home. I was too busy usually to overeat, so I just didn’t. All the marathon training problably helped, too.
Still, you may need to get used to being a little hungry or, as noted above, simply not full. I think the rule in weight maintenance and loss is to eat until you’re not longer hungry, not until you’re full. It’s a tough feeling to get used to again, though.
Nuthin’ but sugar. Sugar, sugar, simple carbs, simple carbs. You like fruit in the morning? Try slicing the apple and eating each one with a little dab of peanut butter on each one. Alternately, a slice of whole-grain toast with PB, or maybe a little butter. Or some oatmeal with a few berries chucked into it.
Maybe a lil’ somethin’ to make the veggies more interesting - a Thai-style peanut sauce, for example?
That’s not much for your main meal. Perhaps some broth-based soup beforehand? Some chicken soup with carrots and celery can be sipped at for a while, or a beef’n’barley soup?
'Skay. Almonds have a decent amount of fiber. Could be worse!
You’re eating a lot of carbs (really!) but not a lot of food overall. Your body’s going into starvation mode, IMHO and also IANANutritionist. However, by “get through the evening at home” you don’t mean “not eat,” right? Please, have a plate of lentils or something.
Look here or on Google for “paleo diet” for more high-protein ideas than you can shake a beef stick at!
I don’t know if this will help, but here’s a sample from one day of my food diary back when I lost 40 pounds (and have maintained for 2+ years running now):
MONDAY AUGUST 25, 2008
1 egg 90 Activity: Circuit A
½ bun 60
pork loin 122
-----
272
1 cup 2% milk 120
2 tablespoons agave syrup120
1 piece pork loin 122
-----
362
1 slice grain bread 100
2 slices turkey breast 60
1 tomato 25
1 teaspoon mayo 35
-----
210
nutrition bar 200
1 c skim milk 90
-----
290
¼ Italian sausage 72
1 pollack filet 95
1 serving veggies w/butter 100
1 tomato 25
1 slice whole grain bread 100
----
392
8 oz yogurt 140
1 cup blue berries 80
----
220
beer 150
TOTAL: 1896 calories
I personally did not find myself going hungry on this diet–and I was a 205 pound man when I started–but YMMV. The mention of soup is also a good idea. Eating a bowl of low calorie soup before lunch or dinner also helped with satiety. Another trick for me was to just load up on the veggies, but not skip the protein, and make sure there’s a little bit of fat in there. Grazing on veggies does fill me up, but I need the protein and a touch of fat to really feel satisfied.
Does “evening meal” and “supper” mean something different? As in, two back-to-back meals the same night? I figured people meant one or t’other.
Also, I totally skipped over the “5 cup” thing (if that’s really the amount meant!) but I did an eyeball estimate of the calories involved in an apple, some grapes, two granola bars, a bit of low-fat cheese, and some** chicken’n’greens. (What is that … maaaaaaybe a thousand calories or so? Eight hundred?) I’m a lightly-built woman who’s almost entirely sedentary, and I’d be hungry if that’s all I ate until evening meal/supper. So a man, who says he’s getting excercise … would be even hungrier, no?
Anyway, the main point of my post was not the amount of food overall that he’s eating, but the amount of sugar/simple carbs. My focus was on the type of food he’s focusing on, not the amount.
** “some” does not really equal “five cups.” If he really means that quanitity, then I totally take back my back-of-envelope calorie estimates.
Yes, I know I’m eating too much. That’s why I came here looking for recipes and meal ideas. I appreciate the menu ideas and meal suggestions that have been posted, by the way.
“5 c.” is five cups. That’s a lot of food — I told you I was a hog! — but it’s five cups of leafy greens stir-fried in spices with a bit of chicken tossed in. No oils or fats.
Ah, thanks for clarifying, OP. I think you’ll be a lot happier overall (i.e. not constantly ravenous) if you eat some fat (really!!) and waaay more protein. Dial back the simple carbs accordingly. Your body has to really WORK at digesting protein and fat, compared to simple carbs.
For me, it works like this:
Eat a celery stick: feel self-righteous and healthy … for about eight minutes. Then, back to hungry.
Eat a celery stick with a Tbs of peanut butter: feel self-righteous and healthy for half an hour, plus I’m not preoccupied with thoughts of food that whole time.
Not to stay on this too much, but … five cups of greens? Is that before stir-frying them? I’ve seen an entire bag of spinach deflate to almost nothing after a moment of cooking!
A problem stated is half solved. You already know WHY you’re eating, because it’s a substitute for smoking.
You’re probably better off with more food than smoking
So what to do? The obvious thing is OCCUPY your time. This is a great time to sit down and decided about your life.
Do you like your career? If so is there anything else you like? Could you take a class and develop an interest?
Now is the time to do this. Exercise is important for overall health but it doesn’t really help you lose much weight. Through exercising alone you’ll be lucky to take of 10 pounds, more like five is the norm. For example an hour of high intensity aerobics, non stop 60 minutes, will burn about 300 calories. A candy bar averages 250 calories, so you can see how that isn’t the greatest way to lose weight
Note, exercise is very important for bone and heart health among a host of other things, so do it.
I found a simple way for me to not overeat is don’t keep food in the house. I also LOVE food, but there is no way, I’m gonna get up, go out, weight for the bus and the subway to go to the grocery store and buy food. Of course if the food was in my refrigerator, I’d have already eaten it.
As in, two back-to-back meals the same night? I figured people meant one or t’other.