For the past few months, I've been on a cut with lots of cardio and lifting, but only casual dieting. I've not been counting calories at all; I've simply cut out snacks, seconds, and almost all sweets/desserts. (Basically just portion control.) The results have been great: I've lost 35 pounds so far. The amazing thing about this strategy is that I almost never feel hungry, which helps me avoid cheating/bingeing.
However, I may have plateaued, so I now want to go hard-core with my diet, switching to six well-planned meals a day and careful calorie counting to make sure I'm getting at least a 500 calorie deficit. But I'm worried that this diet will make me feel hungry more often. I certainly hope not, because then I won't be able to sustain it.
For those of you on a strict 500 calorie deficit, how often do you find yourself going hungry?
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04-24-2010, 02:22 AM #1
- Join Date: Feb 2010
- Location: San Jose, California, United States
- Age: 49
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Does a 500 calorie deficit mean going hungry?
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04-24-2010, 02:55 AM #2
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04-24-2010, 02:59 AM #3
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04-24-2010, 03:20 AM #4
IMO not many people really know what hunger feels like. We are a society of over eaters. Most of us have been brought up to believe that food is a reward or we use it at a crutch when we are depressed. The body does a poor job of indicating thirst, which is more important for survival than actual hunger, so I have a hard time believing that the strange feeling we get in our stomach is actually hunger. I never eat breakfast and usually only get hunger pains after I eat that first meal. Generally I am only hungry from lunch to supper. After supper I do quite well, possibly because I am less active.
Those pains can be used to your advantage. Get use to them and welcome that feeling. To be honest it is a more comfortable feeling than being bloated after a huge meal. I've been running at least 800 below maintenance for a little while now and when those pains hit I throw back a bottle of water, a few cups of stout coffee or some green tea. There are other things you can use to mask the feeling, just try to choose something that is low cal or no cal! Congratulations on your progress so far!
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04-24-2010, 04:40 AM #5
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04-24-2010, 04:44 AM #6
I am currently taking in around 1500-1600 calories a day, this is going from like 2300 or 2500 a day(Maybe more) and I must tell you, if you eat the right stuff and balance it throughout the day, you will not feel tired. I have only done this for 2 days now, but I am feeling very energenic and happy. Hunger, nope. I am never hungry anymore, if I have an urge to eat something, I will go and drink some water instead.
As for right now, I am kind of tired as I have nothing to do, but I am not falling over like I used to.
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04-24-2010, 04:45 AM #7
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04-24-2010, 05:49 AM #8
- Join Date: Jun 2009
- Location: Vancouver, Washington, United States
- Age: 60
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I laugh at the "Wipe out hunger" campaigns.....
That is the last thing we need in this country. We don't have enough hunger in this country.
Everyone is supposed to be hungry......at least three times per day.
Embrace hunger..... It's your body thanking you for eating right.
Then eat good food. If everyone waited until they felt hungry to eat, we'd all be ripped.
I'm 17 months into my new life.... I've never deprived myself. I've never lost more than a pound or two per week. I'm down over 60 pounds of body fat. At this point, I know my body well.... it tells me when to eat....which is about every 3 hours.
If your diet is on track, just about the time you feel hungry, it is time to eat.A diet isn't punishment. A diet is a way to reward your body with the wholesome, nutritious food that it needs. Your body composition is a direct reflection of what you put in your mouth.
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04-24-2010, 06:19 AM #9
- Join Date: Apr 2010
- Location: Austin, Texas, United States
- Age: 43
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For me it was a pain in the rear for the first 1.5 weeks... Now.. I am totally fine and I am on a 700 calorie def. The hunger pain will subside.. Your body has to get use to it... I sometimes through out the day and even at dinner need to force myself to eat because I don't feel hungry anymore..
June 12th is my birthday- lets see what I can get too = )
8 week cut April 18th-June 13th (I'll weigh in, in the morning)
04/08/2010- 217
04/13/2010- 214.5 20.2% BF (first session w/PT)
04/18/2010- 213
04/27/2010- 212 17.3% BF (2 week check w/PT)
05/11/2010- 207 16.9% BF (4 week check w/PT)
05/25/2010-
06/08/2010-
06/12/2010 (Goal Day
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04-24-2010, 07:21 AM #10
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04-24-2010, 07:37 AM #11
Protein powder (not necessarily whey) always helps me tremendously on a cut. Some Casein or Syntha6 or something is about 150-200cals for a scoop which will be about 25g or protein. I can down a scoop and knock out that hungry feeling and it also increases your hydration (which is probably why you feel "hungry" in the first place).
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04-24-2010, 08:02 AM #12
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04-24-2010, 08:20 AM #13
I am at 700 to 1000 cal deficit per day. I track every calorie, and I feel good. The worst for me is being hungry late at night and not being able to sleep. I started using casein and 1 tbs of peanut butter about one hour before bed and it cured my hunger at night. Other than that, I can notice a change in my body and it makes me feel great.
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04-24-2010, 08:21 AM #14
I'm dropping a couple pounds for summer: eating ~500 under maintenance daily and burning another 500-850 extra calories a day doing extra cardio above and beyond my normal maintenance activities (cardio is split up, one AM done on it's own or after weights and another low-impact session done at night).
Sometimes I do feel like **** and tired and I do get cravings -- but I'm 1,000-1,350 under maintenance overall. I think just going 500 under wouldn't be that hard to do...
However, I wouldn't just go 500 under unless I was getting very close to single-digit BF%. The more fat you have, the more you can safely lose a week. Reading the OP, I suspect if he was able to drop 35 pounds so easily that he had a lot of it to begin with.
I'd start counting calories and slowly drop my calories and increasing my cardio over a month. Shoot to lose 2 to 2-1/2 pounds a week, if not more, depending on how overweight you are and how much fat you have overall.
This isn't science and I'm not sure how accurate it is (other than personal experience) but I shoot to lose about 1 pound a week for every 15 pounds of fat I have on my body overall. Figure out your FB% and your weight, determine how much fat you probably have and go from there.
GLAll truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
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04-24-2010, 09:08 AM #15
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04-24-2010, 09:27 AM #16
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04-24-2010, 09:33 AM #17
in my experience it's been more about choosing the right meals
a bowl of cereal even with fat free milk can be 400 calories and you'll feel hungry an hour later. a larger bowl of oatmeal can be 300 calories and make you feel not hungry for 2-3 hours.
i actually had a problem this past month where my deficit was getting too big; around 1500 calories. i had to change some of my meals to make them more calorie heavy and less filling to bump it back down to 1k or less.
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