Is It Normal To Feel Hungry On A Diet?
Q: I’m eating less food to lose weight and made sure to calculate my calories so I didn’t drop them too low. Despite that, I still get so hungry between meals that I’m ready to stuff my face more than the female talent does in a blowbang! So yeah, is it normal to feel hungry on a diet?
A: One of the secrets of weight loss that most people don’t talk about is that you’re going to be hungry most of the time.
In order to lose weight, you have to enter and remain in a calorie deficit. Because a deficit means that you have to take in fewer calories than your body needs, that translates to your body not receiving as much energy as it was supplied with prior to the beginning of the deficit. That in turn can cause hunger from the body having to operate on less fuel. Another reason for hunger has to do with hormones. See, when you restrict your calorie intake below maintenance, more ghrelin gets released by the stomach to stimulate appetite and less leptin is released by the gut and fat cells to signal fullness. Together, the change in the production of these hormones can affect hunger and satiety.
As we see, hunger is a certainty on a diet because it’s a natural response to the very act of dieting. To achieve successful weight loss, you have to overcome your body’s attempts to force you to eat. That said that hunger is unavoidable and is an ever-present part of weight loss, the amount of hunger you experience shouldn’t be so much that there’s a constant rumble in your stomach and all your thoughts are about food. If your feeling of hunger is that severe, that’s usually a sign that your deficit is too large and more calories need to be added back into your diet.1A drastic reduction in calories can bring about hunger and cravings from the resulting drop in blood sugar levels from not eating enough.
When you do something drastic like reduce your food intake by 1000 calories, hunger that’s unmanageable is to be expected. When you take a moderate approach and cut your calories by 300-500 calories, then the amount of hunger you experience as a physiological response shouldn’t be overwhelming. However, if your deficit is modest and for some reason you experience the sensation of unrelenting hunger on a regular basis, as it appears to be in your case, then there are a few things that can be done.
Eating the right amount of calories is important to make sure that you’re not undereating but what’s just as important is eating the right amount of macronutrients. Based on the information you provided, it appears that you’re doing the former but maybe not the latter. So since no info was given concerning your macros, you should make sure that you’re eating enough protein and dietary fat in particular.2In regard to fat, the monounsaturated kind is variety you want more of. Both of those nutrients have filling and satiating effects on appetite, as does fiber. Those are small things to address. For a much more wholesale dietary change, you could look to eat your largest meal early in the day and reduce the size of each subsequent meal so dinner is your smallest. According to research, that meal pattern does a better job of reducing hunger than eating the smallest meal in the morning and largest in the evening. What could also help is improving your sleep and managing stress to get the hunger hormones in check.
Consuming a greater quantity of certain nutrients and making changes to some dietary and lifestyle habits can help deal with incessant hunger on a diet that isn’t a product of an aggressive deficit. But let’s suppose that those conditions are met and extreme hunger persists. In that situation, it’s in your best interest to get examined for a thyroid issue or any other medical condition in which frequent hunger is a symptom.
The above is the answer to your question and in return for the help, I now have my own question for you. See, as all-knowing as I am, I don’t have a clue what a “blowbang” is. So go ahead and return the favor by describing it for me. Oh, and please do so in as graphic detail as possible so I can visualize it fully. Thanks!
Now, does anyone else have a fitness or nutrition question of their own that they want to ask?
Glossary: calories, diet, dietary fat, fitness, hormones, macronutrients, macros, nutrition
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