Hungry all the time

hazelnut · 11-23-2007, 12:35 PM

How many of you just feel hungry all the time? Sometimes I just feel like I never can stop eating...and between meals I seem to get hungrier earlier than I should. One reason why that's frustrating is because I plan my meals really carefully--always good amounts of protein, a little fat, and whole-grains. It's not like I'm woofing down a huge gallon of juice or sugary cereals and wondering why I'm hungry in an hour. This morning I had 1/2 cup of low-fat granola with 2 tbsps of chopped almonds, and a cup of soy milk and 1/3 cup of plain fat-free yogurt. Shouldn't this be enough to sustain me for a while? but here I am...eating my next meal just three hours later.
Sometimes I just get tired of this--like I'm chained to my next meal...

Anybody else get this?

Saille · 11-23-2007, 02:01 PM

The three meal a day thing doesn't really work for a good metabolism.....the best thing is to eat five or six times a day. Breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon snack, dinner and for some people a bed-time snack. So it's not unusual to feel hungry every three hours or so.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you might be dealing with carb addiction. It sounds like you eat very well, so I have no idea if you count your carbs or not. A lot of people eat a healthy diet, or what would be a healthy diet if they weren't insulin resistant. But it doesn't sound like you have any refined carbs in your foods....and I'm guessing you don't drink anything with carbs in it, like juice or regular soda.

So it could just be that your metabolism is working RIGHT which would mean it wants to be fueled every three hours or so.

sinnie · 11-23-2007, 05:12 PM

Yep, instead of 3 good sized meals, try 5-6 small healthy meals. Eat veggies and whole grains, they'll fill you up.

As long as it's real hunger and not cravings, that's good. It means your metabolism is working great and you just need to try the 5-6 smaller meals.
If it's cravings, it could be a carb addiction problem, or even insulin resistance. (as Saille said.)

Betwixt · 11-23-2007, 11:59 PM

Sounds like she's already eating whole grains. Not sure how your veggie intake is. I know that I get starving when I don't eat enough veggies though, then I'll have either some fruit or vegetables, and I'm much better off.

Sometimes I feel like I'm gonna eat the couch, so I totally relate. Could try with the extra greens though!

Good luck!

sassyred · 11-24-2007, 01:56 AM

*stands up* Hello my name is Nikki and Im addicted to food!!!

i have IR and was told that makes me hungry even when im not!! Something about the pancres (sp?)?? i dunno! but anyways, i have always been hungry! As a kid i would wake up ad ask my mom what we were having for dinner and then think about it all day!! Now after WLS and counsiling & diet after diet, i have realized that its head hunger!! No matter whats causing it its not good! but i was told by my wls dr to eat or snack every 3 hrs or so. so its really ok as long as your not pigging out each time!if you are not comfortable eating every 3 hrs then maybe try this. Maybe try eating more proteins, i know you eat them, but more might help. (they should keep you fuller longer) and eat slowly! Or drink lots of water throughout the day! if your stomach is full of water most likely you wont be hungry! ! Good luck & dont feel that its only you! Another cyster said she could eat the couch & I 2nd that!!!!!!!!!!!!

emah-jayne · 11-24-2007, 03:29 AM

oh yes im always so hungry

Betwixt · 11-24-2007, 06:01 AM

Sassyred- did you find that WLS helped you with cravings/being hungry all the time? I'm looking at lap band surgery right now, and this is one of the things I'm really wanting to get into check, the constant hungry nonsense!

sassyred · 11-24-2007, 06:33 AM

yes!! At first! But as i approach my 1 yr mark i am finding it harder and harder to control my appitiete & food choices!! they told me that i would have to eat this way for the rest of my life and that it would not be easy! they were right, but i didnt figure that out until recently. I am a food addict, and being unable to physically eat things have greatly helped, but as i am able to eat more & more things it feela a little harder. I had roux-en-y gastric bypass, which is tons differant then lap-band. theres a great thread in the diet & exercise forum called WLS Divas, i post there regularly, check it out if you are interested and also check out obesityhelp.com, they have great info & message boards all about WLS!!

Sorry, didnt mean to hijack your thread! Im done!

hazelnut · 11-24-2007, 08:51 AM

Thanks gals....I love this board! It is just nice to know I'm not alone. I definitely have tried the 6 small meals a day thing--and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I definitely feel like a carb addict, even though I try sooooooo hard to control my carbs. It feels like a constant battle!

I lost 35 pounds--from 167 to 133--on weightwatchers, so now I'm at a healthy weight, and I thought once I reached my goal weight all my food problems would somehow float away. Unfortuntaly, that didn't happen at all--I am just as food obsessed. Another problem is that I LOVE baking and cooking--but baking brings me tremendous joy and relaxes me from stress. It also CAUSES me stress. You can see I have all these conflicting things...

But I sure could eat that couch, too. Just pass the salt...

sinnie · 11-24-2007, 10:53 AM

I have tried the water trick... I normally drink 80-100oz of water a day, sometimes more. To the point where if I get up and move, I can feel it sloshing around in my belly making me sick... and I'll still be craving and want to eat something. So drinking a bunch of water doesn't work for me.

It takes time to figure out while snacking when you're not feeling hungry.. but you just might keep eating anyway due to the cravings. What helped me a lot, was taking my lunch to work, and only packing what I would allow myself. When I run out, I would make sure I had no money on me to run to the vending machine or to Burger King.
This helped to train away the cravings. Any time I slip (like now during Thanksgiving, I've been eating a lot of PIE) it's super hard to get rid of the constant craving feeling. But you got to let yourself go sometimes or you'll just go insane I say. Just get back up on the horse when you're done.

Trinity1974 · 11-24-2007, 07:54 PM

I think feeling Hungry is the most annoying thing in the world.. I do wonderful when I'm at work! I bring all kinds of whole grain this and fresh fruit that.. veggies to go with lunch and for snack.. but I'll be darned it's when I'm at home at night or on the weekend that I get the "ooo" I'm hungries.. lol I hate it..

Saille · 11-24-2007, 08:16 PM

Raising protein and fiber intake makes a big difference, along with water -- like was said. Making sure you're getting plenty of fiber each time you eat really really helps because it slows down the rate at which you digest everything else that you ate. So it sticks longer and you feel full longer.

Make sure that you raise your fiber intake SLOWLY or you will have terrible gas pains, cramps and constipation problems!!! And always make sure you're taking in plenty of water with that fiber.

IR/pre-diabetes/diabetes -- most of us are carb addicted. And it really is a physical reaction in your body -- not just in your head.

What happens is, for example -- say you eat an apple (20g carb), lite yogurt (15g carb), and a buttered bagel (46g carb) for breakfast. There is almost zero fiber and protein in this, although it's generally a reasonably healthy breakfast. But you've eaten what is for me (because I'm diabetic) two meals worth of carbs! lol And for ANYBODY whose body isn't processing carbs right this amount of simple carbs will raise the blood glucose very quickly. If your body is working right your blood glucose won't go outrageously high, but the peak (spike) is still going to be higher than it should be and you'll feel sluggish and like you really need that coffee in about an hour.

At about the two hour point that spike is dropping back down. It should be 'normal' at this point, but because it went up so fast it also comes down just as fast.
As your body realizes that it's blood glucose levels are plummeting quickly it's survival mechanisms kick in....because it knows that the blood glucose can't go too low or you'll die. So to save itself from low blood glucose it will trigger intense cravings for anything that will jump that blood glucose back up again.

Now, your body isn't wrong...you definately don't want your blood glucose to go too low. But you also don't want a seesaw effect going on, either, which is what you get if you eat simple carbs again when those cravings hit.

So what you need in your body are complex carbs. REAL whole grains are very good -- but you need to actually read the labels. Heck, my kid's cookie crisp says it's whole grain but it really only has 1g of fiber in a serving! Which is hardly complex carbs!!!! I eat Kashi cereals which have something like 10g of fiber and 10g of protein in a serving -- THAT's definately some whole grain there. Regular wheat bread is no better than white bread when you read the label and compare fiber content.

The best thing to learn to do is to read nutritional labels. See how big a portion of the food is, see how many carbs, fiber and protein are in each serving. Then start comparing foods and buy the ones that are higher in fiber and higher in protein. As you gradually change your cupboards over to high fiber/protein foods you will find some changes start taking place....if you aren't regular, you will be; you'll probably start to feel more full after eating a meal or a snack than you used to; and your cravings should start to diminish.

I say diminish because no matter how good you are, no matter how good you eat, there will always be times when chocolate is the ONLY answer!!! But as long as you don't go nuts and start that seesaw effect and fall totally off the wagon then a little chocolate never hurt anybody.

/rambling....

sassyred · 11-25-2007, 06:01 AM

i also heard that taking cinnamin tabs helps control cravings. I havent tried it but some cysters say it works for them!

Sarrah · 11-25-2007, 06:22 AM

Absolutely.
Have a big appetite (ie bigger than a normal person) and also a hunger more for Sugar and Carbs is one of the MAIN symptoms of PCOS which not many people realise or talk about and is one of the reasons why people with PCOS and insulin resistance and general are overweight.

Metformin can help sometimes to reduce appetite in general and certainly reduce the cravings for sugar and carbs.
It has certainly worked for me.
I take Metformin XR 1000mgs at the moment but will go up to 1500mgs in the next few weeks.

Saille · 11-25-2007, 10:54 AM

I take 2000mg of cinnamon a day in capsule form. I find it is a huge help in controlling my blood glucose numbers, because it helps my body process things correctly. I have thoroughly researched it and didn't find any drug interaction or side effects with cinnamon. Once upon a time someone did a study where they thought certain kinds of cinnamon might be carcinogenic in large enough doses, but that study was debunked about ten different times in the following decade. So the general concensus is that cinnamon isn't going to hurt you, and could very likley help you.

I took chromium picolinate for a while and didn't find any real difference between then I took it and when I didn't. I thought, for a while, it might be helping me with appetite control, but after further self testing I found that there wasn't any difference in appetite or glucose metabolism that I could find between when I took it and when I didn't.
I did also do thorough research on it and found that the worries of it being bad for you were pretty much shown to be unfounded, but not with 100% certainty. I wasn't worried about taking it, but I did stop taking it after I determined that it wasn't helping me at all.