A metabolism question

[ksmith]

...or something.

What is your baseline state, hunger-wise? Do you always feel sated (no desire to eat), except when you're expressly hungry? Do you only eat when your stomach growls, or do you let it get that far?

I'm trying to eat more healthy food and yes, lose some weight, and I'm trying to figure out--how am I supposed to feel? Is a constant mild feeling of hunger the sensation I should aim for, or not? What is the baseline for an average human being?

In all the diet and lifestyle articles I've read, this isn't addressed. External factors--food groups, calorie counts--work only for so long. How am I supposed to feel?

I fear the answer is that everyone is different, but otoh, not sure if that's true. I wonder if, because of the constant proximity and availability of food, our baseline has shifted up so that what we now call sated is really overstuffed, and what we call hunger is often simply craving.

Comments

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

Sated, til I'm starting to feel hungry, yeah. Somewhere between starting to feel hungry and growling (hours) is where I typically eat...given that I typically snack (healthily or otherwise) rather than eat a meal (part of the time), by the time growling sets in I'm already getting cranky.

I guess the mark is whether I can distract myself from the hunger. (Not counting where I go totally OCD and ignore the hunger until I fall out of my chair)

I could work with your plateaus: sated/craving/hunger. For me, craving can be alleviated by a tiny snack.

[equesgal.livejournal.com]

You shouldn't feel hungry all the time. That won't help you stick to your new eating plan. I'm trying to lose some pounds too. I drink a lot of water and try to eat around the same time every day...and I always eat breakfast. I'm eating around 1,200-1,500 calories a day. The only time I usually feel hungry is before I go to bed. I've read again and again that the #1 way to lose weight is to eat sensibly, exercise and stop all eating by 6 or 7pm at night.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Given my height, weight, and activity level, I can have 2000-2300 or so calories a day. I do try to stop eating after 6pm, because I hate going to bed on a full stomach.

I need to drink more water.

[(Anonymous)]

That's where the metabolism thing comes in, though. I had mine tested. Based on my height/weight/activity level, they'd project that I should burn 2200 calories a day. Certainly 2000 would be a conservative estimate, based on decades of research and actuarial tables.

Turns out, my resting metabolic rate was closer to 1600. Or, in other words, the metabolism of a slug...or a tree sloth. :-)

Jennifer (without her password)

[equesgal.livejournal.com]

Is that to maintain your weight? They say if you want to lose weight you need to eat about 500 less a day. That equals out to 3,500 a week which is how many calories (they say) is in a pound.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's maintenance. I'll have to eat less if I want to lose...or exercise more.

[aeriedraconia.livejournal.com]

I always have that sort of hungry feeling when I reduce my food intake. Then, after I've gotten used to the smaller amount of food I feel full and can make it to the next mealtime without feeling completely hollow.

Personally, I can't snack between meals or I put on weight. I try to eat my meals at the same time everyday and that helps.

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

Well, I can tell you how you're NOT supposed to feel. :-) If you're always hungry (and you really are eating enough), or don't feel hungry until after you start eating, you've got a problem with your metabolism.

The first few days after you switch your eating habits, you'll probably be hungry, because your body is looking for the food it got before -- especially if you're replacing "quick hit" food like bread and pasta with slower-digesting carbs like veggies.

After that, though, you should adapt to the new eating style, and shouldn't feel hungry. More importantly, if you're eating the right amount and composition of foods, you should be able to push away a plate with food left on it. If you absolutely MUST finish all the food on the plate, you're either not eating enough, or you're eating something that causes food cravings.

I've been following the Ultra-Metabolism "diet" since February, and had 40 lbs melt away with virtually no effort on my part. No counting -- calories, carbs, points, or anything else. Eat whatever you want to eat, as long as it meets certain criteria for "good" food, and you eat it at the right time of day.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

The first few days after you switch your eating habits, you'll probably be hungry, because your body is looking for the food it got before -- especially if you're replacing "quick hit" food like bread and pasta with slower-digesting carbs like veggies.


That's what I'm doing, and I can feel the difference. I feel *better*--some simple starches seem to play a role in water retention or something. But there are certain foods I really really like and I really really need to cut back.

Cookies are a food group.

[(Anonymous)]

Uh-oh. I found out those simple starches were causing water retention in me because I was allergic to yeast....

You might want to check the labels of the things you feel better not eating. Three really common allergies are gluten, soy, and yeast.

Jennifer (who still can't remember her password)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I can't check the labels because it's stuff from the company cafeteria. Stuff I make myself doesn't seem to be the problems.

Love bagels, but they are Right Out.

[deannahoak.livejournal.com]

If I get hungry, I eat. As soon as I'm not hungry anymore, I stop eating. This translates to me "grazing" a lot--I probably eat a handful or two of food every few hours, and I'd honestly rarely eat a "meal" per se if I didn't need to cook at least a dinner for my family once in a while to make me feel like a decent mom. :-)

So I might eat something like a banana, or a couple handfuls of grapes, or some pecans (sometimes with chocolate chips ;-)), a cheese stick, a yogurt, some pretzels, a piece of bread with butter, a peanut butter sandwich, a slice of pie, a bowl of cereal...Easy stuff that I don't have to cook.

I've always eaten this way, and I've never had to diet. Part of that's probably genetic, but I really believe that eating that way keeps your metabolism up; I don't think it's good to let yourself get hungry.

What a lot of people I know have trouble with--and that I was really lucky with my parents about--is to stop eating as soon as you're not hungry anymore. My husband had parents who made him clean his plate, and he has had huge trouble getting out of the habit of finishing whatever food he takes (and trouble losing weight because of it). When you're not hungry anymore, stop eating. It doesn't matter if you have one bite left. Stop. I think a lot of people don't think they're full until they're actually overfull because their parents encouraged them to eat past their satiety level. If that's the case, you have to learn to listen to your body for the first time, and that can be difficult.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

What a lot of people I know have trouble with--and that I was really lucky with my parents about--is to stop eating as soon as you're not hungry anymore

That is a huge factor, and I think a major part of my problem.

[lrcutter.livejournal.com]

One of my goals is to never actually feel hungry. I need to eat every couple of hours or so to maintain an even blood sugar. If I've gone without food long enough to actually be feeling hungry, then I've gone too long.

Have you ever looked at this site?

http://www.nutritiondata.com/index.html

One of the ways it rates food is with a "fullness factor" (FF) They feel it's a better way to diet -- eating healthy foods that actually fill you up. The site isn't intiuitive I'm afriad, but you can use it for your diet plans. I keep a food journal, keeping track of everything I've eaten for a particular day. Then I go to the site, add those foods to my pantry, then total it up. The site then not only shows me the number of calories I've consumed, it also shows things like what percentage of the RDA am I getting of calcium, protein, vitamins, etc.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Wow--thanks for the link!

[kalligraphy.livejournal.com]

The diet that seemed to work well for me was the eliminate one meal a day diet. The meal I eliminate is dinner, probably the highest calorie intake of the day. I do this by eating a healthy breakfast, a large late lunch around 1-2pm and then a snack of fresh fruit around 8pm. To be honest the meal I am really cutting out is lunch, because the meal I eat at lunch is the size of a dinner, and I normally eat out at a restaurant. By placing it slightly later in the day, it tides me over til snack time, and the snack tides me over til breakfast. The only time when things get rough is around noon when hungar is really kicking in for an afternoon meal.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

One old saw I've heard is "Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper." That goes with the theory that dinner should be your smallest meal.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

I've got a couple normal states.

Thirsty *very* often feels like hungry. Since LA is (quite literally) a desert, and I grew up in something a hair short of a humid swamp, I very often am thirsty and don't realize it until I *think* about it. Tho I *will* feel hungry. If I think about it I can distinguish the hungry feeling that means I'm dehydrated from the hungry feeling that means I need food.

Hungry is well, hungry. Even on a healthy and appropriate sized diet, I'm not usually hungry after I eat. If I am, I should have another serving of salad or colored vegetables until I'm not.

And then there's sated. I've just eaten or drunk *enough* and I'm pleasantly full.

There's also several *abnormal* states. I go into electrolyte deficiency fairly easily, and that really screws up a lot of my body's normal signals. I'll feel actually thirsty (rather than the normal and healthy confused signal) all the time, and have other biological rythmns screwed up. I can also be stuffed from overeating, which is quite unpleasant and should be avoided. There's also sugar crash, when I haven't eaten for too long, or what I've eaten was bad for me, and I suddenly get very scattered. Probably more I'm not thinking of.

A lot of it for me has been observing how I feel and what works to correct it.