I don't really go hungry, either, except that I will wait til a certain time for my next meal. Like - I will not eat lunch any earlier than 12:15, even if I am hungry at 11:00 am. And I won't eat dinner before 5:30 pm, even if I am hungry earlier. I figure that if I eat meals earlier than my usual routine, then I will be hungry again in the evening, and will be tempted to eat more then. I don't mind being hungry for an hour or so to stay on schedule.

Some days I don't get hungry until much LATER than usual, and that's fine! I don't mind a late lunch if I wasn't hungry earlier.

I ride the hormonal rollercoaster. Just after TOM, I have no appatite. A week and a half befor TOM I eat like a trucker. I really dont "restrict" per say, I just go along with my natural hunger. So I guess, I am kinda like you in that some of the time I under eat, some of the time I eat just right, and some of the time I have a food fest. It is not me controlling how much I eat. It is more of an intuitive thing. Lucky for me, the time I spent undereating (not on purpose/just not hungry) balances out the time I spend overeating. It's kind of like riding the monthly hunger wave. At first the wave is non existant, then it gets bigger and bigger until it crashes. Then the process starts all over again. Make sense?

If I do try to restrict on a high hunger day, I will more than likley make up for it in a day or two. My mind/body just can't take it. It is much easier to "let it go". Once I caught on to my bodies cues, I realized that I can have my cheesecake and eat it too

I try very hard to not get excessively hungry -- when I do, I make poor food choices.

However, I do eat sparingly, and try really hard to differentiate between real hunger and it-looks-tasty hunger. Used to be, back in my younger (pre-weight-gain) days, I could sit down to a tasty hamburger/french fries meal -- eat a few bites to satisfy hunger, then push the rest away. Then I started eating everything on my plate, plus my kids' leftovers -- now I wonder if I have a real feeling for actual hunger.....

The question of the thread: is different from "are you occasionally hungry?"

In my opinion, if you are regularly skipping snacks/meals in order to maintain your goal weight then you really haven't yet learned how to eat food properly - which is a shame since I think that's partly what the change in diet/lifestyle process should teach you.

Avoiding food in order NOT to gain weight is no different than making temporary changes in diet or engaging in food fasts as a method of weightloss.

Learning which foods are best for your body (not necessarily the same thing as foods which you crave) is key to keeping off unwanted weight.

I am not perfect.
90% of the time I am eating "for my body".
10% of the time I am a human being and eating at a restaurant, eating till too full, so on. It is unrealistic to say someone will live the rest of their lives without doing these things - eventually you will. These indulgences must be compensated for, part of that includes hunger.

Even when eating 90% of the time (correctly to control weight), if I want to be as thin as I like, it means eating less than my body wants on average. That's why I'm often experiencing some bit of hunger. It's not an extreme hunger (rarely, only when trying to LOSE weight after gaining from the aformentioned 10% indulgences). But I am often on the "empty" side, on the cusp of hunger.

I could probably not experience hunger much if I accepted a weight that was much higher but that is not my goal at this point in time. Hope you understand where I'm coming from .

BTW thanks for all the responses.
It is interesting...
I intend on analyzing hte responses more in detail when I have the time and sharing my perceptions.

I agree with you that indulgences need to be compensated for, but don't necessarily feel that one needs to go even a little hungry to get it.

IMO, one's own natural appetite will do it for us.

Sometimes I am extremely hungry or wish to indulge when I eat out....and other times, I not hungry at all.

For example, some weekends I eat out at a buffet restaurant, and those days, I eat as much steak, shrimp, sauteed mushrooms and veggies as I can stuff myself with. Tonight, I got stuck at a Christmas banquet, and all I could eat there was the turkey -- its late now, and I am not hungry nor feel like fixing myself my normal chicken and broccoli, so I'm having a couple T's of pb and calling it a day.

In my experience so far, it tends to even itself out naturally. In weight loss mode, this provided my body with enough of a "change up" to keep my motab. running, in maintenance so far, its keeping me in a 5 pound fluctuation range.

"Cravings" has been mentioned in this thread as well....and I agree with the context that they have been discussed, as far as craving carby foods and sugar. However, I DO feel that one will tend to crave what your body needs. Recently, I haven't been able to get enough peanut butter -- and ironically, I have also been struggling in getting enough potassium. The last few days, I've been wanting salt....indulged in salt, suddenly I don't want as much pb and I don't need as many pot. supplements. Other times, I crave berries.....when my gums are bleeding and obviously low on C.

Even in my "fat" days, there were times where I would have to run to the store and buy a quart of OJ and a quart of whole milk which I would promptly down both in one sitting -- the craving for it would be so bad that I HAD to have it. I think that was some vitamin deficiency calling out there too.

Some weeks, I eat, eat, eat....and about the time I get nervous, my appetite slows down and makes up for it.



I think this makes sense and could very well be the culprit here.....if you want to maintain a weight that is less than what your body wants, I would agree that you would have to restrict.

For me tho, its simply not worth it. I've starved enough on low fat diets, and exercise has permitted me to get to the ideal size I desired at a higher weight than I expected, so I can't complain that my body didn't give me what I wanted out of LCing.

I LIKE to eat....if I can't eat and be thin, I won't be thin. Thank God for giving me LCing so I can have my "cake" and eat it too, LOL

Nobody is. I think we need to clarify our terms. There's "hunger" as in the body's need to refuel and there's mouth-hunger as in "I sure would like to have some chocolate about now."

I could follow the eating guidelines for maintenance in the Fat Flush plan 100% and gain weight. The truth is, that although P3 of FFP permits up to 4 daily servings of "friendly" carbs, if I eat that many, I WILL gain weight. Been there, proved that. If I indulge in an off-plan food, I might also gain weight/bloat. Truth is, my body simply doesn't need 4 carb servings per day to maintain weight. Mind you, when my exercise levels change, so does my need for carb-fuel.
I don't have to go hungry to get back to my goal weight, but I do have to defer some foods for awhile (nuts,for example). Even when I return to P1 - the most restrictive phase of Fat Flush - I'm never hungry but I sure do miss my chocolate!
I think the phrase, "as thin as I like" is a key one. There's a balance between food and exercise that should result in stable weight. After that, it's all in the eye of the beholder.

God yes, I can totally relate to this. I find myself eating sometimes when not really 'hungry'. Sometimes out of boredom, but also in fear of becoming famished because then my binging is triggered. I am being so strict right now and starting to feel scared of food...which is another habit I def. don't want to start!!

Sometimes I go hungry, but if I eat 'clean' by the book (right now redoing induction to kill cravings and binging) I generally am ok. In maintenance I will continue my balancing act.

I am just finding everday a constant struggle balancing. Eat when hungry, not starved or bored, eat only till satisfied, not stuffed, then trying to watch carbs\cals.\fat content I feel as my head is spinning. All the time trying not to be too 'obsessed' about food (then sometimes this triggers a binge)..yea right, easier said than done.

I think I am just having issues with it all at this point.

I would NEVER have gotten DH to lose the extra 2 X 10 kilo sacks of flour he was packing around if it hadn't been for Dr. A's statement - "If you're hungry - eat! If you're starving, you should've eaten an hour ago." DH does NOT suffer hunger silently - he figures that at his age (72), he's earned comfort if nothing else!

So .... my short answer is also "NEVER"!

Glenda

I have to honestly say that I have never went hungry since I started this way of eating back in mid May.

When I got to goal after 4 month I simly applied the rules I had learned to live by and slightly adjusted the amounts upward so I wasnt loosing and it has been working great.......never hungry.

I don't deliberately go hungry, though I do get hungry sometimes. In fact, being hungry enough to really enjoy my food is one of the things that I love about LC. My family are amazed to see the one who used to just push her food around the plate always finishing first these days.

I have noticed that if I'm regularly hungry well before meal times then my weight tends to go down. If I'm regularly not at all hungry by meal times my weight goes up. This may sound really obvious, but to have an appetite that works properly is still a novelty for me. I'm still learning to trust it.

Yea, I feel hunger differently now too. With sugar there's a few different kinds of hunger, all of which are much more extreme than what I feel when my sugar is in check (ideally anyway).

On one end of the spectrum there's sugar hunger that is really hard to ignore, but it's manageable and responds to food intake appropriately. It's a slow build of hunger, to a bit of a pain in the stomach complete with growling... if I ignore it long enough it usually goes away and appetite is more suppressed (I imagine because eventually my body "recovered" from the mild low and is burning fat/making sugar again).
On the other end I'm holding back from a binge, like holding my breath, I know in my heart when I let go I won't be able to stop. I won't be able to stop because not only am I ravenous, but I can just tell it's the kind of hunger that won't go away even when I'm full. This usually happens at the end of a bad day blood sugar wise (usually a combination of sleep deprivation plus big meals plus lots of snacking plus too many carbs).

The kind of hunger I feel most often is "normal hunger", where it's like I can tell my body could use more food (I'm not as warm, lethargic, haven't been eating much so on). It's relativelye asy for me to ignore.

Sheesh. I have not analyzed it as much or explained it so well, but that sure sounds like ME!!!!! (Except for the part about holding back on that sorta binge! The remorse that follows is brutal, and the stalls are killing me.) I'm going to drag this to my own journal and think about it. Thanks Wooo.