Always Hungry

[slash9814]

I was under the impression that the higher fat foods were supposed to help me stay full. I feel like I'm never sated, always eating and I think its keeping me fat...LOL....yesterday I had like 6 lunches.........

[Diana]

I hear ya! I am always Hungry too. I drink 200+oz of water to help me stay "satisfied" It doesn't always work and I believe this is why I end up overeating at times.

Have you tried just doing Snacks? HB eggs, cheese cubes, Maybe Celery with cream cheese, Peperoni pieces (go easy on the franken foods)

[aliabettina]

It would probably help to post a menu...

On another note, have you tried spongebob's flax bread? It's very filling! The fat and fiber keep you topped off...the recipe is in the recipe help forum.

Alia

[Atkins_Nutritionist]

Combinations of protein, fat, and fiber will help to satiate you. Eating 6 small meals a day is also a good suggestion. I would like to see a menu of what you are eating, amounts, time of day, what you are drinking, and also your exercise routine. That will help to better advise you.

[slash9814]

For breakfast I have three fried eggs with cheese on them.

By 10:45-11:00 I'm dying for lunch I have 2 cans of Tuna salad and a salad wth low carb dressing.

By 2 I'm hungry again, and eating pork rinds, or 0 carb candy, sometimes celery.

For dinner we usually have either baked chicken or pork with a big helping of carb safe veggies. Starving by bedtime.


I have a few diet soda's at work and a few cups of black tea. and all tha water i can stand.

[MAMZELLE]

same with me. As soon as i have my first meal of the day [usually eggs but not always] I'm hungry and wasn't before,
and go for a couple of HOURS after I awake without eating anything and am not hungry at all [which i've written elsewhere around these boards]. In fact the minute I finish eggs [particularly] & my 2 slices of bacon, im hungry!!! I used to eat two eggs then switched to 3 but that didn't help so back to 2. I can have NO hunger at all, like today I'm eating my first meal at 6PM, because I had a lot to do and like to be relaxed when I eat so just never got around to it which I don't usually let happen, but now that I've eaten a piece of london broil and salad which I coincidently just finished, I'm NOT hungry, unlike after eggs and maybe some other things but I DEFINITELY know about the eggs. Happens every time I eat them and have to soon eat something again. Thought maybe my sugar is so bad and out of control that ANY food is spiking it and making me hungry but I hear this from many NON-diabetics too! I incorporated this question in my KETOACIDOSIS vs. KETOSIS thread but didn't get an answer about sepcifically that and it got lost with the other questions.... though I certainly spent enough TIME on that question..... and which they ARE hearing from others too, so maybe they DON'T have an answer. Very disappointed because it IS a major factor in this diet AND a major question. I'm a night person.... even if i'm up at 5 am, I'm still up most of the night and sometimes I get so hungry that I run out of legal things to nibble on! It's getting quite difficult.... but if I don't START eating I'm fine. It seems that red MEAT is the only thing that keeps me unhungry.... and tuna, salad with celery but I eat a LOT of that when making it so that's why but meat is the only thing that keeps me from being hungry and what I used to ALWAYS eat the most of on this diet and did fine. Now they say DON'T eat so much meat so cutting down on it, AND on the portions of it seems to be where I run into trouble Who knows. I really give up. When doing my OWN thing, the way I always understood this diet I did much better than listening and reading everything else and all the newfangled 'discoveries' and advancements! But it's so tempting to keep up with the times, although I will still SWEAR by 72.

[MAMZELLE]

I am still SO full from only HALF of that small piece of meat that I can't even LOOK at food at the moment and it's almost an hour later and I'll nibble the other half all night, a bite here and a bite there and that's how I've ALWAYS done Atkins, and cold cuts through the day nibbling too with mayo, or tuna, but always some form of meat. Maybe we ARE that drastically different all I know is i love meat and its my mainstay on this diet and makes me FEEL great ....and it loves ME. So FOOEY with every other complicated methods of counting, shmounting and restrictions. I've been as healthy as a horse all my life from it and only have high sugar NOW because I hadn't been on the diet strictly for YEARS and went haywire sometimes with the wrong foods because of family problems but I didn't gain ANY weight when I did, nor ever get sick so I must have been doing 'something' right all those years with my 'too much meat'! Screw it. Everything else keeps me hungry, and this works for ME..... and I LOVE it and it makes me look forward to eating and it's simple and KEEPS me on the diet. What more can I ask for!

[califgal45]

I have been doing Atkins now for almost 2 years and with lots of trial and error and like Mamzelle says lots of confussion from these boards I have come to the conclusion that I just need to lisen to my body and follow what works for me. i.e. some fats make me more hungry like mayo if I eat deviled eggs I get really hungry after, but if I eat 2 hb eggs I am fine for several hours. Tuna and mayo same thing but if I mix tuna and Italian dressing I am fine. Blue cheese dressing was doing the same thing darn it I love that stuff but I had to switch to oil and vinegar with my salad and protein and no more after dinner munchies.

We are all different and what works for one may not work for another. Thats the beauty of low carb you mix and match to fit you.

[Lisa Rae]

Slash...

Menu looks ok (although I'd avoid the s/f candy..it can slow or stop loss in some..and for many causes cravngs to increase) But I'd make this suggestion: instead of having 3 meals..have 4-6! So have Breakfast, then instead of having lunch at 10:45-11..have a snack at 10. Try somthing high in cfat..like celery and cream cheese, cucumbers with ranch dressing, deviled eggs. Then have lunch at 12..snack again if hungry around 3pm..Dinner at 6..and if hungry at night..have another light snack around 8. I not only did much better with hunger when eating more often..but it seems to help with my loss as well!

P.S. Protein between meals is also a good choice. So hard boiled egs, steak strips, chicken wings or legs.

[slash9814]

Thanks everyone..I'll give it a try....

[Joycelyn]

I agree that eating 6 small meals really helps.

I get hungry quite frequently as well, although low carbing has definitely helped in the hunger department. I'm just not starving hungry like I used to get on low fat diets.

I eat 6 low carb meals a day (3 main meals and small snacks in between). Fat and protein really fills me up.

Another trick I learned is having a fiber drink before or after meals to keep me full. Have a glass of the Atkins juice (either the new ones in the refrigerated juice section, or the powdered ones for 0 carbs. I mix in a tb or two of flax meal (0 net carbs) and a nice rounded tsp. of Konsyl (or whatever brand you like) psyllium. I guess you could also try Benefiber powder. This really helps fill me up until the next meal or snack.

In general, I really love low carbing, but I'm not one of the more fortunate ones who can literally go for hours without food or even thinking of food!

Well, hope this helped a little!

[MAMZELLE]

I've often heard it said throughout my life, and from different sources, that vitamin supplements stimulate hunger.... I'm beginning to wonder.

Why else would so many complain of such ravenous hunger even when, and if on strict induction. I can only speak for myself, knowing I'm doing induction correctly [original 72 Atkins, which is sometimes practically as down to the bone as the "meat and eggs fast".... and certainly not knowing, nor can I speak for what others might mistakenly, and perhaps unknowingly adding to their diets which could be the culprits] but I DO know for SURE in my own case that there shouldn't be hunger which FOOD could possibly be triggering at those times, and yet it does happen..... so I can only open the door again to the possibility of the vitamin theory having some truth and validity and maybe being a factor.

I've been claiming that after my first meal of the day [be it eggs & bacon or sometimes other mere fat & protein], that I'm suddenly STILL hungry and even moreso than before eating, when I can go hours after awakening and not eat nor WANT anything yet before that.... but after my eggs/bacon or anything else for breakfast, I take my morning vitamins, afterwhich I get ravenous, then at night again after a meal, and after my nightly vitamins.... it also happens, [though after a meat meal, I'm much more satisfied and very full, but later get the munchies]. That just hit me now like a ton of bricks and brought back the memory of those vitamin claims. Hmmm...

Another strange thing that points to that, which I just realized. Yesterday [Sunday] late afternoon, I made 2 cans of tuna salad, ate a substantial portion with a few pork rinds as cracker substitutes [only with the first portion], and nibbled nothing else but the tuna plain through the rest of the day and entire night. My nibbles were so small [a forkful here and there] and spaced so far between, and continuing so far into the night, that there wasn't an opportunity where I thought I had eaten enough to take my vast amount of nightly vitamins, thinking I'd eat something else, and more substantial later [actual 'dinner'], and take them then, which is my normal ritual.

Well I never did eat anything else, therefore couldn't take my vitamins, :-( and wasn't really hungry and no munchy feelings at all at any time through the entire night, and ONLY even nibbled the additional tiny bites of tuna here and there, few and far between... because it was still right next to me and convenient and tempting to reach over to it in the container that I mix and refrigerate it in, and fell asleep instead around midnight and awoke at 5AM still NOT hungry...

No vitamins!

Unfortunately, that's not a solution even if it IS the culprit, because we certainly can't discontinue our supplements.