Hunger, calories, weighing and measuring

[tmoody]

There was a thread in the Lounge about gaining weight on the Starch Solution, but I thought it best to take it here.

I'm an obese 63 year-old male. At 6'1", 246 lbs., as of today, my BMI is 32.5. I get a decent amount of exercise, i.e., go to the gym about three times a week, walk outside when weather permits. I've been WFPB since August 2016, mainly trying to follow the SS program. My main foods are potatoes and beans & brown rice, with other vegetables added as side items. Those vegetables are mainly spinach, which I buy frozen, and chopped brussel sprouts, which I add to things. I also get frozen mixed berries, which I eat daily, one or two servings. I don't snack at all.

When I started out, my weight started to drop, and I went down to 236. I don't claim perfect compliance, but compared to my previous diet it's been like night and day. I've had no meat or cheese at all, except for small lapses on Thanksgiving and Christmas day. I don't add any kind of oil to anything when eating at home. In restaurants, who knows? -- but since starting SS I stay away from restaurants as much as possible anyway.

So here's the situation: I seem to be eating pretty much the Right Foods, but I've had little success with weight loss. I've started to track calories, in desperation, and to lose weight I seem to need to get down to about 1,800 calories per day. This is not much for a man my size, but if I do it, the weight starts to drop. The trouble is, at that caloric intake level I'm hungry all the time. I wake up hungry, I eat and I'm hungry again in an hour or so. I go to bed hungry. I can put up with that for a few days or even a couple of weeks, then I cave in and eat more. The hunger fades and the weight loss stops. If I eat without any sense of restriction, I gain weight, no matter what kind of food I eat. I had a similar experience when I tried lowcarb/paleo eating for years. I attended OA meetings for a year or so to try to get a better handle on whatever mental issues might be involved, but I didn't find it all that helpful, although I appreciated the fellowship.

So my question is: Should I just accept that I need to weigh and measure everything and track the calories and hope that eventually the hunger will go away, or is there some other approach I should try?

[roundcoconut]

Have you considered adding more calorie-dilute vegetables to your food, to increase volume and satiety?

I DO think this would benefit you. It would surprise me if you did 50% starch (by volume), PLUS 50% veg (by volume), and still felt hungry.

Of course, hunger is different from wanting to eat more food. They are different sensations.

It might also be wise to drink 64 oz of water a day, for a few days, as an experiment, to see whether this changes your sensations.

It is worth seeing what is needed, and running some experiments on yourself, to find the way you want to pursue.

In addition, are you eating some raw vegetables in each day, or is everything cooked? It is very difficult to eat three carrots, and not feel a certain fullness in your stomach.

I would simply add, it is probably OK to experience some hunger between meals. Not painful or grinding hunger, but mild sensations of being ready for a meal, and being physically hungry for it.

You may wish to adjust your assessments, of what sensations mean what, as you go along. When I experience some mild hunger for a meal, I decide to experience this as pleasant and normal, rather than distressing and intolerable.

I don't know if this helps! see if you can borrow the mindset of confidence and competence. Your post sounds like one of defeat, dread and desperation, which generally isn't helpful or pleasant.

[Yomom]

There was a thread in the Lounge about gaining weight on the Starch Solution, but I thought it best to take it here.

I'm an obese 63 year-old male. At 6'1", 246 lbs., as of today, my BMI is 32.5. I get a decent amount of exercise, i.e., go to the gym about three times a week, walk outside when weather permits. I've been WFPB since August 2016, mainly trying to follow the SS program. My main foods are potatoes and beans & brown rice, with other vegetables added as side items. Those vegetables are mainly spinach, which I buy frozen, and chopped brussel sprouts, which I add to things. I also get frozen mixed berries, which I eat daily, one or two servings. I don't snack at all.

When I started out, my weight started to drop, and I went down to 236. I don't claim perfect compliance, but compared to my previous diet it's been like night and day. I've had no meat or cheese at all, except for small lapses on Thanksgiving and Christmas day. I don't add any kind of oil to anything when eating at home. In restaurants, who knows? -- but since starting SS I stay away from restaurants as much as possible anyway.

So here's the situation: I seem to be eating pretty much the Right Foods, but I've had little success with weight loss. I've started to track calories, in desperation, and to lose weight I seem to need to get down to about 1,800 calories per day. This is not much for a man my size, but if I do it, the weight starts to drop. The trouble is, at that caloric intake level I'm hungry all the time. I wake up hungry, I eat and I'm hungry again in an hour or so. I go to bed hungry. I can put up with that for a few days or even a couple of weeks, then I cave in and eat more. The hunger fades and the weight loss stops. If I eat without any sense of restriction, I gain weight, no matter what kind of food I eat. I had a similar experience when I tried lowcarb/paleo eating for years. I attended OA meetings for a year or so to try to get a better handle on whatever mental issues might be involved, but I didn't find it all that helpful, although I appreciated the fellowship.

So my question is: Should I just accept that I need to weigh and measure everything and track the calories and hope that eventually the hunger will go away, or is there some other approach I should try?

tmoody, have you had a chance to review Jeff Novick's "Calorie Density" stickie?
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=48602

Jeff is the dietician for the McDougall Program and has a Forum on this Board, with lots of helpful information.

[tmoody]

Thank you for the replies; they are much appreciated.

Yes, I've made some effort to include more watery vegetables in my meals, but I'm definitely not at 50% of my plate. When I was a kid, long before Chinese restaurants in the US evolved to what they are now, people used to make jokes about going to Chinese restaurants and being "hungry again an hour later." That pretty much describes my experience. Yes, I can fill up on watery, fibrous stuff, but it doesn't "hold" me for long. Indeed, if I eat two apples in a row I don't want to look at anything else to eat...for a little while. And yes, if I eat my potatoes absolutely plain, without even salt and pepper, I definitely can't eat as much. So I eat less, but very soon I'm hungry again, with a vengeance. It all seems to come down to calories.

The trick seems to be to find that narrow window that creates a caloric deficit without causing (much) appetite. It seems that the only way to do this is to weigh and measure everything.

I'm considering a water fast to try to reset my appetite. The problem with that is, the last few times I've tried it my blood pressure has gone dangerously high by the evening of the first day. I did a bit of online searching and discovered that I'm not alone in this. A minority of us apparently have an exaggerated cortisol response to fasting. I'd need to do it with close medical supervision, and that's not a realistic options at the moment.

I may try to do more along the lines of trying to reinterpret my hunger signals. If I sound somewhat despondent it's because I am. I've been struggling with this my entire adult life and I've reached a point of diet fatigue, for lack of a better term.

[sirdle]

Hello tmoody,

Some very good advice from roundcoconut!

In some ways we are similar, in some ways not.

I am 6' tall and one year ago I weighed 243 pounds, so I understand where you are coming from. However, I hesitate to make any recommendations because your experience with the starch solution has been much different from mine.

So please take anything I say with a grain of salt, and if it doesn't match your personal experience, just ignore it.

There seem to be two different things going on here: getting enough calories and feeling hungry.

I am losing weight. When I get down to 168 pounds, my BMI will be 22.7 and my (calculated) basal metabolic rate will be around 1700 calories. I suspect that your muscle mass is less than mine. So, it seems totally reasonable to me that your caloric intake should be around 1800 a day...

Some days I can take in 1600 calories and be perfectly happy. Other days I can eat 2400 and feel hungry. I truly believe the difference is due to starches, sugar and salt. If I eat a candy bar or chips or pizza the sugar and salt stimulate my appetite to where it is very hard to satisfy., even if I spend the rest of the day eating beans and potatoes. Also, there is definitely a mental aspect to hunger; it's not just calories.

The goal with the starch solution is to eat whenever you are hungry and eat until you are comfortably full. No calorie counting. No weighing your food. However, I find it sometimes useful to keep track of everything I eat. When I do this, I find there are almost always small items that pile on calories without adding to satiety or adding nutrients. For example, I used to put sugar in my morning coffee, but not any more. (How many calories can one tiny packet of sugar add? But it's not the calories, it is that sugar stimulates my appetite and makes me crave more food!)

They say Eskimos have 100 different words for snow. Sometimes I think McDougaller's have 100 different words for hunger. One type of hunger is when I am bored and I just want something sweet to nibble on. At that point a salad does not sound appetizing. The next stages would be: hungry for crackers; hungry for fruit; hungry for bread and pasta; hungry for vegetables. I allow my hunger to build until a bowl of vegetables sounds like a very good idea. That's how I know that I am really hungry and not just bored.

I'm jumping all over the place, I know. Not much I can do about that right now. Sorry. If I were you, I would start each meal with a big bowl of salad. Then eat a plate of cooked vegetables and starchy vegetables and finish with some fruit. (I would stay away from breads and pasta.) That would give you a calorie density of around 450 calories per pound. At 1800 calories per day, that would be 4 pounds of food every day!

For more details on calorie density I highly recommend Jeff Novick's 80-minute video: "Calorie Density: How To Eat More, Weigh Less and Live Longer"

Best of luck!

[plant_eater]

Story deleted due to non-compliance as per Landog!

[landog]

Well hello there! I have a story to tell

I'm really not sure why you're telling your story here. Protein drinks are certainly not part of the McDougall program.

[landog]

The trick seems to be to find that narrow window that creates a caloric deficit without causing (much) appetite. It seems that the only way to do this is to weigh and measure everything.

You really shouldn't have to weigh or measure anything. You admit that you are not eating 50% of non-starchy vegetables. Time to eat an increased quantity of foods on the low end of the scale.

Please review the calorie density links.

[roundcoconut]

Y'know, I personally AM practicing weighing and measuring of my food, for a number of reasons. I don't feel like I need to apologize for this, so you don't have to do so either, unless you'd like to.

For me, I have situational triggers, that make me want to eat a far larger volume of food than I would eat otherwise. So, unless I want to yo-yo up and down those same eight pounds when my situational triggers come and then go, I weigh and measure so that I eat the same amount when I'm in a situational trigger, as when I'm not.

Of course, this makes TOTAL sense! It is the easiest and simplest approach to overeating tendencies -- to know how much is a satisfactory meal for you, and then eat those amounts fairly consistently.

I tend to be the kind of person who does not have specfic food triggers, but for whom volume eating is my addiction, if you will. So, when I am in a situational trigger (like, say I just started a new job, which tends to be uncomfortable for me for a month or so), then I know that if I eat 1.5 cups of brown rice and 3 cups of vegetables, that my meal is just as large as it was last week. It is comforting not to have to try to make difficult decisions when i'm not likely to choose well.

I don't know if that can offer anything to anyone, because my reasons for weighing and measuring are probably different from the situation of the original poster!

[roundcoconut]

I will add that if you weigh and measure your food, in order to eat the same amounts and portions from one day to the next, then there are no nasty surprises. This, in itself, is comforting to me. Don't need to look at a scale more than once a week, because I know it's just going to say what it said yesterday.

Sure, activity levels fluctuate somewhat, and when it gets warm enough to start running again, I may need to calibrate my quantities. But it is turning out to be useful to know that my portion of oatmeal and broccoli for monday's breakfast, is a rough equivalent of my split pea soup for tuesday's breakfast. I rest easy, because I'm not guessing whether that's too much or not enough.

[tmoody]

I shall work on eating more low-density vegetables. I find this difficult, but it's probably no more difficult than weighing and measuring. In The Pleasure Trap, Doug Lisle describes how most of us are very accurately able to sense caloric density of foods, and when we are hungry we want denser foods. This is very much my experience. When I feel hungry a bowl of broccoli is utterly unappetizing, because I know it will be unsatisfying. As a side dish with something denser, that broccoli is enjoyable.

I know there's the maxim, you're not really hungry until that bowl of broccoli looks appetizing. My experience is, if I'm that hungry, I'm probably going to go off the rails and binge anyway. But I can experiment with getting to that 50% level and hopefully get the most mileage from the denser starches. And I'm making an effort to resist the urge to add a lot of seasonings. I find bland food psychologically depressing but I keep reminding myself that weight gain is even more depressing. That helps.

In response to some other comments... My current weight is by no means my highest. I've been as high as 273. The lowest weight I've ever achieved, in my late 20s, was 190. At that weight, I felt weak and my hands and feet were constantly cold. The only reason I went there was because that was the highest goal weight Weight Watchers would allow me at the time. It was horrible. I know that some sources say I should aim for a BMI of about 22.5, at 170 lbs. That's not going to happen. I'd be thrilled to be 210, with BMI=27.7, still overweight. My BMI tends to be a bit skewed anyway, because I have short legs for my height, and I do have more muscle than most men my age. In any case, I'm not particularly fixated on a goal weight. I know I need to lose plenty, and that's precise enough. I do weigh every day, not because I think it's very informative but because if I don't it tends to get away from me. Somehow the weighing is a bit of feedback that affects my eating behaviors.

Winter squashes seem like a pretty good choice. Butternut, acorn...taste pretty good but come in at the low end of the starch spectrum. Maybe it would be hard to overeat those.

[plant_eater]

Well hello there! I have a story to tell

I'm really not sure why you're telling your story here. Protein drinks are certainly not part of the McDougall program.

Wow, out of everything I wrote, that is what you could pick out of the entire story. So sorry for sharing my story of my weight loss journey in a attempt to empathize with the original poster.

Apparently you missed this critical sentence:

Couple things I wanted to clarify, I also do not take any supplements any more other then a good daily vitamin, and once every 2 weeks a supplemental iron pill and this is only during peak training periods.

Good to know we have a compliance Nazi on duty to vet our stories. I will make sure to keep to myself so as not to offend anyone.

[sirdle]

Well hello there! I have a story to tell

I'm really not sure why you're telling your story here. Protein drinks are certainly not part of the McDougall program.

Wow, out of everything I wrote, that is what you could pick out of the entire story. So sorry for sharing my story of my weight loss journey in a attempt to empathize with the original poster.

Good to know we have a compliance Nazi on duty to vet our stories. I will make sure to keep to myself so as not to offend anyone.

Sorry you deleted your post. I thought it was obviously intended as a cautionary tale and as a journey of enlightenment.

Cheers,

[tmoody]

I tend to be the kind of person who does not have specfic food triggers, but for whom volume eating is my addiction, if you will.

I'm glad you mentioned this, since I'm much the same way. I do have, or had, certain trigger foods but they were not my main problem. For example, I seemed to have an endless appetite for cheese, and when I went WFPB I found, to my surprise, that I missed cheese far more than I missed meat. Even now, six months later, the only time I feel the urge to eat meat is in the context of restaurants, where vegan meals are either nonexistent or disappointing.

Anyway, cheese aside, I'm also a volume eater. The feeling of fullness is, I guess, soothing to me. This is why I don't snack at all. I simply don't appreciate little mini-meals; they are just temptations to keep eating.

I've been experimenting with oatmeal in the mornings for the past few days. I never really liked the stuff but I thought I'd give it another try, since a little does seem to go a long way. I have about 3/4 of a cup, which is about 250 calories, plus a handful of frozen berries, which may be another 50 calories, and some cinnamon. I'm finding it keeps the hunger away easily until lunch, so that's a good thing, at only 300 calories.

[Franchesca_S.]

Tmoody,

I have a slightly different take on this.

Twenty years ago I'd given up on losing weight and just wanted to be healthy. When I first went plant based I'd never heard of McDougall, Esselstyn, or any of the rest of them. I'd read an article on the benefits of very low fat diets and started tracking fat grams. My self-imposed target was to eat less than 15 grams of animal fat per day. No surprise, in a few weeks I'd weaned myself off of all meat and dairy because that was the only way to meet target. Then to my utter surprise, the weight began to fall off. I didn't worry about portions. Being an over eater I stuffed myself every night with a huge salad, a plate of basmatti rice and steamed veggies, and a plate of fresh fruit. There was simply no room to eat anything else (off plan). If I went out to lunch with clients and ate off plan, I gained a pound. If I ate a flour tortilla, because of the fat, I gained a pound. If I ate on my plan, I lost a pound. In six months I lost fifty pounds.

Over time I fell off the plan, regained the weight and now I'm back on it. For the first few months it was hard to feel satisfied, and to resist social pressure and restaurant food. But now I'm sort-of in the zone and finding it easy to eat the potatoes, the cooked greens, the salads, and I'm not over eating. If you feel hungry, eat something but stay on plan. Eventually you'll retrain your taste buds and the rest of your system to feel satisfied with normal amounts of food.

One last things, I have found an insidious connection between being in front of the tv and eating. As long as the tv is on, I'm looking for something to put in my mouth. Last night I went to the gym not to flog myself, but to escape the tv and it's food connection. Some light weights and a little time on the bike, then home for a little snack and to bed.

Sorry for the long ramble.

FS