I Lost The Weight And I Was Never Hungry?

This morning, around 4:45 am, I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep for a while, and finally a topic to write on came to me – I spent all yesterday pondering what to write about this week and had some wicked writers block.  All I could come up with are some random recipe and 5 random thing goodness, but I wanted to really tackle something today, something with some thought behind it – because, honestly, I like sharing random stuff going on in my life and some of my best and worst meals, but I don’t want this to be a “I did this, I ate that” journal. So when I woke up this morning, sore, chilled in sweat, and starving, I knew that I had a topic!  My pain is your Monday reading enjoyment.

So, a tale from the weekend – nah, let’s start from Wednesday – I hadn’t eaten much that day and it was my day off workouting, and we decided to try this new Tex-Mex restaurant in our ‘hood (the food was decent, but there was actually an animal of some sort in the ceiling making noise).  Then decided we were all about trying new things, and went to a new bar for ONE drink.  That one drink ended up multiplying by quite a lot, and as is uncharacteristic for me on a weekday, I’m slinking into bed at around 4am.  Needless to say, the normal self control did not win out and I figured I’d just be better over the weekend.  One extra day of 2000 calories is no big deal.

Then Friday, we decided we were going to have a quiet night at home, but the weather was so beautiful, we sat on the patio enjoying a few.  Then, a few more.  Then, all of a sudden, we were off on a walking adventure to get queso and even more booze.  This was ANOTHER unfortunate 2000+ calorie day.  Then the next day was the fried catfish buffet with my parents (which was the only PLANNED day of doom).  We walked 6 miles yesterday and planned to stop at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants on the way home – I devoured half my chips and salsa and the entire taco salad with a quickness.  I didn’t even feel overfull like I should have on the way home.  So, needless to say, I’ve eaten at least 1000 calories MORE this week than my plan.

And I’ve still lost weight.  I’m at a new low of 156.0.

So, perhaps I need to contemplate what this means, on hunger in general, and if there is actually a way, as the diet ads say, to lose weight without ever being hungry.  Because sure, I don’t feel like I’m not getting by on what I’m taking in, but there are many, many times a week where I feel hungry and deny myself the right to eat, or at least try to wait until the “proper” time.

My normal daily hunger fluctuations on the weekdays are:

8 am – Get up, immediately peckish.

8:30am – Get to work, try to make sure to get at least a glass of water down before I eat my oatmeal.  Try to wait until 10am or so, which works sometimes and doesn’t work sometimes.

11 am – Usually by now, I’m starting to anticipate lunch.

12:30pm – It’s lunch and I’m ready to eat inanimate objects.  This is generally my biggest meal of the day.

3pm – Usually about now, the hunger monster comes back for a few, and I usually quell him fine with a glass of water, tea, or in extreme circumstances a diet soda.

5pm – Fruit snack time (fruit as a snack, not fruit snacks).  There is much rejoicing!

6pm – By now, I’m getting my workout on.  This is usually the only period of the day where my appetite decreases without eating.

8pm – Home, showered, and eating dinner.  Om…nom…nom.  Usually fairly light unless I’ve planned and eaten a lighter lunch.  Most of my random recipes are weekday dinners.

10pm – Usually around now, I’m craving a little something.  More for taste than for hunger as long as I ate enough dinner.  I’ll usually grab a second helping of veggies or salad, or if it’s sweets, then a mini candy cane or a hershey kiss, or sometimes tough it out to see if it passes.

Most days, I am pretty satiated by the time I go to bed, but there are certainly points during the day I wish I was not so dedicated to this quest of mine.  To be honest, it was not really any different when I ate more calories – I still got super hungry in the mornings before lunch, and in the afternoons.

I know the answer to this.  It’s not even a mystery.  Listen to what every diet site tells you nowadays – eat every 3 hours.  Eat lots of small meals of mostly veggies, lean protien, and complex carbs.  I’m sure I’d be touting the praises of this from the highest mountain saying “I LOST THE WEIGHT AND WAS NEVER HUNGRY!!!”.

So the problem?  I can’t freaking do it.  I can’t bring myself to commit to something that makes it impossible to be social with other people at mealtimes without making me a sad panda.  Want to go out to eat with my parents, who pretty much only eat at buffets?  Yeah, that’s a fun time grabbing a salad with low fat dressing and maybe a non-cream soup.  They’d also complain I’m wasting their money, heh.  Work doesn’t exactly give 3 short lunch breaks.  For me, all I’d get is weird looks eating so often, but lots of jobs, you can’t just go make food or eat whenever you want.  I would, however, have to pack a crap ton of food to take to work, and for some reason, eating at work just makes me angry.

And…life is not worth living without the ability to “save” calories every now and again to have some pizza.  Or a burger and fries.  Or a mexican combo plate.  At the very least, life is too short to not be able to enjoy a real meal, not just snacks all day.   I don’t know if this is the fat girl still somewhere inside, but there is nothing more satisfying food-wise than digging into a big plate of nummy-ness.  At lunch, that was chicken, some rice noodles, and a mess of veggies, so I’m not saying I have to eat junk or fattening food – I just don’t feel fulfilled on a constant diet of snacks.  So, instead, I suffer a bit for my conquest, and what I believe is the lesser of two evils.  And I have to deal with the fractured reality of wanting to eat some extra fruit or a salad or veggies or beef jerky or something that is OBVIOUSLY good for me, and not doing it because I have already planned out my calories that day…

I still always wonder if I should eat more, but it’s always such a difficult process finding the sweet spot (especially when your weight keeps changing).  I’m pretty sure I’ll keep losing on my 11500 calories per week (that’s 1300 for 5 days, 1500 for 2 days, and 2000 for one day), but I would hate to be making such an effort and actually be starving myself, and sooner or later I will end up stuck and have to redo the proccess of maintaining for a few months to fix my metabolism.  I also remember not losing weight when I was at 1500 calories per day (and slightly more like 1800-2000 on the weekends), though I might have already had a burnt out metabolism at that point.

Any advice for me?  I’m 5’5″, 156 lbs, burn somewhere close to 3k calories per week doing cardio (my DDR time is hard to judge, because it says I’m burning 1200 calories per 60 minutes, which would like to but I do not believe at all), and also burn an indeterminate amount of calories doing 2 hours of what is essentially circuit training.  My program on spark says to lose 1.5 lbs per week, I should eat between 1270 and 1630 per day (which works out if you average what I eat per week, not per day).  If you keep track, how many calories do you shove down your gullet per day?  Are you losing or maintaining?  If you’re maintaining, do you ever deny yourself food when you’re hungry?  If you’re losing, have you found the sweet spot, or do you have to endure a little pain for the prize?  Hit me up.  I would love love love to know!

This post is sponsored by a grumpy Quix that is brought to you by allergies, muscle soreness, and lack of energy.  Evidentally I can run 5.5 miles but not walk 6.  Makes perfect sense, right?  Comic relief from icanhascheezburger.com and ihasahotdog.com.