Have you ever tried to lose weight and felt hungry all the time?
Maybe you’ve tried counting calories and you feel like there’s no way you can stick to your diet because all you can think about is food.
Or maybe you stick to your diet all week long, only to get to the weekend and blow past your calories.
Before you decide to throw the towel in and eat everything in sight, read this article and try some of the tips I’ve laid out for you.
Make sure you’re not in too big of a calorie deficit
If you’re trying to lose weight and finding it difficult to make progress, the first thing you should do is make sure you aren’t eating too few calories.
While it’s true that you need to be in a calorie deficit (eat fewer calories than you burn) to lose weight, you don’t want to cut your calories too much because it is going to be much harder to consistently stay in a calorie deficit.
Have you ever decided on a Monday that you were going to try to lose weight?
Maybe you skip breakfast, eat a salad for lunch and eat a small dinner. You get into a routine for the rest of the week. You’re hungry, but you’re busy working so you don’t really notice.
By the time the weekend rolls around, you’re starving. You say to yourself “I’ve been good all week! I deserve to eat what I want!” You then eat and drink everything in sight and feel like sh*t Sunday night, so Monday you decide to start over..
Even if you’re in a calorie deficit during the week, you can still put yourself out of a deficit over the weekend.
Let’s say your daily maintenance calories are 2,600.
2,600 calories x 7 days per week= 18,200 weekly calories.
You put yourself into a 500 calorie deficit Monday through Friday and eat 2,100 calories.
2,100 x 5 = 10,500 calories.
On Saturday and Sunday, you go nuts and eat 3,850 calories.
3,850 x 2 = 7,700 calories.
10,500 + 7,700 = 18,200 calories.
You just reversed the calorie deficit you created during the week by overeating on the weekend! You need to be in a calorie deficit, but not so big that you can’t sustain it.
To find out how many calories you need for your goals, you can use my calorie calculator below.
Cal’s Calorie Calculator
Eat your protein
When you’re trying to lose weight, eating enough protein is crucial to helping you stay full while losing weight.
Protein is more filling than carbohydrates or fats. This isn’t just my opinion, there is research supporting the fact that higher protein diets are more satiating than lower protein diets (1).
As a general guideline, shoot for 1 gram of protein per pound of your goal body weight. If you’re 200 pounds and you want to lose 20 pounds, aim to get 180 grams of protein per day.
Protein also costs your body more energy to digest than carbohydrates or fats. This means you’ll burn more calories with a higher protein diet compared to a lower protein diet. While this won’t directly make you feel fuller, it does help to burn a few extra calories which can help in your weight loss journey.
Eat more single ingredient foods
When you think of diet foods, a bunch of healthy foods probably come to mind. Chicken breast, salads, and plenty of fruits and vegetables.
The reason is that these foods are relatively filling while being low in calories. If you feel full, you’re much less likely to overeat and consistently stay in a calorie deficit.
Research backs this up. In one study, dieters were split into two groups. One group’s diet was made up of highly processed foods and the other group’s diet was made of unprocessed, single ingredient meals. Calories and macronutrients were matched for the meals between groups. Both groups were told to eat as much or as little as they wanted. Over the course of two weeks, the processed food group gained an average of two pounds, while the unprocessed group lost an average of two pounds! (2)
Check out the pictures below. Both breakfast options have 470 calories. The eggs, oatmeal and fruit on the left have four ingredients. The scone on the right has 25 ingredients.
I don’t know about you, but the eggs and oatmeal would fill me up way more than the scone. I could probably eat three of the scones and still be hungry.
Now, I’m not saying that you can’t eat unhealthy foods and still lose weight. As long as you are in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. Jordan Syatt, a personal trainer who worked with entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck, ate a McDonald’s Big Mac every day for a month and lost seven pounds!
What I am saying is that being mindful of how much processed food you’re eating will help you stay full while you’re losing weight.
Don’t drink your calories
When I was trying to build muscle in my early 20’s, I blended up chicken breast and sweet potatoes into a smoothie and drank it for two meals per day.
Why would I do that?
I was eating so many calories that I was full all the time. It was much easier to drink extra calories than it was to eat them.
If you’re trying to lose weight, the same idea is true, but in reverse. You want to eat the majority of your calories so you stay full, not drink them.
The calories from milk or cream in your coffee, sodas, and sugary drinks can add up throughout the day. If you’re drinking 300 calories throughout the day, that means you’re taking away 300 calories that you could be eating which would help you feel more full.
Swapping out regular milk in your coffee for skim milk, soda and teas for diet versions and staying away from smoothies will all help you save calories.
And before you ask, the same goes for alcohol.
Alcohol has seven calories per gram. That’s more than carbohydrates and protein, which each have four calories per gram.
With that said, if drinking on the weekends is a non-negotiable, choose hard liquor like tequila and vodka over beer and wine. If you’re going to mix your alcohol, pick diet sodas or seltzer water over their full calorie counterparts.
You should also make sure you drink around half your bodyweight in ounces of water every day. If you’re constantly dehydrated, you’re much more likely to feel hungry.
The next time you want a snack that won’t fit in your calories, drink some water and wait 20 minutes. Odds are you probably won’t feel like you need it.
Find a meal frequency that works for YOU
Have you ever heard that eating more meals per day will increase your metabolism and help you lose weight?
Maybe you’ve also heard that you shouldn’t eat late at night, because those calories are more likely to be stored as fat.
In reality, neither of those meal timing myths are true.
When you eat a meal, your body requires a certain amount of calories to digest it. This is referred to as the thermic effect of food, and it’s usually about 15% of the meal (3). So if you are eating 1800 calories per day, it would take about 270 total calories to digest it.
Whether you split that 1800 calories over three meals with 600 calories or six meals with 300 calories each, that 15% is still the same!
Studies back this up. In an eight week study, dieters were split into two groups. One group ate six small meals per day while the other group ate 3 larger meals. The calories for the day were matched between groups. At the end of the study, both groups lost weight, but there were no differences between groups (4).
Similarly, the calorie content of foods doesn’t change depending on what time you eat them. A Chipotle burrito at 3pm with 700 calories still has 700 calories at 10pm. Your body will digest them the same way.
This has been shown in the research as well. In an eight week study looking at the effect of calorie distribution throughout the day, there was no difference in fat loss between groups who ate most of their calories in the morning or most of their calories at night (5).
So what does this mean for you? It means you can choose whatever meal timing and frequency works best for YOU.
If you like eating light throughout the day and eating most of your calories at night with a big dinner, then go ahead and do that. I’ve had clients use this strategy along with calorie cycling on weekends so they can fit in high calorie foods they enjoy.
Likewise, if you like having more of your calories in the morning, that’s totally fine too.
The bottom line is you can and should find a meal frequency and timing that works for you. At the end of the day, it always comes back to making sure you’re in a calorie deficit.
Don’t skip out on sleep
You already know that when you’re low on sleep, you don’t make great decisions. Even when I have food in the fridge at home, I’m way more likely to stop and get fast food after work if I haven’t slept well.
Besides the lack of willpower that can come when you’re tired, lack of sleep actually disrupts two important hormones called leptin and ghrelin that help regulate your appetite.
Leptin signals your brain that you’re full and should stop eating. Ghrelin is responsible for telling your brain that you’re hungry.
Research has shown that when you sleep less than eight hours, your ghrelin levels increase and your leptin levels decrease (6).
If you’re finding that you’re always hungry and you’re sleeping less than eight hours per night, try catching a few more Z’s at night.
Eat according to YOUR preferences
Remember that when it comes to weight loss, being in a calorie deficit is the most important factor. You cannot lose weight if you aren’t in a calorie deficit!
Once you’re in a calorie deficit and you’re eating enough protein, it doesn’t matter if the rest of your calories come from fats or carbohydrates.
In a yearlong study where participants ate the same amount of overall calories, there was no difference between the group that ate more fat and less carbs or the group who ate less fat and more carbs (7).
What this means for you is you can eat according to YOUR preferences and what fills you up the most.
Love rice, potatoes, oatmeal and fruit? Then you can eat those and lose weight.
Feel more full eating steak, eggs, avocados and nuts? That’s totally fine too.
Pay attention to what fills you up the most and center your diet around those foods to lose weight.
Hunger is normal
If you’re trying to lose weight, you’re probably going to be a little hungry at times, and that’s okay.
Being hungry is normal, and it’s not a good enough reason to give up and eat an entire sleeve of oreos and give up completely.
You’re going to have to be honest with yourself and decide whether you’re a little uncomfortable and you just need to stick it out, or you’re so hungry that you can’t sleep at night and something needs to change.
If you’ve tried everything in this article and your hunger is getting unbearable, it might be time for a diet break. Staying in a calorie deficit for too long has its downsides. Bringing your calories back up to maintenance for a period of time can give your body the break it needs to relieve some of the constant hunger.
Wrapping up
Hopefully these tips will help fend off some hunger while trying to lose weight. Remember that some hunger is going to be normal.
If you want someone to take all the guesswork out of your fitness and nutrition, you can apply for coaching to see if we’d be a good fit for each other.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below!