Is Hunger Friend or Foe?

[carolT]

Remove cheese from house? I don’t know if it’s the carbs in it or something else, but clearly it’s a trigger food for you. Some items just have to go away or be locked up.

[BlueViolet]

Yep that’s why I stopped buying fresh mozz, walnuts (nomnomnom an entire 16oz bag) and almond butter (have 10 jars yes 10 -was on sale-, stored at my daughter’s to reintroduce 1/week when at goal weight). But this is plain monterey jack, I have NEVER EATEN this kind except grated on meat, before. Don’t even like!

This out of control feeling is new for me. Like I say above, overdoing the walnuts and mozz was more like, I am choosing to eat 16oz mozz per day, and I always had 5-7 mozz in fridge and no prob sticking to 1/day, not, I cannot STOP myself from eating this…

[fields_of_green]

This q shall sound overly simple minded but I like hearing folks’ differing takes on things, it helps me: do you guys think hunger indicates metabolic function is nicely on point, as opposed to the decreased hunger we often get when fasting, which suggests metabolic processes are tapering down?

If not for my fear of metabolic slowdown I could willpower it through as that itself isn’t a hard thing for me to do.

I am no expert, this is just my personal opinion: I think that pushing past your hunger to reach this 48 hour mark that you want to re-experience will not destroy your metabolism. There may be a metabolic slowdown as your body realizes no food is coming in, but I don’t believe periodic deprivation will cause permanent harm. It is not such a long time.

I know there are studies examining metabolic slowdown by people who have starved. But you are only aiming to do this for two days.

I’m midway between 5’ 3" and 5’ 4" and at 110 pounds after a four day fast. I’d say my average scale weight is more like 115. I did the ZornFast from last Wednesday night to Sunday night. Black coffee and green tea for non-water beverage. I broke the fast on Sunday night, not because of hunger, but because my energy was noticeably lower on my Sunday morning walk and because I had to take a nap on Sunday afternoon. Just seemed to be time to put a little fuel in the fuel tank, so to speak. And it didn’t take much food to revive me.

Like you, I don’t feel like I need to lose a lot. And like you, I feel that I have enough body fat on board to continue to fast periodically.

As far as feeling hunger, apart from a little bit of stomach rumbling that is always short-lived, I think that perhaps I don’t have a proper hunger signal. I think it’s because I have food in the house. And I can go buy food if I want. I have never experienced the panic that must set in when food is not available. I am very grateful for that.

My biggest challenge on a fast is boredom. Take away buying food, prepping food, eating food, or cleaning up after food, and I’m left with an incredible void. At traditional meal times, I find myself opening the fridge and freezer, looking at what is in there and staring at my portioned out food, waiting to be eaten. I would look through cabinets to look at that inventory.

When I might otherwise be eating a meal, I’d clean the house, but there’s only so much of that one can do. So when I am skipping a meal or doing a fast, I have lately been going out on walks listening to audiobooks and podcasts. Not walking to burn calories, but just for the therapeutic effect.

I find I don’t understand satiety anymore either. I certainly have the capacity to eat a tremendous amount of food, but on the other hand, I feel that I don’t need to eat so much with this style of eating. Perhaps that’s due to a metabolic slowdown, but I don’t think there’s particular harm in being a bit more like a hybrid car than a conventional car. If I suddenly started to train for a marathon and I didn’t have enough energy, I hope I would naturally develop a bigger appetite to meet the new energy demands.

I think people want to have revved up metabolism so that they can eat more. Because eating is fun and cooking is fun. We all may be messed up by receiving mistaken ideas of how to be healthy the past 50 years, but I hope we can turn that around now.

I think part of the allure of a ketogenic diet is that it feels more satisfying to live on a little more protein and fat than we were taught to do. It’s like putting a log on the fire instead of shredded newspaper. Imagine trying to keep the room warm with only newspaper. But I guess it could be argued that getting by with eating less is another boring aspect to eating keto, kind of like fasting. At least to me. Not that I’m willing to go back to a carb heavy diet, it’s just an observation.

One final comment on the 48 hour mark and the crazy hunger you experienced. Jason Fung has said in an 2KetoDudes interview that fasting for 48 hours is one of the worst choices. To stop at 48 hours means you’ve gone through the most unpleasant period of the fast without experiencing the cloud that lifts on the 3rd day. So he recommends up to 36 hours or to 42 hours, or press on to 72, but don’t go to 48 and quit. This is the observation of his patients. Carl Franklin said that a forum member suggested that if you remember when the worst hour of your fasting attempt was, plan your last meal so that you will be in bed already asleep when you reach the worst hour of your last fast. Then when you wake up, you will just feel normal.

[BlueViolet]

@fields_of_green OMG what a fab post, thank you for taking the time to compose it I hope others happen upon it as well.

That last paragraph is particularly interesting; hunger def peaks for me at hour 24, and hours 40-44.

Since getting past hr 24 is now the struggle I don’t think timing things so am asleep at hr 24 is possible but def could do for hours 36 or 40.

[Ilana_Rose]

Hmm… I think we may be twinning again. I have a couple of ideas about your cheese binge but I’m fried right now and don’t want to scimp on the post due to tiredness. I’ll post my thoughts in the morning.

[KetoCancerMom]

As I am p small (116lb last weigh but that was over a month ago so may be less; def not more as I am smaller) I am kind of afraid of hunger as I fear metabolic slowdown due to not having massive stores BUT I do have stores as in flab galore so what’re the wise heads’ opinions on that aspect of it all?

I’m also about 115 +/- 1lb. I don’t have lots of obvious flab, but due to a DEXA scan (body composition that shows lean, bone, and fat mass) I know that I have a high proportion of fat to my lean mass. For me, that means that I need to focus on building lean mass/muscle. I can’t really afford to lose any more weight. So, due to that I’m still doing my OMAD (one meal a day) for most days, and I’m working on building muscle.

When you say that you have lots of flab, is it from losing weight? Do you have obvious flab/fat that you can “grab” a hold of? I don’t know your age or height, but 116 doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable weight for a small (petite) woman. Perhaps more exercise (push-ups, situps, other muscle-building strength training) is the answer.

[atomicspacebunny]

Hunger is your friend!

One of the best examples of hunger signaling (ghrelin, leptin) and different stages of hormesis metabolic adaption in caloric deficit and how the body responds on an individual basis is touched on by Megan Ramos, I really like the way she describes how this works so the lay person can understand it, and I think she has the parameters nailed down.

In other words eat when hungry until your not, then the more extensive your eating windows will become? Eating more fat but not too much seems to help?

The problem with it is, is waiting for it all to happen, after all we want to get on with the show and jump right into the action?

If I were trying to lose weight and nothing was happening in that regard, the most important thing I would want to know is what is really happening with this?

If your a very science savvy person, your going to hawk yourself on how this makes sense?

Would it not make sense to go backwards and rather than start in the middle of a thing that works in stages of volume? After all you would not want to jump into a formula one race car and you don’t know how to drive at all (crash & burn?); that is kind of what happens with this?

Set point?

How were you eating before you started? Do you start restricting slowly from their in progressive stages and is that your set point? (even with non-ketogenic foods, stay with what your eating and slowly wean yourself off the highly processed junk food?) Observe what you are eating and when you are eating and snacking, and when the signal comes in and document it?

So armed with that information, I would say ‘that is my metabolism and if I just jump into fasting and restricting carbohydrates my metabolism is going to say hey, your trying to starve me?’

What is contrary to your individual set point; when your body is not ready to handle that kind of stress (hormesis)?

If your thyroid is not functioning properly and your not losing weight, the above might be part of the solution?

[BlueViolet]

When you say that you have lots of flab, is it from losing weight? Do you have obvious flab/fat that you can “grab” a hold of? I don’t know your age or height, but 116 doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable weight for a small (petite) woman. Perhaps more exercise (push-ups, situps, other muscle-building strength training) is the answer.

@KetoCancerMom I’m a postmenopausal 55y/o, barely 5’2" and very small frame. No health issues so can’t blame those, no stress.
Yep I sure do have flab I can grab ahold of, on thighs primarily. My upper arms too. How much of it is loose skin from dropping the weight and how much actual fat I’m not sure. But my frame is SO small I can tell 105-110 would better suit.

Thing is I DGAF -truly, dgaf- about appearance; I used to be vain and dress to 9s but after menopause I stopped caring about all that. #apathyisnice This obsession I have with getting to my “correct” weight is more just because I want to so building muscle via exercise (which is a devil’s invention ), nope.

I know that I have a high proportion of fat to my lean mass. For me, that means that I need to focus on building lean mass/muscle. I can’t really afford to lose any more weight.

Now hang on, if you have DEXA confirmed high proportion of fat/lean body mass how come you can’t afford to lose more? Wouldn’t that indicate you could? I’m fairly sure this is the case with me. My stubby legs are like wee stumps and deffo have fat aplenty on em.

@atomicspacebunny thanks for once again composing a fab detailed reply! Much of it I’ve already covered/isn’t applicable to this case but I am interested in hearing more about this “set point” to which you allude. Could that be the problem?

[Ilana_Rose]

So anyone who has seen my posts will note I’ve been struggling with being able to fast beyond my usual once/24h deal, whereas 48h had formerly been easy and was done frequently

I’m pretty sure easy extended fasting goes out the window once fat stores are lower. I started keto at 5’5 and about 133 lbs and fasting beyond 24 hours has always made me very hungry. It’s something I still want to try to train up but I really don’t think I’ll ever not be hungry while doing it.

Of late I have had appetite INCREASE.

I’ve had this too. I think the reason is an out of whack protein to fat ratio. Dairy really helps keep our fats up. Further, on keto, we drown our low carb vegetables in loads of healthy fats. All this allows our protein to be kept at moderate levels.

I’ve known for a while that too much protein jacks my next day hunger through the roof but on keto I had no trouble controlling my protein. At protein levels between 50 and 75 grams and fat around 115 grams I was fine.

But, in spite of my knowing this, when I switched to carnivore my macros flipped. I’d tend to get 100+ grams of protein and 70 ish grams of fat. So I’ve been working to flip it back and it’s helping. I’ve got a theory that solid fats are much more satiating than liquid fats so I ask my butchers to give me pounds of fat trimmings every week. Then I just fry it up with my meat. It took no time before my body wanted the much higher fat ratio. Now even ribeye feels dry without an added bit of fat on my fork. I’ve been aiming for 2:1 fat: protein in grams, which is about 82% calories from fat. I don’t think I actually hit this but I’m above 78% now which is a massive difference from the 58% I was managing at the start of Carnivore. Anyhow, it’s working. My hunger is controlled again and I feel less tired.

My thoughts on the cheese binge in a bit.

[Ilana_Rose]

I think people like us who are smaller all our lives assume that we don’t have carb addictions. I certainly thought this. In reality I think that some of us actually do but the cravings got satisfied fairly quickly by a reasonable sized carb injection from time to time allowing our weight to stay controlled.

I used to eat pie and cookies and chocolate and chips. I also loved ‘healthier’ options like fruit and granola and miniwheats and would eat this stuff daily. But I’d rarely eat too much of it. My cravings got satisfied at one chocolate bar or a third of a bag of chips, so I never imagined that I had any control issues or that there was any problem at all.

I spent a lifetime never having to control my eating for more than an easy week or two where I’d ditch some obvious junk food to lose a couple of pounds. As a result, I’ve developed no habits of mind that come into force when a carb craving hits me. And yet I think that they hit me as hard as anyone.

Then came keto and everything ran relatively smoothly for a while. But I noticed that whenever I got happy that I’d achieved a goal I’d start to hit those moderate carb injections again. Hence my nightly Mars bars that could last days, weeks, and, over one holiday season, months.

So I got rid off the Mars bars. But that’s when I started to notice what happened to you. My brain still wanted all those carbs and there were still carbs to be had. So I’d binge eat things I’d never have binged on before.

I could eat a cup of nuts for example. My brain would say 1/4 cup is a nice keto snack but it would leave me disatisfied and my carb zombie would emerge to fill up the amount it craved. Same with nut butters, sooo bad. Tablespoon after tablespoon in a pile on a plate and then I’d go back for more. This is not a food I even wanted before keto.

So I got rid if the nuts and seeds and nut butters. But as soon as I did that a serious, and never, never before present, passion for cheeses emerged. I’d stuff myself at dinner on meats until I thought I’d bust and then I’d have a slice of some cheese as a “finisher”. But it would be followed by another and another and another and another. My husband would watch me eat the equivalent of an entire second meal in cheese in awe. It was just like a plate of pie and ice cream to my carb addicted brain. Again, I never liked cheeses this much before. This was a crazy new bingy behavior. So I took cheese off the menu.

It’s only now, at virtually zero carbs that the cravings and the binging seems over.

[BlueViolet]

@Ilana_Rose

easy extended fasting goes out the window once fat stores are lower.

I’m starting to agree. I may need to stop striving for this but how the heck am I going to lose the last 10lbs.

the reason is an out of whack protein to fat ratio.

Now since I went “carnivore” this is prob the case with me. Coincides with my inability to fast longer too. Ack I dropped the cheese and veg to break the stall, it worked, but as a result my protein is prob too high. Ergh.

too much protein jacks my next day hunger through the roof

Yep.

I spent a lifetime never having to control my eating for more than an easy week or two where I’d ditch some obvious junk food to lose a couple of pounds. As a result, I’ve developed no habits of mind that come into force when a carb craving hits me. And yet I think that they hit me as hard as anyone.

Erm…yeah. Hellyeah.

nut butters, sooo bad. Tablespoon after tablespoon in a pile on a plate and then I’d go back for more.

Again. Hellyeah. Me. So me. Straight from the jar, almond butter and the kind that contained only ground almonds so no added sugar to blame.

So I got rid if the nuts and seeds and nut butters. But as soon as I did that a serious, and never never before present, passion for cheeses emerged.

Ok we must be separated twins not joking. Never ate cheese prior, unless in a dish. Never ate cheese plates, ew. Now…nomnomnom.

Your reply is really ringing my bells
So wth can I try next -am so sick of trying diff things after sailing along so nice for nigh onto 2yr to get these last 10lb off.
Def can’t bring veg back in as that’ll just up carbs and aid nothing. Maybe bring cheese back in and lower meat…mmmm…cheeeese…

Since going “carnivore” i’ve been at near-zero carbs. Went beautifully at first, then this developed. I just want the last 10lb gone.

So perhaps the reason going “carnivore” worked was the removal of the (lots) of veg I was eating, but then the disproportionate protein ratio resulted because I also removed cheese thereby lowering fat too much and triggering the mad cheese craving.
I could lower meat and up cheese, NO VEG.

Ack all this tweaking is annoying AF!

[KetoCancerMom]

Now hang on, if you have DEXA confirmed high proportion of fat/lean body mass how come you can’t afford to lose more? Wouldn’t that indicate you could?

Not necessarily. Its more that I can lose the fat, but it has to be replaced with muscle. And muscle weights more than fat. So, I’m not looking to lose weight - I’m looking to convert fat to muscle.

[BlueViolet]

@KetoCancerMom ok that makes sense. I actually have v good muscle tone. It’s purely genetic, some kind of peasant gene throwback, my mother had it, I and two of my daughters (not all) have it as does one female grandchild. Our calves are these big muscle-y field hand looking things -not pretty- and our abdomens stay firm even after multiple childbirths. My mother had visible arm muscles though never lifted anything heavier than a skillet.
Nary a stretch mark, though we are all multips and we don’t get facial wrinkles much either. It’s most definitely not from exercise as we are all lazy af; it’s just unusually strong connective tissue. The one daughter who does not display this is pretty mushy and loose.
That to say, I think my lean body mass is OK. Just too much flab on top of it.

[KetoCancerMom]

If you can afford a body composition DEXA is recommend it. You can search on the web for places that will do it.

[Ilana_Rose]

Or you could just try adding more beef fat to your meals. It’s working for me.

[BlueViolet]

@Ilana_Rose I am so annoyed by this constant adjusting/craving nonsense; I haven’t had this EVER before and esp not since starting keto (Aug 2017).

Odd thing: I’ve gotten no bigger (going by visuals) since this started two weeks ago (the inability to go >24h, the cheese bacchanal); I next weigh May 30 and if I’ve lost weight I shall make an n=1 thread about my case being evidence of calories “not mattering”.

OK so now there’s no cheese left in the house. Only steak, bacon, eggs and ground beef. I only grocery shop weekly with my daughter and as that is a sched thing my ocd won’t allow me to make a rogue shopping trip on my own SO now the rubber shall meet road if I eat only what I have in the house until it’s gone, and this’ll be a true meat only experiment much like yours. No chance to add in anything else. No sauerkraut, olives, or pickles like I was having on my almost carnivore, and most def no cheese.

After obsessing yesterday I figure to try this next (* rolling eyes *) as the limits shall be extraneous (nothing but meat in house) vs self imposed.

Frustrated AF!!

[Ilana_Rose]

I think people want to have revved up metabolism so that they can eat more. Because eating is fun and cooking is fun.

This, 1000 times. I’ve looked and looked and I can find no indication that higher metabolism is better for long term health (excepting starvation levels obviously). In fact all indications are that it may be quite the opposite.

[Ilana_Rose]

Frustrated AF!!

I’ve been thinking a lot about this whole insane craving thing.

Keto is a wonderful diet. It gives us appetite stability and fairly easy weight losses compared to any other options. But it’s not actually magic and doesn’t override hundreds of thousands of years of evolution where fattening was a good thing and impulses like wanting to eat ALL THE BERRIES RIGHT F***ING NOW would have been strongly selected for.

Most anyone with a modicum of self control will lose some weight on most diets. We’re all super fired up to lose weight at the start of diets and are hyper-compliant and do well as a result. The problem on non keto diets is that people usually fail when metabolism slows and they stall out hungry all the time and lacking energy. Keto gets us past that point and that’s its massive strength.

What keto doesn’t get anyone past as easily is the loss of fiery will over the long term. It’s not going to be a popular thing to say but you see it everywhere on these forums. People do very well for a few months, or even a year or two and then the wind goes out of their sails and they stall out and frequently start reverting to some SAD foods and gain some weight back.

Sometimes those stalls are the result of carb creep but I think, at least as often, basic keto has just done all the work it’s going to in that body. After that it’s necessary to attack the problem that we have evolved to EAT ALL THE YUMMY STUFF when it’s available.

When we take away the cake and ice cream those yummy things revert back to what they used to be which are actually keto foods like nuts and berries. Dairy is a special case. We’ve got a strong instinct to love milk.

I do a lot of canoe camping in deep wilderness areas. There is nothing funnier than watching a black bear lying on its belly for hours delicately eating blueberries one by one from bushes that only reach halfway up my calf. They won’t stop, they want every last one.

The sad thing is that for some of us the answer is that we simply have to give up on hyperpalatable foods. I think this is the real reason meat/salt carnivory works so well. When you stop being hungry for meat you really just don’t want more. The thought of it is actually sort of gross. Carnivores put all these other keto foods in the ‘not food’ part of their minds, the same as keto folks do for grains and potatoes and sugar. You don’t have to fight for self control over something that you’ve stopped thinking of as food altogether.

Anyhow, just some recent musings.

[JohnH]

Anyhow, just some recent musings.

Some very excellent points and insights in this post.

[Ilana_Rose]

Thank you!