Need some help with satiety that’s broken

(Mike W.) #1

6’3” 300 lbs. How much should I be eating? I know this is a super generalized question but for as long as I can remember I dont really get full I get “bored”. I can eat a lb of burger Pattie’s for a late lunch and a few hours later eat 1.5lb of steak and still feel hungry. Sometimes I even eat breakfast. Is there a way to figure out how much you should be eating when you’re satiety signaling is ■■■■■■■

#2

Probably there is no one answer, we didn’t all get to where we are the same way, and we won’t all get out of it the same way.
Me, I just ate and ate as much as I wanted when I went Keto. I only counted my carbs.

I started losing weight anyway (I had a LOT to lose) and over time, my hunger receded and I learned for the first time what it actually meant to be sated. Not stuffed, pleasantly sated. It took time, months.

#3

The rule usually is to eat as much as you want. But fat is more satiating. How fatty is your meat?

#4

It must be tough. I have Insatiable Hunger Days sometimes, I simply eat until I start to feel bad or had enough of eating and not stopping. And hope for the hunger to go away, it has better chance when I don’t eat all the time… Things calm down.
But it’s not for every day as I easily eat twice my energy need (I do that without those days sometimes).
It’s easier for me as I know how much I should eat so I can just eat that. Maybe a bit more if I am still hungry but not much more. In theory, at least, I am bad with being hungry. But if my body got its nutrients and I ate very low-carb, it’s hard to be really hungry, it’s very common on keto. If we eat right. I need high protein or else I won’t ever get satiated (maybe with a ton of fat, way, way, way over my energy needs). And it matters what kind of protein. And there are hungry-inducing or just non-satiating items… Sorry, I still base things on some kind of satiety signal as I have that, not a superb one, I can be quite hungry if I don’t do things right (fats satiate me very poorly especially added fat. it’s very easy for me to overeat fat) but still… But maybe yours isn’t THAT bad just didn’t find the right woe yet…? It took me quite some time to figure out the right way. Timing is important for me. It can be so hard for me to get satiated and borderline impossible with small meals (like your 1 pound of meat. I eat bigger first meals, usually) that it’s a very good reason for me to go for fewer meals and a smaller eating window. Sometimes I am still not satiated in the end of my eating window but I am not really hungry anymore. I wait for 2-3 hours and I get my perfect satiation so I want to enjoy it for really long :wink: And I do if I ate properly in my eating window.
I would experiment if I were you, to figure out what works best. A big meal full with my more satiating items almost always works for me. If I can eat it to begin with but I usually can, food choices may be important though. If my meal is small, I eat again soon and their satiating effect adds up more than with 2 distant meals.

I hope you find your way soon!

2 pounds of meat sounds protein rich enough (some people eat more though) and meats are usually pretty satiating too… What about your fat intake? You surely need a lot of it! (I am not knowledgeable about steaks but surely there are leaner ones…)

(Mike W.) #5

Mostly ribeyes and some chicken thighs so pretty fatty.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #6

The point is to stay in fat-metabolising mode, and the way to do that is to keep insulin as low as possible. And the way to do that is to avoid carbohydrate. So if you are avoiding dietary carbohydrate, your insulin response will be low, your glucagon will be elevated, and the ratio of insulin to glucagon will keep you in fat-metabolising mode.

Since satiety is a subjective thing, it’s hard to say what will work for someone else. But here’s some science: first, insulin interferes with the leptin signal generated by our fat cells when they have enough energy (fat) on board. The reason is that insulin and leptin both compete for the same receptor in the ventromedial hypothalamus. (This makes sense when a bear is trying to fatten up for the winter, by eating lots of carbs; the blocking of leptin by insulin makes it easier to put on the pounds.)

Most people find that, after they’ve been keto for a while, their appetite suddenly drops, but it takes time. For me, it was around three or four weeks. I started keto by eating the kinds of quantities of food I was used to as a carb burner, until one day, in the middle of lunch, I was suddenly done, with my meal half-finished. I wasn’t full (i.e., stomach stuffed to the point where there was a serious risk of its rupturing), but simply no longer hungry. It had been decades at that point since I had had enough food. Had to put half a plate in the fridge and save it for supper.

But I figure my body needed those three weeks of extra calories before it felt safe shutting down my appetite. I think some people are just too afraid of eating too many calories to reach that point. On the other hand, though, there probably are people whose satiety signalling actually doesn’t work, and they will have to limit their quantities somehow.

Third and last, when people switch from keto to carnivore, they end up eating a lot. Most carnivores consume around a kilo/2 lbs. of meat a day, spread over three meals. Shawn Baker famously eats around 4 lbs. of meat a day. (I heard him say at Ketofest once, “I wouldn’t recommend for anyone else to eat the way I do; I’m a freak.”)

There have been studies in which people put on an ad libitem ketogenic diet ate 3000-5000 calories and still lost fat at the same rate as the other participants, so obviously there are individual factors at work. Sam Feltham’s famous experiment of eating a 5000-calorie keto diet for four weeks is fascinating, because he gained a couple of kilos, but the DEXA scan showed that it was muscle that he’d gained, and he’d lost some fat, as well. (I don’t know how; he’s a skinny guy to begin with.) So it might pay to trust that your body knows what its doing, and if it wants more food, then let it have more food. I don’t know, it might not work, but might be worth giving it a try?

(Mike W.) #7

I always appreciate your input, Paul. Thank you!

(Bob M) #8

He is a freak. He’s squatting with a ton of weight, yet at the same time he can row at near Olympic-caliber levels.

#9

Yes, actually, eating 2-2.5 lb of meat a day is not a lot. I am not used to lb, so I just assumed it is a lot. I also eat around 1kg per day. Few days ago I was hungrier than usually and ate around 1.7 kg/3.7lb. Nothing to worry about. If you leave out carbs you have to replace the calories with something. Otherwise you are undereating. Especially if you are a bigger guy I would expect you to eat more.

#10

Yes, with an app like MacroFacor that will figure out your TDEE for you, that way you’re not wasting your time guessing why you’re not progressing, and not listening to your body which is lying to you. Wish the AI trackers existed when I demolished my RMR and was eating WAY more than I could deal with, along with all the guess work. Sad part is I wasn’t eating too much in reality, but my RMR was so low, that I was anyway.

My hunger and satiety signals never work right, keto or otherwise. But the numbers don’t lie. At 300lbs (been there) you need more than you think, there (is) truth to the bigger people needing more fuel, but you also have to wind it down as you go, since your RMR will lower as you go down in lbs. MacroFactor does all the math for you, watches the trends, and doesn’t make snappy decisions that screw you later.

(KM) #11

I’d just say remember, that 300 pound monument wasn’t built in a day. We tend to get so gung-ho about losing Fast, only going in the right direction, and sometimes it’s better to experiment, so we can get on the right path for our individual bodies Long term, an individual diet for life. I know, going up when you so want to go down sucks, but in the long run you need to know yourself, and giving yourself a pass to discover that personal formula, even if it means short term deviation, is essential. You’ve decided to change, now you get the time to find your path. :slightly_smiling_face:

#12

You may want to look at my accountability thread and see my journey losing 125 pounds. It’s called “from morbidly obese to healthy”. It may help you to see someone else’s ups and downs and wonderful end results.