Weight gain woes..help me!

food
carnivore
zero-carb
(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #26

There are two kinds of ‘hunger’. The ‘gentle reminder that it’s meal time’ hunger that develops from eating on a fairly regular schedule. Or not. I would call this ‘normal’ and ‘healthy’ hunger. It’s a reminder, so it goes away after reminding you. And if you don’t eat, your metabolism switches to onboard stored energy soon afterwards. The hunger goes away one way or the other.

Then there’s the ‘eat now or you’re going to die starvation’ hunger. This is not healthy hunger, it’s a symptom that things aren’t working well, that your metabolism can’t access onboard fat stores easily and readily. This hunger is a harbinger of a slowed metabolism, protein breakdown and overall catabolism.

Agreed, these are two ends of a spectrum of experience. But getting close to the healthy hunger end of the spectrum is desirable.

#27

Since keto I notice that i never say “i’m starving… i need to get something to eat”… of course my non-keto family members say things like that all the time and we need to drop everything to refuel them. I can easily delay eating within the course of my day.

Still, I can find myself mindlessly eating cheesesticks or olives in the evening while watching TV… that isn’t “real” hunger. I find the advice to “eat to satiety” to be not quite sufficient and I have to go back to tracking for a few weeks at a time to recalibrate.

#28

I have different hungers. Stomach hunger I totally ignore but it’s extremely rare. I usually don’t feel what is with my stomach, maybe if I focus I feel if it’s empty since long…? Irrelevant.

The bad hunger is my old before fat adaptation hunger, good riddance :smiley: It did nothing bad to my metabolism, it got super quick due to the overeating that happened on high-carb together with the occasional sudden attention whore hunger.

Reminder hunger… That’s something tiny and no idea what it does… It probably goes away IF I don’t need food, it’s just mealtime. But I don’t necessarily get hungry in mealtimes. But it’s not rare, indeed.

Today I had my normal hunger, way after lunchtime… I got hungry at some point and it progressively got worse as usual, it was interesting. The hunger never got strong, I just got weak and exhausted. I often get this “need fuel” sign without any hunger, it’s way more reliable than any hunger sign I suppose.

And I have the unsatiable hunger. 1-2 days a year at most when I can eat a ton, it doesn’t help. I eat my energy need twice, gets full, stays hungry and give it up. Unpleasant but I can survive.

I have other types but I need to eat wrong for them to appear, just like the bad strong hunger.

I don’t have “head hunger” I think, I just read about that. If my head does things, that’s appetite or desire out of the blue, rebellion, compulsion and hunger has little to do with them. There is some correlation but not strong.

I must eat NOW, that happens on every woe to me, it’s just gets rare as my carbs go down but only because I eat much and often. My body is very serious about getting its energy and nutrients and perfect ratios or whatever. I have no way to resist when it wants FAT, now or lots of food right away. BUT I need to eat first. I always was somewhat immune to a strong hunger well-fasted… My most numerous and most horrible starving times (both on high-carb and on keto) happened right after a meal. I blame carbs and I am right. That’s why carnivore works so nicely usually. (I still don’t lose fat, of course, it’s me but maybe that will happen one day when I actually can stick to it for long and lose some food addiction too. and gets more active, I want to eat more than a small meal a day, after all… even if it satiates me. losing fat while eating much isn’t the style of my body).

Today I realized it is a horrible idea not to eat immediately when I feel any valid hunger. Hunger kills my joy of eating. A tiny, just-arrived hunger is great for it but waiting for 2 hours was a bad idea, I got enervated too, well I liked my nap…

My high-carber SO can just stop eating for a long time without complaint… I am the one who needs fuel quickly. But usually rarely and not immediately anyway, that was truly bad. I can wait 30 mins or something, often more, it depends… Once or twice my hunger even went away but it usually gets worse. His hunger goes away… So it’s not about the woe only.

I noticed eating enough meat (and avoiding carbs) turns off ANY possible eating for the next ~8 hours… Of course, it’s me. And I need it as if I CAN eat, there is a big chance I will.
It works with other food too, even with carbs but I need a big OMAD meal and that’s too much food for me (and I don’t want much carbs due to other reasons). And I feel a more perfect satiation if I use meat instead of a ton of mixed food, not just fullness and inability to eat in the near future.

Eating to satiety may be a nice enough starting point, it probably works for many anyway… I personally had to eat after satiation and had to stop eating when hungry quite a few times to do it as right as I can…
And as many of us knows, it’s totally possible, easy for some people to overeat quite seriously on keto when we just eat to satiaty. While others do the same and starve.
The signs aren’t always reliable and they say some people don’t even know what hunger and satiation are… Though considering my zillion different hunger and other urging-to-feed signs it’s not a very simple thing. Still, if it annoys me, I eat, it’s simple.
I didn’t overeat back then because I had no idea if I need the food. I ate because I suffered hunger otherwise and I don’t do that. (And because I liked to eat but I am a warm-blooded mammal, I need to eat so much, it’s easy to get plenty of joy from it even when dieting or whatever we call it. Sometimes I want to be a snake for a while, eating is a chore.)

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #29

Dr. Robert Cywes, the bariatric surgeon, has a lot to say about food addiction and what he calls “emotional eating.” But I am always reminded of something in French class, years ago, when the professor pointed out that the French say, “I’ve had enough” (j’en ai eu assez), whereas Americans say, “I’m full.” I try to bear that in mind when my urge to eat emotionally is strong, though not always successfully, alas! The need to have something in my mouth can be overpowering on occasion.

(Steaks b4 cakes! 🥩🥂) #30

This is my problem and it always has been, regardless of what I’m eating, I could actually eat and eat and never actually experience yhat stop sign :joy:

I think I’m gonna start tracking again. I know I’m only eating beef and chicken these days but will be good to know the numbers!

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #31

Curious. Does this describe you:

(Steaks b4 cakes! 🥩🥂) #32

This is definitely not me! Sleep is a priority for me, magnesium before bed every night, I’m in bed before 9:30pm most nights and fall asleep right away. I haven’t been sleep deprived since my daughter was born 5 years ago :joy::joy:

(Karen) #33

Lucky you! What I would give to have sound sleep again. I have read the book ‘why we sleep’ at lleast i think that was the one, my daughter has it now. Very science based which I enjoyed. Made so much sense and kind of makes it easier to deal with when you understand the reasons behind not sleeping. It mentioned about eating more when tired and I can absolutely relate to that.

(Steaks b4 cakes! 🥩🥂) #34

Awww sorry to hear that you suffer in the sleep department :sleepy: do you take magnesium? I find it has a brilliant calming effect, if taken before bed I find it just helps me to drift off. Avoid magnesium citrate though…That stuff gives me tummy ache :joy:

(Mame) #35

my opinion, F— what you read and listen to your body. You still have fat stores on your body right? Also we change it’s a process not static. the first 60 or so pounds I could eat way more especially meats, but I am so much smaller. If I eat a bigger volume of food than I need I will not lose.I will maintain or drift up. Doesn’t matter how keto/carnivore it is. I have proved it to myself over and over.
Decide to trust your body and go all in with that work. It does actually know what you need. and if 3 months from now you need more food according to your body then go with that.
Sorry this is all jmo, but I feel very passionate about becoming our own experts NO ONE knows our bodies and what we need like we do.
that said, if another person eats 2+ pounds of meat a day, and likes their weight then great everyone can be different.

(Mame) #36

rooting for you Clare! I know you will figure this all out and make it work for you.

(Karen) #37

I take magnesium in the morning ing … it is citrate but that doesn’t effect my tum. I will try it at night instead.

#38

Hi @ClareBear.

Like you, I’ve put on weight since I’ve made the change from keto to strict carnivore. My weight is still in the normal range, but higher than it has ever been in my life, with the exception of a few of those weird hormonal days.

Carnivore just doesn’t seem to be good for me. But I’m keeping it going to avoid regretting not having given it my best shot later, when I go back to keto.

I’ve also been working a lot and carnivore is convenient when you have no time to think about food, let alone prepare anything with more than 2 ingredients. My 2 ingredients are salt and meat. Sometimes I have a bit of 0 carb cheese.

Anyway, the thing about calories is that people like to say it doesn’t matter, but it does. When you are at a normal weight, or very close to your normal weight and you’re a woman, it matters. We need to be careful not to go too low, nor too high.

Another misconception is that any food regimen will solve the hunger/desire to eat problem of everybody. We’re all different and there are many different issues that can mess up with our satiety alarms.

The art is to learn enough about ourselves to manage all of our quirks and constraints. It seems you’re already finding solutions. I’m rooting for you!

(Steaks b4 cakes! 🥩🥂) #39

Thank you for sharing this! :heartpulse: I totally understand what you mean with regards to hormones! If there’s one thing that’s shocked me the most about going carnivore is how much all of that has effected me! I even notice now when I’m ovulating…It’s so weird!!

Yes definitely stick with it a bit longer, hopefully you find your groove :blush:

(Steaks b4 cakes! 🥩🥂) #40

I’ve got magnesium glycinate at the moment. Really love it.

(Steaks b4 cakes! 🥩🥂) #41

Thank you! :heart_eyes::heart_eyes:
So far I’m feeling good. I’m listening to my body now more than ever.
You re right, screw what they say. They’re not me. It’s probably easy for a muscular male to be preaching to others about how much to eat, I’m a thirty something female with hormonal fluctuations going against me. I feel a bit foolish now but I’m glad I came here and asked you guys what you think.
All week I’ve survived on half of what I normally ate, in fact hunger doesn’t even bother me as much anymore :blush:

(Karen) #42

You’re definitely not foolish, we are all individuals x

#43

Hi Clare, just for info, the weird hormonal days I’ve meant were in the past, when I was young, decades ago.

(Sharon Spaans) #44

You are eating toooo much food! Even on carnivore calories do matter

(Robin) #45

Yep. Crazy, but true… for some of us.