Hunger help page

[froggirl]

Newbie here...but lurking for a couple of months though. I've been primal for 3 months now (started out with the whole30 thing which I followed absolutely to the letter) and then switched to primal after my 30 days, adding back in some dairy and some 85-90% dark chocolate. My problem? I am constantly, constantly hungry and I'm not sure if that is ''normal" while following this lifestyle.

Here's some information: I'm 50 years old, 5 feet, 2 inches tall, 105 pounds. Very small framed. I am reasonably active, but have MS so am limited with the activity I can do. I do lift heavy weights 3x/week and walk some. My reason for going primal was to try to improve my energy level and reduce some of my MS symptoms without taking meds.

I always ate *healthy* before switching to primal (meaning lots of whole grains, legumes, very little meat). Switching to primal has not been a problem, but the hunger I now experience is. I'm not used to always thinking about food and wanting to eat constantly.

An example of what I eat is this:
Breakfast (I admit, I eat very early...5:30am but I have to be at work early): 2 egg/sausage/spinach "muffins" (no grains, just eggs, sausage and spinach baked together), a bowl of sliced strawberries with two heaping spoonfuls of full fat plain greek yogurt, and a cup of tea with a pinch of stevia.


Lunch (at 11:30am) : BAS with lots of veggies and meat, or leftovers from previous night's dinner (chicken or beef, big serving of veggies) I don't measure portion sizes, but I can say it's A LOT more food than I previously ate. A full, heaping plate full.

Dinner (around 5:30pm): Chicken, fish or beef. Salad. Veggies. Again, a full plate. My husband is amazed at how much I eat now. This is usually followed by about a half of a dark chocolate bar (either Lindt's 90% or Green & Black's 85%).

I am ravenously hungry at 9am (as in, that low-blood sugar, shakey kindof feeling), so I will eat some macadamia nuts or cashews and some unsweetened coconut flakes...maybe two handfuls. I will again be starving at 3:00 or so and if I have any food left at work will snack on a handful of almonds or some other nuts.

Why oh why am I so hungry all the time? I am eating more than I ever did before. I eat full-fat yogurt and cook with lots of either grass-fed butter or coconut oil. I used to eat just a whole wheat muffin with peanut butter for breakfast and be good until lunch time. Now I eat twice that and am starving.

What am I doing wrong? I don't like feeling this hungry all the time? Do I need to eat even more? I should add that when I do eat my meals I feel very full. It's just a couple of hours (sometimes even just one hour later) I'm hungry again. I keep reading where Mark says I shouldn't feel hungry. I should add that when I first started eating this way I lost about 3 lbs. When I added dairy and chocolate back in I gained that back. I'm not looking to lose weight, I just want to feel like I'm not hungry. And have more energy. Since I feel hungry all the time I feel like I still don't have much energy.

Thanks for reading this very long post and also for any help you could give me. I have learned a lot from this forum!

[Warmbear]

The standard answer is to add more fat to each meal. We are so brainwashed about fat is bad that even when we think we have eaten enough fat, we have not. If you are still going low blood sugar after a few hours you have not become fat adapted yet so increase the butter etc for a while and let yourself get used to running on fat instead of sugar. I would skip the fruit at breakfast and add more eggs/fat/meat, make it a bigger meal to start.

Save fruit for later in the day till you get fat adapted. The Hungries will go away once you are fat adapted but till then your body is looking for carbs which is why you're feeling them.

[Metric]

The standard answer is to add more fat to each meal. We are so brainwashed about fat is bad that even when we think we have eaten enough fat, we have not. If you are still going low blood sugar after a few hours you have not become fat adapted yet so increase the butter etc for a while and let yourself get used to running on fat instead of sugar. I would skip the fruit at breakfast and add more eggs/fat/meat, make it a bigger meal to start.

Save fruit for later in the day till you get fat adapted. The Hungries will go away once you are fat adapted but till then your body is looking for carbs which is why you're feeling them.

^ this! For me, increased fat and removing higher sugar foods (like fruits/berries - at least until fat adapted) did the trick. I re-introduced berries as a treat, but not a daily thing.

[froggirl]

Thank you both for your quick responses. I will cut the fruit and add more fat. You're right though Warmbear, it's hard to wrap my brain around the 'fat is okay' thinking. I'll do it though! Thanks again!

[cayla29s]

Other than the nutrition part, are you getting enough sleep? are you going to bed hungry? I had hypoglycemia but seemed to have dissappeared now since I started eating 3 large meals instead of the small 5 to six little meals. I was always hungry this way.
I feel the worse if I go to bed hungry and on top of that I don't get my usual 8 hrs sleep.
Just putting it out there.

[BobthePhotoGuy]

I would Try cutting out the Stevia too. There has been talk that it can cause a false insulin response.

"There was one rat study in particular that does address one of your questions. They fed rats stevia and glucose and noted that the rats given stevia had a sharper insulin response. This can be of benefit in type 2 diabetes, as it would reduce the blood sugar level. What is not noted is how long the insulin response lasted. You want a good insulin response but you also want the insulin receptor to be very sensitive to insulin’s effect so that the insulin quickly returns to normal."