Do You Eat When You Are Not Hungry?

Yesterday about 11am I had about 4 bites of a chicken breast. I wasn't hungry for the rest of the day and didn't eat anything else all day. Of course this morning my stomach thinks my throat was cut because it is growling and I am starving.

Do you only eat when you're hungry or do you stick to a schedule and eat 3 meals a day whether you are hungry or not?

Does a bear **** in the woods? :)

If I only ate when I was hungry, I would have been at goal 6 months ago. I rarely get hungry. I eat by the clock mostly.

Hi....I'm still new at this game since I'm only one month out, but I can tell you that I have to eat by a schedule whether I'm hungry or not.  I'm one of the fortunate ones in that I've experienced true, stomach-grumbling only about twice since I've been banded.  I just don't get hungry.  [Boy, does that sound weird to say out loud!]  If I didn't have an established schedule, I would never get the target amount of calories and protein in every day.  I'm try to eat between 1000 and 1200 calories and 60 to 70 grams of protein daily.

I just had my first fill, so I've got 3 cc in a 10 cc band, but I only have minimal restriction at this point.  I only feel restriction when I eat something that's very dry AND I'm eating too fast AND I'm taking bites that are too large.  But there must be SOME restriction or other benefit here, because I'm "never" hungry.  I know this is not the same experience for everyone, because I've read lots of posts where people are constantly fighting hunger during the period they call "bandster hell" when someone hasn't yet had several fills to reach their best level of restriction.  But I"m not complaining!

I never thought I would see the day when I would have to urge myself to fit in another small meal or else I won't make my target level of calories and protein.  Too strange for words!

Just for the record, my one month bandiversary was yesterday, and I'm 12 pounds down.  Yea for that!

Good luck,
BB

Yep!  there are a lot of days I am not hungry - I only eat because I know I need to get my nutrition in ....  There are times I skip a meal just because I am tired of chewing!!  lol

I wish i only ate when I was hungry.. things would be sooooooo much easier..

My NUT says if you eat when you are hungry, you waited too long.  You should eat every 3-4 hours regardless of hunger level.  If you think about stoking a fire, you need to keep throwing more fuel on it to continue burning.  That is how our bodies work.  If you keep putting fuel (food) into your body, we burn calories digesting that food.  Especially if it's high fiber food instead of simple sugars which convert to usable energy quickly.  If we spread our food instake evenly through the day, the body burns calories all day long.  If you starve yourself all day long, your body goes into starvation mode.  It thinks long periods of time go by between feedings and it begins to convert what you eat into fat to store for the next hunger strike.

So, ideally, you should eat a breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner.  3 - 4 hours apart.  If you are not hungry between meals, great!

Keep up the great work!

 

This is something I have been thinking about.  I know that I go to long without eating, and then I eat the first easy thing I find instead of a good nutritious meal.  I also have periods of grazing before a meal time, so of course I can't eat when the meal time does come around.    I got up today determined to eat scheduled "real" healthy meals. 

I try and schedule my eating:   7:30am  12:30pm  and 6pm....plus 2-3 healthy snacks day.

I just had my first fill today so I hope my eating habits change.  Before my fill I felt like I could eat the same as before the surgery.  Eat even when I am NOT hungry.  I like the idea of trying to stick to a schedule which I think I could do monday-friday but weekends will be hard.  We have got to remember to stay HEALTHY, that is the goal of us all!

I'm trying to eat more on a timed schedule now because I often only eat when I'm hungry and that's sometimes once a day not to include my latte in the morning.

Not eating slows your metabolism and can cause stalls.  Trust me. Been there done that.  I find now that I'm eating regularly or more regularly, I'm dropping again. Regularly.