going to bed hungry

[Guest Michael Giove]

Hi all. I am new here and learned about calorie restriction from the Kurzweilai.net forums. I have been doing CRON for 6 days and I find it difficult to sleep with hunger pangs. So my solutionj is to eat a small amount of protein before bed, but that usually puts me over my calorie limit. Also I am a 34 year old male and I started working out again 4 days a week so does anyone know how many calories I should be eating?

Thanks Mike

[keithsct]

Hi all. I am new here and learned about calorie restriction from the Kurzweilai.net forums. I have been doing CRON for 6 days and I find it difficult to sleep with hunger pangs. So my solutionj is to eat a small amount of protein before bed, but that usually puts me over my calorie limit. Also I am a 34 year old male and I started working out again 4 days a week so does anyone know how many calories I should be eating?

Thanks Mike

 

Hi Mike, Likely you're trying to implement CR too quickly into your lifestyle. The best way to start CR is to record your diet for a week without changing anything(cronometer.com). Next change the foods you eat to healthier ones without changing your calorie level over the next couple of months. I suggest replacing one bad or low nutrition food with a new healthy vegetable each week. Once you're eating 10 - 12 different vegetables, you're probably pretty healthy in diet. Once you're eating a healthy diet with full nutrition, then determine your eventual calorie target. In order to eventually get to your target, reduce your calories by 50 or 100 calories each week. If you have weight to lose adjust calorie intake so that you don't lose more than 2 lbs per week. If you follow these steps, you'll find that CR can be implemented with little drama. Failure to follow these steps may result in needless suffering.

 

Hunger pangs are lessened considerably once full nutrition has been achieved in the diet.

 

The CR society has several books like the CR Way or the Longevity Diet that are good introductions to CRON.

 

A last word of advice is to not implement extreme levels of CR. There's more danger to your health once you go more than 30+% restriction vs maintaining a lean reasonable. Don't over reach.

 

Cheers,

Keith

[Guest PadraigH]

Hi Mike, Likely you're trying to implement CR too quickly into your lifestyle. The best way to start CR is to record your diet for a week without changing anything(cronometer.com). Next change the foods you eat to healthier ones without changing your calorie level over the next couple of months. I suggest replacing one bad or low nutrition food with a new healthy vegetable each week. Once you're eating 10 - 12 different vegetables, you're probably pretty healthy in diet. Once you're eating a healthy diet with full nutrition, then determine your eventual calorie target. In order to eventually get to your target, reduce your calories by 50 or 100 calories each week. If you have weight to lose adjust calorie intake so that you don't lose more than 2 lbs per week. If you follow these steps, you'll find that CR can be implemented with little drama. Failure to follow these steps may result in needless suffering.

 

Hunger pangs are lessened considerably once full nutrition has been achieved in the diet.

 

The CR society has several books like the CR Way or the Longevity Diet that are good introductions to CRON.

 

A last word of advice is to not implement extreme levels of CR. There's more danger to your health once you go more than 30+% restriction vs maintaining a lean reasonable. Don't over reach.

 

Cheers,

Keith

 

I agree. Going to bed hungry may work sometimes, however 1) some day you're likely to end up scoffing lots of things while it's very late and then having to try to sleep after that!, and 2) it's rarely a good policy to try to "cheat" hunger. You'll end up not trusting yourself. You're much better off to try to find as best you can how to survive on little while not feeling too hungry.