May 20, 2005
Weight Loss and Feeling Hungry
One of the hardest things about losing weight is feeling hungry. No one likes the feeling of hunger and of course our first instinct when the feeling comes upon us is to find something to eat.
I hate to tell you this, but if you're trying to lose weight, there are going to be times when you're going to feel hungry and you're just going to have to learn to accept it. If you have weight to lose and you've hit your calorie limit for the day a bit early you're just going to have to bite the bullet and use mental discipline to get through the remainder of the day. This is why it's important to keep track of what you're eating and make sure that you have "set aside" enough calories for dinner.
Weight loss isn't easy, and anyone who tells you it is, is lying to you. Change is always difficult no matter what, and anything worth attaining always involves work and sacrifice. Shortcuts generally lead to short term success but long term failure.
If it helps at all, here are two things to think about when you're hungry:
1. You are not going to shrivel up and die.
2. Try to imagine that hunger equates with your body feeding on it's fat reserves.
The first point will help you to not panic and the second one can be very motivating. 
Vic,
In my experience, feeling hungry comes with the territory when I'm trying to lose weight. In addition to what you mentioned, there are two things that help me as well:
1) The intensity of the hunger pangs will reduce over time, probably a couple of weeks, as your body acclimates to the reduced-calorie diet.
2) Every now and then, I'll eat too many carbs and not enough protein in a day. My hunger pangs tend to be worse on those days, mainly because protein has "staying power." I am by no means a low-carb advocate, but eating the right foods (and the right balance of them) is essential for long-term dieting success.
Brian
Another thing that surprised even me has been the fact (as I posted elsewhere) that sometimes what I thought was hunger was actually thirst and it went away after drinking a glass of water.
Vic
