Hello, I found an interesting article in HealthGuidance.org entitled: Why You are still Hungry After a meal by Christopher Jacoby. I decided to quote part of the article I believe might be helpful in answering your question:

“…One reason our body may still be hungry after a meal is that we have filled it but not with the different types of food we need. For example if we have eaten a large meal of mostly protein then our body may start 'craving' carbs. Cravings are our body's way of telling us we need something and very often these can be accurate. As such then you should not completely ignore your body when it tells you it is hungry, even when you've already eaten a full meal.”

This is the direct link to the article.

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/13746/1/Why-You-Are-Still-Hungry-After-a-Meal.html

I come from a family with a history of eating disorders (I've never had any, thankfully), so I've always been *very* resistant to dieting. I've never eaten much in the way of fast food or processed food, but I LOVE fancy pastries and scones, and definitely have a sweet tooth. While I've always been active, I'm about 50-60 pounds above my "target" weight for my height, and have been since high school.

About a year and a half ago, I decided that I was going to start getting serious about making changes to lose some weight. Given the family history, I would spend a year exercising more regularly, and see if that made a difference. Although it definitely improved my core fitness and my endurance, I saw little to no impact on the scale. In September, after a convo with my doctor, I started counting calories, and keeping my workouts roughly the same. I've lost 13 pounds so far, which isn't a ton (I've got ~50 to lose), but is still 10% of my body weight!

For me, my goal has been about slowly changing my lifestyle so that the changes really STICK. With that in mind, this is how I've found success:

1. Make exercise social. I'm not a fan of exercising just to exercise, but if I can do it with friends, or do it in a way where I get other benefits (such as seeing beautiful places, meeting new people, etc.) it's much more likely to stick. While I do run once or twice a week on my own, I now do the following:

Mon, Wed, Fri - Rowing at 5am on an intermediate team. Guarantees an hour of solid exercise, and once you're in the boat, there's no backing out! It took a while to get used to getting up at 4:30, but now it means that I get my workout done before I go to work, and I'm not trying to work out in the evenings when I'm already exhausted and hungry.

Sat/Sun - Go hiking, go trailrunning with friends, go snowshoeing, go do trail maintenance, help my mom with gardening, etc. This is usually a high-intensity thing, or an all-day thing.

One other day a week: Go for a run or a walk on my own.

With my family history, exercise used to be about self-punishment and moral virtue -- if I could sweat and grunt and persevere for an hour, I didn't have to like it, but I could consider myself virtuous. This sucked, and made me feel guilty when I didn't go. Doing stuff with friends now makes it so that I WANT to go out, and if I don't, I miss out on a good time.

2. Count calories. I started using MyFitnessPal.com (free! woot!) in September, and it REALLY helped me figure out where I was consuming the most calories, and slowly restructure my diet so I'm eating smaller portions.

A good example: in order to get my day to a good start, I need to eat a good breakfast. It used to be that after rowing, I'd eat two eggs, two pieces of buttered toast, and a cup of coffee. My daily calorie allowance is around 1600 cals, up to 2000 with exercise. That breakfast runs 700-800 cals, easy. That's half my food for the day! Now I eat one egg, one piece of buttered toast, and a cup of coffee.

I'm not anally retentive about counting out what I eat (like, I don't take measuring cups to the cafeteria at work), but I do weigh and measure things out at home, so I'm learning what portions look like. I'm trying to learn what it "feels like" to eat an appropriate amount each day, and it seems to be working. I'm eating less, but not necessarily missing the food.

3. For sweets, test your cravings. I've been playing this game with myself lately -- when I want something sweet, I distract myself for 10-15 minutes with something else. If I'm still craving it, I can indulge. If not, I don't. This worked unbelievably well at the grocery store last week, where I passed by a thing of raw cookie dough next to the eggs. All I could think about was EATING COOKIE DOUGH. I decided to go do my other shopping, and if I still wanted the cookie dough, I could come back for it. Ten minutes later, I was in the checkout line, and realized on my way to the car that I'd forgotten about the cookie dough. Victory!

In the cases where I DO indulge, I try a variation of the trick: try taking half the amount I would before, and then give myself 10-15 mins after I've eaten it to figure out whether I want more. (Knowing the calorie value of sweets ahead of time also helps here.)

Anyway, these are the things that seem to be working for me. Nothing revolutionary, for sure, but effective. Good luck!

It's all about eating less and moving more. If you are solely concerned about weight loss, you can eat anything you want, just so you keep your calories under maintenance for the day. You should also check out the eatstopeat.com website. It's a bit controversial people think you need to eat a ton more calories than you really do. I mean think about it, did our ancestors really need to eat 6 small meals a day?

Good luck, and congrats thus far.

Mr. Griffin's doctor told him to try to eat at least two pounds of vegetables a day, which helped with weight loss. You can pretty much eat any raw vegetable you want (maybe not avocados) in unlimited quantities guilt free. 2 pounds of carrots is only 350 calories, for example, and carrots are quite calorically dense for a vegetable. Lots of water and fiber there, lots of chewing satisfaction, you don't have room or time for crap food, and I find it's kind of a game to see how many veggies you can eat. Your mileage may vary.

Also, exercise. When I first had a gym membership, I lost 15 pounds in 6 weeks or so because I went to work out (cardio and weights) every day. I went every day because I liked the gym and because it had a hot tub and sauna that I really liked--the use of the amenities were my treats for working out. I really need to find a gym like my old one where I am now.

Finally, quality matters. If you've been craving, say, chocolate for days or longer, go get one really good piece of it. You'll enjoy it more (and consume fewer calories) than if you try to stave off the craving with half a pack of Hershey's Kisses.

However, sounds like you're doing well. Congrats and good luck. I'll be doing the same thing myself once I finish nursing the Grifflet in a few months--he's pulling about 1000 calories a day off me and it's hard to keep up.

For long-term weight loss, the only thing that's worked for me is to keep track of roughly how many calories I eat in a day and to weigh myself every week or so. If you have a specific goal weight in mind, about.com has a nice tool that calculates how many calories you should consume per day in order to meet it.

I'm not a dietician, and I know intelligent people who think that counting calories isn't healthy, but I lost about thirty pounds and have kept most of it off for three years.

I can't add anything to what you are already doing, except to say well done!

My experience is that calorie/food intake is the critical factor. What I try to do when I'm feeling a bit peckish is to have a glass of water to see if that takes away the craving - on the basis that I often mistake thirst for hunger. Or maybe make a cup of tea / herbal tea, without milk or sugar, for a bit of flavor, but no calories.

Eat less?

Pilates as an alternative to walking/standing exercise maybe? It's all done sitting or laying down (or some insane and what will at first feel sadistic point in between) it's also really hard and burns hella calories. Not sure if a core heavy workout would aggravate your condition but maybe it's worth considering/trying.

Russ has got a great answer. To add to it, another form of exercise you could try is buying a small pedaler. Mr. Sacrelicious and I both have bad knees and that can make walking or jogging pretty hard. Pedaling is a smooth motion with no concussion on your joints, and it's a great way to exercise if you don't feel like going out on your bike, or having a gigantic-ass recumbent exercycle in your living room.

We have this one, which has worked great. you can adjust the difficulty, and it tells you time pedaled, mileage, and calories burned. You can also get small ones that fit under a desk, so you can pedal while you work.

Just a thought!

Hey, I hate to be a dick and point out the obvious, but maybe you should listen to your doctor on this one.

Make sure you stay well hydrated. When your body wants water it'll send you hunger pangs.

Because when food starts leaving your stomach, it relaxes your newly stretched stomach nerves. This is true. You can fool it by drinking a bunch of water. You'll get true hunger sensations some 4-6 hours later when your blood sugar drops.

Yes, it makes sense. Even *right* after l eat. This is a problem l've been dealing with lately as well, so l'm glad you asked the question. l'm not preggers, and l have been losing a lot of weight lately at a fair clip, so l wonder if it's just my body saying "Heyyyyyy, fuck you for not feeding me as much as you used to!"

...but still. lt worries me. Tapeworm?

l hope we both find the answer here, and l wish l had one for you, except l'm looking for the same one. :)

http://www.wastedcalories.com/beercalories.html

http://www.rochester.edu/uhs/healthtopics/Alcohol/caloricvalues.html

"Commonly misattributed to excess alcohol calories being stored as fat, the "beer belly" is actually a result of alcohol's more complex effects on the body's metabolic system. Simply put, alcohol reduces the amount of fat the body burns for energy. This occurs for the following reason:
A small portion of the alcohol consumed is converted into fat.
The liver then converts the rest (ie: majority) of the alcohol into acetate.
The acetate is then released into the bloodstream, and replaces fat as a source of fuel.
Coupled with the high caloric value of alcohol, the resulting effect is that body is forced to store an excessive amount of unburned fat calories, often in the form of a 'beer belly"."

I've heard that the difference is the carbs in beer, which cause bloating. The bloat is water weight and not fat, and supposedly it's the same phenomenon as if you eat a huge meal of pasta and get bloated the next day. I can't speak to whether a beer belly is water weight.

It's difficult.

Yep, but I'm crap at it. The things I eat to up my protein consumption are:
Tofu
Eggs
TVP
Quinoa
Lentils
Chickpeas, Beans
Cheese

Basically, I realised a while back that to fill up I was eating a lot of pasta and bread and so made an effort to cut down. I am a lot more conscious now of eating more protein, but as kesh points out, most of the non-meat proteins have carbs as well.

No, but soy products, nuts, and legumes will probably get you most of the way there.

Walk at lunch with an audiobook.

Well, if you can swim, swimming is a great exercise for lazy people. I used to go to the public pool four times a week to swim laps for an hour, and I got in really great shape. It works all your muscles, you get your cardio and strength training done at the same time, and you never feel hot because you're in water (duh). It gets really boring, but at least it's easy and effective.

If there were a pill that elevated your mood, gave you energy, made your body slimmer and more shapely, made your complexion glow, helped you sleep better, improved your sex life, and helped prevent chronic diseases, would you take it?

Of course you would! And you can. It's called exercise.

Here's the mantra I repeat: when in doubt, work out.

Because getting off the couch is the hardest part. But you will not regret it. And once it becomes a habit, you'll start to look forward to it, especially if you choose activities you already enjoy. Ride a bike, hike up mountains, go to spin class, play sports. Do something every day. It takes 3 weeks to make a new habit. Start today. Start now.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

http://michaelpollan.com/books/in-defense-of-food/

Read Michael Pollan's book to understand the mantra, but in a nutshell much of what we eat is not food, but (as he explains) is a food-like substance.

Did you also stop walking to the liquor store?

You probably have not reduced your caloric intake enough (by eliminating the alcohol) to really affect your body weight. Your body needs to experience a net loss of 3500 calories below what your body needs to function normally to represent the loss of one pound of body mass. This loss needs to occur gradually over time and not in starvation mode or your body's metabolism will shift into saving body mass at all costs by lowering your metabolic rate. Typically a net loss of 500 calories per day (250 less than you need by eating and 250 burned off by extra activity) is ideal and would represent the loss of one pound of fat per week.

You need to pay attention to labels and portions of your food intake (for instance 2 tablespoons of Jif peanut butter is 190 calories) so that you truly are eating below your calculated necessary daily calories.

Look for some good calculators for determining your "basal metabolic rate" to determine how many calories you need to consume to maintain your current weight and then plug in a weight value at what you would like to see and compare the difference. My New Lifestyles pedometer has an algorithm in it that takes into account sex, age, body height and weight to calculate the calories needed for basal metabolism (what your body burns in a day with you just breathing and heart beating) and then it calculates what I have burned in movement throughout the day so I can see how that compares to my food intake.

http://thepedometercompany.com/nl2000.html

The unfortunate thing about alcohol is that it really has only one easy route through the body's metabolic digestive cycle and that is direct into fat storage. Dependent on how much body fat you are carrying you may have a significant about of visceral fat (fat around your internal organs). Be sure to research the difference between visceral and subcutaneous fat. The visceral fat is much more serious to your overall health and the loss of it will not necessarily be obvious to you (clothes wise). Our bodies pare down fat in different ways and this loss of visceral and subcutaneous fat occurs at different rates.

Also recognize the effect that water retention has on your weight. A cup of water represents a half of a pound, so retained water really affects what you see on the scale. This is an important point on the other side of your weekend drinking or if you eat high salt content foods.

Interesting, I'm doing exactly the same thing and also haven't noticed any real weight loss (although for me it's only been two weeks). I went from drinking maybe 4 or more glasses of whiskey every night, down to 1.5 ounces only three days per week. Drastically lower!

I'm definitely not eating more. If anything, I'm eating less. I used to get buzzed and then go grazing in the kitchen but I don't do that at all anymore. And I'm not consuming any extra sugar either. I drink a ton of diet soda, but that has zero calories.

I don't know if it's water weight either... that seems strange though, I mean, it has no calories, so once you pee it out, whatever weight was there should be gone.

Anyway... I feel your pain. My thinking is, it just takes time. Also, and this I know for sure, you'll lose weight in your face, butt, and chest first. The places that most people WANT to lose weight (typically belly for men, thighs for women) are also the VERY LAST PLACE that weight will be lost. It totally sucks, but there's not a thing you can do about it.

I'm just trying to stick to my diet and wait for the loss to eventually arrive. Be patient, I guess. Be strong.

Are you subconsciously consuming additional sugar? When you transition from regular drinking to infrequent drinking your body will, in the words of George W. Bush when he quit drinking, say "where's that sugar man?!?!?" Bush said he started eating TONS of chocolate when he quit the booze.

I personally decided to give up alcohol for a time, and noticed I was CONSTANTLY drinking root beer and eating cookies.

Alcohol contains lots of sugar. Your body gets used to that sugar, and when you suddenly cut it off, you might be replacing it from non-alcoholic sources without even realizing it.

Replacing a bottle of wine with three sodas and a bowl of ice cream isn't going to result in any weight loss. I don't know if that's what you are doing, but it is common for many people to up their sugar intake without even realizing it when first throttling down the booze intake.