Massive Food Cravings After Dieting

[Twitchy]

I seem to get massive food cravings(carbs and sugars) after dieting consistently for a couple of days in a row which sometimes results in binge eating.

For example if I diet from Sunday to Thursday, that Friday night until Saturday night my stomach will feel like a bottomless pit. I've tried researching why this might be happening and I can't seem to find a clear answer, however I do see some mention of "carb refeeding". Yet carb refeeding seems to only benefit dieters in the low body fat percentages(I'm 18%-19%).

What am I doing wrong?

Diet: I don't count, I eye ball. I always make sure to get at least 1500 calories in. I implement a "low-carb" diet, protein first, fats second, carbs last. No more than 100 carbs a day.

Training: Push, Pull, Legs (PPL). I train 6 times a week, with each session lasting an average of an hour. I do it fasted.

[b]Activity Level:[b] Typically college student, nothing special. I walk around to get to class and end up walking maybe 6-8 miles a day.

Supplements: Again nothing special. Caffeine with either Ephedrine or yohimbine preworkout. Sometimes just caffeine or just BCAA's. Whey protein, creatine, maca powder, vitamin D, and fish oil.

[tyler163]

Some ideas:
1 too low kcal in the week with a lot of pshical activity. Try to count kcal at least one or two week than you could not count it because you know better how much kcal are you eating after 2 week counting it. Search for your eneegy expenditure and try to manage a deficit of 350 kcal for example
2. Don t get used to diet. Could be at physical level (not get used to use fat as fuel..and so on) or at pshycological level (you can t resist to craving)...
On a diet you should be "confortably hungry" if diet is too restrictive is easy to be too hungry...but you must have same willpower to stay hungry and don t overeat. You could schedule a short refeed (5 to 12 h) to mantain diet adherence...even if at 18% bf refeed is not the best option is better than overeat all week end long

[davidjr74]

You could try to limit carbohydrates below 40 grams or so and limit these to just pre and post workout. I would imagine this would help put you more into ketosis and you would get a hunger blunting effect as a result.

At least this is what happens with me - even a little bit of carbohydrates can make me drastically hungry and lead to a binge. 100 grams, for instance, would cause me to be hungrier ; I trade these off for my protein/fat.

[Twitchy]

Originally Posted by tyler163

Some ideas:
1 too low kcal in the week with a lot of pshical activity. Try to count kcal at least one or two week than you could not count it because you know better how much kcal are you eating after 2 week counting it. Search for your eneegy expenditure and try to manage a deficit of 350 kcal for example
2. Don t get used to diet. Could be at physical level (not get used to use fat as fuel..and so on) or at pshycological level (you can t resist to craving)...
On a diet you should be "confortably hungry" if diet is too restrictive is easy to be too hungry...but you must have same willpower to stay hungry and don t overeat. You could schedule a short refeed (5 to 12 h) to mantain diet adherence...even if at 18% bf refeed is not the best option is better than overeat all week end long

I suspected it might be too low calories and a lot of physical activity. It's pretty difficult to calculate how many calories I burn in a day, but after using a tdee calculator and a little guess work I seeing around 3000 calories.

BMR: ~1800 + Miles Walked 7: ~700 + Weightlifting: ~400 = ~3000 TDEE

Ill try upping my calorie intake with more fat and calories and see how it affects my hunger today.

Originally Posted by davidjr74

You could try to limit carbohydrates below 40 grams or so and limit these to just pre and post workout. I would imagine this would help put you more into ketosis and you would get a hunger blunting effect as a result.

At least this is what happens with me - even a little bit of carbohydrates can make me drastically hungry and lead to a binge. 100 grams, for instance, would cause me to be hungrier ; I trade these off for my protein/fat.

Keto dieting is harsh for lifting. Last time I did it my lifts went down.

[davidjr74]

Originally Posted by Twitchy

I suspected it might be too low calories and a lot of physical activity. It's pretty difficult to calculate how many calories I burn in a day, but after using a tdee calculator and a little guess work I seeing around 3000 calories.

BMR: ~1800 + Miles Walked 7: ~700 + Weightlifting: ~400 = ~3000 TDEE

Ill try upping my calorie intake with more fat and calories and see how it affects my hunger today.



Keto dieting is harsh for lifting. Last time I did it my lifts went down.

Okay but did you have sufficient carbohydrate intake pre-workout? Could be enough to not decrease performance...If so than...well idk than.

[squat]

Do moderate carb. Dieting is hard. Could be stress. Maybe you're depressed. You could try walking less. Fasted training 6 times per week? Why? You think that's good? And yet here you are, with a related problem.

[Twitchy]

Originally Posted by davidjr74

Okay but did you have sufficient carbohydrate intake pre-workout? Could be enough to not decrease performance...If so than...well idk than.

I do fasted training, I don't eat anything pre-workout other than supplements or BCAA's.

[Hectic]

You're starving yourself

1500 cals is nothing, id lose my mind after 2 days of that, it's not sustainable

And because you're eyeballing you don't actually know what your eating anyway so there's not much point discussing it


You need to
1. Start measuring your food properly
2. Start dieting with a reasonable amount of food (like 2500 cals), drop it slowly week by week if you need to

be happy with 0.5kg loss per week because that's how long it takes. If you try to go faster than this you will just end up binging and taking the same amount of time with more pain involved. Or get sick and be forced into taking a break. Or get injured and mess everything up

At 19% bodyfat there's no point doing anything fancy just do a nice easy consistent deficit that you can live with.

[Determinism]

Originally Posted by Hectic

be happy with 0.5kg loss per week because that's how long it takes. If you try to go faster than this you will just end up binging and taking the same amount of time with more pain involved. Or get sick and be forced into taking a break. Or get injured and mess everything up

Yeah, there's absolutely no research or positive anecdotes of RFL, ERFL, UD 2.0, IF and PSMF... Oh wait.

[davidjr74]

Originally Posted by Twitchy

I do fasted training, I don't eat anything pre-workout other than supplements or BCAA's.

and....that is why your performance drops. Pre-workout nutrition is important if athletic performance is the goal.