Also, our calorie furnaces all work a bit differently. Thermodynamics laws hold, but some of us have far wider margins for how generously our body will burn off or otherwise not hold on to those calories.
For example, if you ate gasoline encased in glass marbles, you'd be eating a lot of calories. The body wouldn't use much of it, though!
It's not really widely understood how much the caloric content of our food is actually converted to fat.
That’s always seemed like a nonsensical rebuttal.
Nobody is actually measuring how many calories they burn per day or the actual content of their food down to 4 decimal places, but you can quickly get a baseline based on comparing rates of weight loss and total calories consumed because the difference in died aren’t subtle. If 2100 calories doesn’t work fast enough try 2000...
It doesn't matter if you "have a slow metabolism" or whatever, because that just means you don't get to eat as much as someone else who weighs the same as you.
There are confounding factors so that you can't predict how much weight will be lost by a given calorie deficit. But that doesn't matter.
You will lose weight if you eat less.
I had (and still have to some extent) that same feeling you have but that's not hunger. For me, sometimes it was boredom, sometimes it was routine ("it's 6pm, dinner time!") or just straight up gluttony but that's not real hunger. Want to eat and need to eat are very different.
I'm saying all of this with a bag of cheezits next to me at 12am.
I am not diabetic btw, before hn not a doctor chimes in.
I think it is something to do with high cortisol levels caused by stress. I am currently experimenting with an extreme low carb diet, early results are showing some promise. I am using the better management of blood sugar to eat less early in the day, hoping this will force a lower calorie consumption
Long term weight loss requires you to accept being hungry.
It does but there are degrees of hunger. The hunger I feel in the day before I eat is much easier to deal with than the hunger I feel after I have eaten a meal. The hunger I feel when on a low carb diet is easier for me to deal with than if I have had bread/pasta/sweets.
I'm pretty sure that for me blood sugar levels, insulin, and hormones play a big part.There is an optimum diet and amount/type of exercise for me to feel less hungry and similarly there are foods and activities where I am almost certain to feel ravenously hungry despite eating more calories.
That’s a short term effect. Low carb diets are no more effective long term (3+ years) than calorie restriction.
Most people who lose significant percentage of body weight eventually start dreaming/fantasizing about food etc. It’s possible to push through this and maintain weight loss, but it’s relatively rare.
Just don’t be surprised when it takes the same effort over time to avoid gaining weight again. Because it might take slightly longer to kick in, but the same hunger will be back.
In particular there is a great misunderstanding with respect to the role of exercise. It’s not the calories you burn during the period of exercise, rather it’s the changes to your body that exercise causes that encourage weight loss.
The (over)consumption industry is trying to hammer home a message that basically boils down to 'calories model is not perfect, please do not moderate your consumption'. If forced hey are ok with you consuming 'different', but not with consuming 'less'.
The results can be observed every day on every street.