Thread: Ok to be hungry on a cut?

-- You need more protein throughout the day. I only see you taking some end during your mid-afternoon and 'tea' times..ure 'supposed' to have some form of protein in every meal (cottage cheese, animal flesh) OR a whey shake (real food is always preferable)

--You're getting too few calories...you should not be feeling 'hungry'..and yes if you lower your calories too much your body will slow its metabolism to compensate and your fat loss will come to a standstill.

--Those hunger pains will push you over a cliff into binging, or eating crap (fast food, sugary, fatty stuff, etc) You're setting yourself up for failure. If you feel hungry, then eat. Just make sure its quality food. Throw in some slow burning good carbs:
1: sweet potatoes with cinnamon, which I love
2: 1-2 servings of fruit
3: high fiber cereals (I like in All-Bran, the wheat bran version...makes you feel MAJORLY full with small portions)

Read the stickies. The diet is piss poor for a cut. Where is the Protein?

Most of the foods will illicit an insulin spike, which inturn will create the ongoing hunger issues you are having. Being Hungry is inevitable on a diet. But eating crap, that doesn't provide and benefits, let alone satiety, will make the task even more difficult to stick to.

BTW @ 6'2 176 pounds, my last worry would be losing some fat. Eat Cleaner and put on some muscle you will be amazed at the difference in appearance.

Originally Posted by IainDaniel

Read the stickies. The diet is piss poor for a cut. Where is the Protein?

Most of the foods will illicit an insulin spike, which inturn will create the ongoing hunger issues you are having. Being Hungry is inevitable on a diet. But eating crap, that doesn't provide and benefits, let alone satiety, will make the task even more difficult to stick to.

BTW @ 6'2 176 pounds, my last worry would be losing some fat. Eat Cleaner and put on some muscle you will be amazed at the difference in appearance.

precisely...that diet is (excuse my french) shit for cutting...loaded with processed foods and useless calories.

Read the stickies, post a diet for others to comment on and help u with and go from there, its 90% of the game.


Then if once u got a proper groove going ure finding ureself hunger spelled, go for green veggies (broc, lettuce, peppers, cukes) and tomatoes to capacity to shut that down.

Originally Posted by willapp

Maybe a stupid question, but is it normal/ok to get hungry whilst cutting? About a week ago I started a cutting diet and often I find myself hungry during the day, to the point where my stomach feels uncomfortable.

What I'm worried about is if this level of hungry is enough to trigger the so-called 'starvation response' and might hinder my fat loss? Or is it natural to feel like this when you drop your calorie intake? I don't record exact figures, but I suspect I've dropped about 400-500 calories a day from a fairly high intake. I will drop this further in the next week or two, until I start getting the results I want.

It's not a particularly clean cut, I'll admit, but my daily intake is something like this:

Breakfast: 1 small bowl of porridge w/skim milk and a little brown sugar.
Mid morning snack: a ceral bar plus banana if I get hungry enough.
Lunch: Wholemeal bread PB sandwich, crisps.
Mid-afternoon: 30g protein shake mix w/water.
Tea: Usually meat (chicken, pork, steak) + potatoes + veg.

I used to eat a fairly big tea but have cut down my portion by quite a bit - still having the same amount of meat, but much less potatoes.
Also on days I lift (3 times a week) I usually have the banana mid-afternoon instead of the shake, then eat, lift and PWO shake in the evening.

I know it's probably not the best cut ever, but I think in calorie terms there is definitely a deficit there, and I'm trying to keep protein high via the shake/meat/PB although it still prob isn't as high as it should be.

I'm 6'2 176lbs, wanna get down to around 165lbs. As you can see I'm not exactly fat right now, but its mainly my stomach/abs area that is a little podgy - I want those visible abs!

jesus sounds like you need to do a clean bulk instead of a shitty cut that you have posted.

I would spend sometime reading the sticky by Jodi on cutting and bulking.

Ok, thanks for the replies. I pretty much expected to get pounded on for having a generally poor diet, though let me say that my diet now is 100x better than it used to be - fizzy drinks, chocolate etc - so I do believe I'm heading in the right direction at least!

To give a bit more background, I've been lifting for about 18 months now, and when I started I was very skinny - about 155lbs - so I've come along way since then. I'm not the sort to post pictures of myself, but believe me when I say that I do have a reasonably impressive amount of muscle for a guy of my build, and given I'm limited to training 3 times a week (sometimes twice if I'm very busy).

The reason for wanting to cut now is twofold: to get rid of this fat layer over my abs in time for my holiday in 4 weeks. I do have visible abs sometimes, but they're nowhere near what I'd like them to be. Also I want to gradually clean up my diet so that when I start bulking again post-holiday, it will be a much cleaner bulk than my last one, which admittedly was a bit crap (not enough protein and too much carbs/fat I suspect). However, this did get me the results I wanted at the time which was to increase my weight AND increase what weight I was lifting (it helped massively believe it or not).

Anyway, I guess what I'm gonna take away from this thread is that I still need more protein, and that I need to find decent 'snacks' to stave off hunger when it arrives.

Just out of interest though, what bits of my current diet are that bad? I would've thought most of it was ok:

porridge w/skim milk = surely ok, except the sugar which I'm gradually cutting out anyway.
Cereal bar = ok this is crap I know, too much sugar in there. Will try and replace.
Brown bread sandwich w/PB = surely ok?
Crisps = crap I know. Ideas for replacement?
Banana = fruit, so ok?
Protein shake w/water = ok?
Tea = meat/potatoes/veg, surely ok in moderation?

Thanks for the help so far, I do believe that despite not having the best diet, my weight is dropping and I've not noticed any drop in gym performance as yet.

Every meal you're taking in is carb / fat loaded, and you're still not getting any protein.

Example meals:

Meal 1: Eggs, oats, fruit ( I like fruit in the morning, personal thing), coffee
Meal 2: Chicken/tuna/lean beef/turkey, green fibrous veggies, brown rice
Meal 3: Protein shake/banana(pwo)
Meal 4: chicken/tuna/lean beef/turkey, green fibrous veggies, brown rice
Meal 5: Cottage Cheese, natural pb

ditto to what people are saying about the diet, also you should be supplementing EFA's, i.e. Essence EFA, that can help with hunger too.

once you get the diet in order you may want to give Satiety SRT a try for the hunger.

wish i could eat crisps on a cut

Pip gave you a good start. You need to log your diet and start to read up on what you should be eating - thats the point of this forum - its a knowledge resource. He was gentle with you. Your diet sucks. If you gained mass, as a hardgainer, its also clear why you gained fat as well. Too bad, as a hardgainer, your likely to lose both fat and muscle equally during a cut.

Never let yourself get hungry; do not rely on saiety drugs to stop muscle proteolysis, the fast track to meeting energy deficit if your glucose metabolism sucks (which may well be the case, if you have fat deposits).

Originally Posted by Trouble

Too bad, as a hardgainer, your likely to lose both fat and muscle equally during a cut.

That always happens to me

Originally Posted by Trouble

Never let yourself get hungry;

How would one avoid getting hungry while on a caloric deficit?

Originally Posted by BulkMeUp

That always happens to me


How would one avoid getting hungry while on a caloric deficit?

Shove down loads of fibrous veggies down the pie hole

Seriously, foods such as lettuce, tomato, cukes, asparagus, brocc. etc. can pretty much be inhaled in monstruous quantities any time of day on a cut!