Do you ever have "bottomless pit" days?

[GOtriSports]

Maybe once a week I have a day where I just feel like a bottomless pit. I can EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT. And I want to eat too. Today is one of those days, in the past hour I have eaten about 4 massive bowls of cereal. I feels OH so good, but tomorrow I will be sorry!

 

[lucifuge]

yes, I suffer from days like that as well... probably one of the reasons I'm still a fat shit......

 

[CG]

yeah.. i call those "every" days lol.. a fat kid on a heavy cut is not pretty..

 

[Merkaba]

Is it always carbs?

 

[VanessaNicole]

This happens to me.

I just go with it, because since it's just an occasional thing it doesn't prevent me from staying lean.

Does there seem to be an emotional aspect to it for you? Does it happen when you've had a stressful day or something?

I keep a detailed food journal and my pattern seems to indicate that the cause of these days for me is likely physiological.

I've also noticed that I naturally eat less the next day.

Try journaling for a month or two and look for patterns associated with your "hungry days".

 

[Lacoste]

Oh man, I had that feeling today! Well, just in the evening. I planned a cheat meal a week in advance and went out for all-you-can-eat wings with some friends. Since I started cutting (a few months back), I haven't really tested my eating limits. Today I sure did. I wasn't able to eat as much as I did when I was 20 lbs heavier, but I did pretty good. First time I've eaten to the point of being "full" in a really long time. Feels great, and I guarantee I will be able to lift a ton more in my workout tomorrow, lol.

 

[ArnoldsProtege]

yes, I suffer from days like that as well... probably one of the reasons I'm still a fat shit......

 

[ArnoldsProtege]

and yes, I do. I think I heard awhile back that these days when you feel really hungry are on days that you are "losing weight". It is your body in a caloric deficit trying to bring you back to your caveman days, so its advisable to be on your best behavior on these days lol

Back in the eating days, the all or nothing days (and surprising the still weight lifting days), I would literally eat an entire pizza. and some pop. and some wings. and id still be hungry. However, that was exceptional, as there is no end to the bottomless pit that is emotional eating...

now that im actually getting fit and have the normal person mentality about food, I find that when the bottomless pit days come around I satisfy it best with fruits. i feel alot better eating 3 apples and a half a watermelon. Its so bad.. were a greek familly, and when I come home and im feeling sooo hungry I wanna go STRAIGHT for the fresh bread, slice a tomato, cut a big peice of feta, drizzle olive oil on it and eat until I cant anymore lol. I just feel so bad about the cornucopia of high glycemic carbs, the ridicoulos amounts of (good) fat and the fact I am consuming more than a small familly would at dinner time.

The key to long term fitness for me is to let your bottomless pit out of the bag rarely, and try and desperately build a small wall so its not QUITE as bottomless. I just think of it as eating like a fit person.. If i was in great shape, would I REALLY be raiding the fridge engulfing every thing in sight until I get to a point where no pepto in the worldcould save me? I dont think so

 

[Built]

GOtriSports, how much of a deficit are you running, what macros are you running, what kind of training are you doing and how often do you incorporate refeeds? How lean are you?

 

[GOtriSports]

Well to be honest I have been cutting sing last December. When I started I weighed 260 pounds now im down to about 180 at 10-11% BF. I am pretty lean now but I am at a wall. I don't lose weight anymore which is fine but I do not want to gain anything back. Over the past 2 or 3 weeks I have increased my macros a decent amount.

During my cut for about 8 months I was getting in something like this:
2000-2200 Calories per day
180g Protein (about)
140g Carbs (about)
40g Fat (about)

Those are all fairly close estimates but not exact. I would say over the past two weeks especially since I have just been really hungry lately I am more like this:

2500-2700 Calories per day
180g Protein
180g Carbs
70g Fat

Again those are estimated but they are fairly close to what I am really getting.

For a long time I was hitting th gym 7 days a week, but once I lost pretty much all of the weight I wanted to lose I decided to scale back because I wanted to see some muscle gains instead of giving myself no recovery time.
Now My weeks look like this:
Arms, Back, Shoulders (15 Minutes HIIT)
Abs (15 Minutes HIIT)
Legs
Off
Arms , Back, Shoulders (15 Minutes HIIT)
Abs (15 Minutes HIIT)
Legs
off
repeat and repeat that over and over, so three days on, one day off. Sometimes on the off days I will run some stairs for 10 minutes or go on an easy 2 mile run.

I about to start taking some creatine and NO2 for the first time because I never seem to have strength gains at the gym. My muscle definition has improved a good bit but my strength stays static. I know it is very difficult to do but I want to try and have CLEAN gains. I don't want to see my BF% go up just to gain muscle/strength. Since I used to be very overweight I sort of have a phobia of allowing myself to slip back in to that life style.

I hope I have provided enough information for you all to help me. If there is any more info you could use please let me know!

 

[BulkMeUp]

i've never felt it... been skinny all my life.. for me eating big is sometimes more of an issue

 

[Built]

Well to be honest I have been cutting sing last December. When I started I weighed 260 pounds now im down to about 180 at 10-11% BF. I am pretty lean now but I am at a wall. I don't lose weight anymore which is fine but I do not want to gain anything back. Over the past 2 or 3 weeks I have increased my macros a decent amount.

During my cut for about 8 months I was getting in something like this:
2000-2200 Calories per day
180g Protein (about)
140g Carbs (about)
40g Fat (about)

Those are all fairly close estimates but not exact. I would say over the past two weeks especially since I have just been really hungry lately I am more like this:

2500-2700 Calories per day
180g Protein
180g Carbs
70g Fat

Again those are estimated but they are fairly close to what I am really getting.

For a long time I was hitting th gym 7 days a week, but once I lost pretty much all of the weight I wanted to lose I decided to scale back because I wanted to see some muscle gains instead of giving myself no recovery time.
Now My weeks look like this:
Arms, Back, Shoulders (15 Minutes HIIT)
Abs (15 Minutes HIIT)
Legs
Off
Arms , Back, Shoulders (15 Minutes HIIT)
Abs (15 Minutes HIIT)
Legs
off
repeat and repeat that over and over, so three days on, one day off. Sometimes on the off days I will run some stairs for 10 minutes or go on an easy 2 mile run.

I about to start taking some creatine and NO2 for the first time because I never seem to have strength gains at the gym. My muscle definition has improved a good bit but my strength stays static. I know it is very difficult to do but I want to try and have CLEAN gains. I don't want to see my BF% go up just to gain muscle/strength. Since I used to be very overweight I sort of have a phobia of allowing myself to slip back in to that life style.

I hope I have provided enough information for you all to help me. If there is any more info you could use please let me know!

Good start on the info.

First up, your diet. How about you try increasing the protein? You have around 160 lbs lbm, how about you try for around 1.5-1.7g/lb lean mass, maybe a bit more. I have about 114 lbs lbm and my appetite is well-contained when I eat 200-220g protein. I was fat too, so I know what it's like to not want to gain it back. Protein is satiating, I use this quality a lot when I eat.

For you, on say 2600 calories a day average, if how about you try something like this:

Total calories: roughly 2600
Protein: 275g
Carb: 200g (25g of this from fibre)
Fat: 80g (10 of this from fish oil. I take 10 capsules a day, you can probably take more)

Now, your workouts. First up, nobody needs ab day, and you might want to revamp your training a bit. Have a read here to see if something like this might appeal to you: Got Built? » Open Source Fitness - Get started here - scroll down and click on "Baby Got Back". The diet setup on the second link, "carb cycling" might help you as well.

Can you describe the lifts you currently do? Rep ranges and weight used, too.