How to Stay Full in a Calorie Deficit
What is the number one reason why people fail to lose weight?
They don’t know how to stay full in a calorie deficit.
Look, I know why you’re here.
It’s because you’re trying to lose weight, diet, be in a calorie deficit, whatever you want to call it.
The point being is that you’re eating less than you normally would want.
And you know that there is no special diet, supplement, or training program that will get you there.
You’ve gone through all of the fitness bullshit and nonsense and discovered that the only way to lose weight is a calorie deficit.
But there’s one problem…
Everything has been going great for the first few weeks.
You’re losing weight, you’re enjoying your diet. Everything is going spectacular and then bam.
All of sudden, on a random Tuesday night, you’re craving some moist, soft, and chewy chocolate chip cookies.
You try to take your mind off of it. You’re using every single ounce of willpower. You try to distract yourself.
You turn on your TV to see what’s on and next thing you know, you’ve blacked out and are suddenly on the couch 3 seasons in and 24 cookies deep into your cookie jar.
And to make matters worse, you feel guilty, ashamed, and downright discouraged after eating your weight in cookies.
What now? Give up? Starve yourself? Do tons of cardio the day after?
Nope, none of that. Here’s what to do instead if you’ve overeaten.
However, if you’re reading this article, you probably don’t want to know what to do after.
Because why wait until after the fact? You want to take care of the problem before it even happens.
You want to manage the hunger before it gets to the point of no return.
Luckily, I’ve got you with these 10 tips for managing hunger while dieting.
And make sure to read through the entire article. I don’t want you to miss anything 😉
10 Tips on How to Stay Full in a Calorie Deficit
Diet Tips To Stay Full in a Calorie Deficit
1. Hammer That Protein In To Stay Full In A Calorie Deficit
Protein is the most important food group regardless of what your goals are. Whether it’s building muscle, maintaining muscle, losing fat, staying healthy, or staying full (duh, that’s why you’re here).
There’s a reason why protein receives the least amount of hate on social media, fitness blogs, and just from the internet in general.
It’s just such a damn good food group with a long list of benefits. It’s hard to hate on it.
Protein is the equivalent of the one kid in school who wasn’t super popular or unpopular but was still cool and knew everybody.
The reason I say this is because out of all of the macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats), protein is the most satiating.
This means that it is going to be the most satisfying and filling macro gram for gram.
“Okay, that’s great. But how exactly does this help with my diet?”
Because when you’re full, satisfied, and not hungry, you’re less likely to scrounge through your pantry or dig into your fridge for snacks and other goodies.
Which is great for helping you eat fewer calories and stay in a calorie deficit.
One reason protein is so satiating is because of it’s slow digesting properties.
Think about it, when was the last time anyone has ever said, “oh my gosh, I just sat there and I just kept inhaling 3 pounds of steak and I couldn’t stop.”
Probably never. If you have, please email me and let me know. I would love to meet them.
And to top it all off, protein still offers a helping hand long after the eating process.
Out of all three macros, protein has the highest Thermic Effect of Food (TOF).
Simply put, this is the amount of energy it takes for you to digest the food and convert it into usable forms of fuel and materials for your body.
As you can see, for each macro, the percentage shows how much of the total calories you eat will be used to digest, store/use, and process that macro.
For example, if you ate, let’s say, 200 calories each of protein, carbs, and fats, you should expect 20-30% (40-60 calories), 5-10% (10-20 calories), and 0-3% (0-6 calories) of those calories to be burned just from eating and digesting the food, respectively.
As myoleanfitness says, “in short, protein is awesome.”
Most of the time, clients I have spoken to, both online and in-person, struggle with hunger but don’t eat enough protein.
And as soon as I tell them to increase their protein intake, they immediately notice a huge difference in managing their hunger levels.
Try it out and see for yourself.
How much protein?
Simple: Take your current body weight (in lbs) x (0.7-1) = grams of protein daily.
For example, if you weigh 200 lbs, aim for 140g-200g per day.
2. Eat Your Veggies
Look, there’s a reason why your parents told you eat your veggies.
They might not exactly be nutrition experts, but they were on the right track.
(Even if their reason was, “because I said so.” I promise they had your best intentions at heart.)
And I know, it’s cliche to say eat your vegetables and have a salad to lose weight, but there’s a reason for it.
You can hate on vegetables because of taste, texture, whatever your reason may be, but there is one simple fact you can’t disagree with:
Vegetables are extremely good for being a high volume, low calorie dense food group.
This is basically a fancy way of saying you can eat a boatload of veggies all while having eaten a relatively low number of calories.
(FYI: A whole head of romaine lettuce is only about 100 calories. A. Whole. Freakin’. Head.)
And often times, people think about this in the wrong light. While yes a calorie deficit means eating fewer calories than you burn, the trick isn’t to eat less but eat more.
In case you were wondering, more doesn’t mean more pizza, burgers, ice cream, or donuts. It means more vegetables and other high volume, low calorie dense foods.
Lastly, just because I’m saying to eat more veggies doesn’t mean that it should be all that you’re eating. You still need calories to perform well, function properly and stay alive.
So here’s how to apply it. If your previous or current diet consists of a lot of high calorie, not-so-filling, less nutritious foods, try eating less of that and replacing it with more vegetables and other high volume, low calorie dense foods (which we will discuss into further detail later).
While everyone is searching for the secret fat-burning food, the truth is that it’s been right in front of us all along and it’s been around for centuries. It’s called vegetables.
I don’t want to sound like your parent but…
Eat them.
3. Don’t Starve Yourself
I feel like this one is pretty self-explanatory, but I still see so many people making this same mistake over and over on their weight loss journey.
So I will say as many times as it takes for it to stick.
Do. Not. Starve. Yourself.
It doesn’t matter diet hacks, tricks, or tips you apply that you’ve found online, if you’re starving and eating less than 1000 calories, you’re going to be hungry enough to eat an entire Thanksgiving feast and then some.
And to be 100% honest with you here, it’s not because it doesn’t work for weight loss.
But because it does work.
Starving yourself will cause you to lose weight fast.
But if you’re just simply after extremely fast, unsustainable weight loss, then this article isn’t for you.
However, if you want to lose the weight intelligently, consistently, and sustainably. If you want to get out of the perpetual cycle of losing and gaining, form healthier & better habits, and keep the weight off, then it’s not in your best interest to starve yourself.
When you do this, you are setting yourself up for failure before you’ve even started.
This is because when you starve yourself, this is how the cycle of events occur:
And the saddest part is that many people get stuck in this cycle for years.
So please do me and especially yourself a favor, be in a more moderate calorie deficit.
I can’t promise you that you’ll drop double-digit pounds in a matter of a few weeks, but I can promise you that the weight stays off this time around.
Need help calculating your calorie deficit? Click HERE to learn more.
4. Avoiding Liquid Calories
Liquid calories have to be one of the biggest perpetrators in making or breaking a diet.
Whether it’s soda, juice, alcohol, sweetened teas, energy drinks, or store-bought smoothies, they add up, and they add up quickly.
Here is a list of how many calories are in just one serving of popular drinks:
- Orange juice – 110 calories per cup (8 fl oz)
- Coca-Cola – 150 calories per 12 fl oz can
- Iced Tea (with sugar) – 90 calories per cup (8 fl oz)
- Beer – 150 calories per 12 fl oz can
- Monster Energy Drink – 200 calories per 16 fl oz can
- Orange Dream Machine Smoothie from Jamba Juice – 550 calories per 28 fl oz
And worst of all? Some of these drinks like juices and smoothies are marketed as a “healthy” option while still containing a ton of calories.
As a result, time after time, people think if their goal is to lose weight, they should only eat/drink “clean” and “healthy.” Meanwhile, they’re drinking 500 calories worth of orange juice at breakfast and wondering why they aren’t seeing progress.
And while there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with drinking liquid calories, just know this:
If you want to stay as full and experience the least amount of hunger as possible while in a calorie deficit, then drinking the majority of your calories is not a smart move.
Simply put:
A final note on alcohol, you don’t have to give up drinking.
I will tell you what I tell every single person that asks me about drinking.
You can drink as often and as much as you want.
That being said, if you find that you’re not seeing progress but going over your calories and having drinks every day throughout the week and well into the weekend…
You need to take a step back and have a serious talk with yourself.
Because if you’re struggling with hunger, not seeing the progress you want, and drinking several glasses of wine and bottles of beer every night, you need to reevaluate your priorities and goals.
5. Diet Drinks / Sparkling Water / Zero-Calorie Sweeteners
Now, just because you should avoid liquid calories doesn’t mean the only thing you can drink is plain old, boring water.
Especially if you’re anything like me, I am a huge fan of soft drinks, bubbly water, and sweet foods.
As you recall in point #3, simply saying no and restricting yourself from certain things can a recipe for a binge later down the road.
Instead of completely removing them from your diet, you’ll want to replace them.
So if you like soda then consider switching to diet soda, seltzer/sparkling water, sugar free juices, and replacing the sugar in your coffees, teas, etc. with low-calorie sweeteners like Splenda (sucralose), stevia, aspartame, or monk fruit sweetener to name a few.
And before you say it, here are a few things I need to address concerning myths that float around about diet soda and fake sugars…
- Diet soda has zero calories. If you want to get nuanced about it, it has <5 calories per 12 fl oz can. Which is an insignificant number to worry about. Either way, it has 0 sugar. This does not mean that your body is being tricked and it suddenly becomes real sugar. 0 calories is calories.
- Regular soda is NOT better than diet soda. (I used to believe this one…*facepalm*) In terms of how healthy each one is, they’re the same. Nothing more than a sweet drink that tastes good, but in terms of calories, you can drink more diet soda without going over your calorie budget.
- Artificial sweeteners are NOT bad for you and will NOT give you cancer or -insert fatal disease here-. I don’t know who start this bullshit train, but there is literally zero evidence on this.
And to wrap up this point, let me pose you a scenario.
You are trying to lose 50 lbs and you have two options:
A. Lose 50 lbs while drinking diet soda and using artificial sweeteners
B. Not lose a single pound while not drinking diet soda and using artificial sweeteners
Which option would you give you the greater health benefits?
Option A where you drink diet soda and artificial sweeteners that may or may not have negative health effects and lose a significant amount of excess fat.
OR…
Option B where you avoid diet soda and artificial sweeteners, but keep on the extra pounds where there is extensive research showing a significant increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.
Ultimately, the choice is up to you, but think of it like roulette and betting.
Would you bet for the number and color with the higher or lower chance of winning?
Except in this case, the number and color are drinking diet soda and artificial sweeteners, and the win or loss is your life.
So bet wisely.
Lastly, just because it’s okay to drink diet soda doesn’t mean I’m telling you to go and drink 20 cans a day. At this point, I would say you much bigger problems to address than just drinking diet soda.
As with everything else in life, moderation is key.
So rest assured you can enjoy those bubbly drinks without all the calories because they will fill you up and suppress your appetite.
Lifestyle Tips To Stay Full In A Calorie Deficit
6. Catch Those Zzzz’s To Stay Full In A Calorie Deficit
Sleep is by the most underrated component of both muscle building and fat loss.
Often times, people might pay close attention to their diet and training, but when it comes to sleep, they’ll let it get out of control.
Whether it’s staying up to get work done, insomnia, or just binge watching the newest season of your favorite TV show, don’t sell yourself short on sleep.
Why?
There are many reasons. So many, in fact, that we spend about one-third of our lives doing it!
These reasons include:
- Regulation of hormones that control things such as hunger, stress, and alertness
- Improved concentration, cognition, productivity, and performance
- Reduced risk of heart disease and stroke
- Improved blood sugar and insulin sensitivity
- Improved immune function
- Decreased inflammation and improved muscle recovery
However, the main one we want to focus on in this article is how sleep impacts hunger.
For one, it comes down to simple math, the more time you spend sleeping means the less time you can spend eating.
Secondly, sleep helps manage your hunger hormones.
The main hunger hormones we want to be concerned with are Leptin and Ghrelin.
Leptin is the hormone that suppresses appetite. (Think leptin makes you thin)
Ghrelin is the hormone that increases appetite. (Think ghrelin makes you growl)
During sleep, leptin levels go up and ghrelin levels go down. This ensures that you don’t get hungry while you’re sleeping.
By skipping out on sleep, you don’t give you leptin levels a chance to rise which then causes ghrelin levels to be increased even more so and lead to even more hunger.
Also, when you don’t get enough sleep you tend to be more stressed and tired.
If you know anything about being stressed and tired, it’s that you don’t necessarily make the best choices when you’re stressed and tired.
And especially when you’re dieting, you’ll want to be in a state of mind to be making good choices like staying in a calorie deficit, saying no to random cravings, getting yourself to the gym to workout, and cooking and preparing your meals.
So if you want your diet to be successful, then definitely make sure to hit the sack and aim for 7-9 hours per night.
7. (Don’t) Stay Thirsty, My Friends
Contrary to what “The Most Interesting Man in the World” says, don’t stay thirsty, my friends. Especially when your goal is weight loss.
You see, thanks to society conditioning us to crave hyper-palatable (addictive-like tasty foods) foods and drinks, it has made us become disconnected to our primal instincts and feelings like hunger and thirst.
Rather than eating when we’re hungry and drinking when we’re thirsty, we now do it for so many other reasons that can lead to eating and drinking too many calories.
For many people, they simply need to drink more water, but because they don’t know the difference, this causes them to overeat calories whereas if they simply had a glass of water, their thirst would have been satisfied without the need for extra food.
Of course, food does contain some amount of water to some degree depending on the food, but obviously not as much as if you were to drink water itself.
And besides, water is also a zero-calorie, high-volume beverage so to speak. So by drinking more water, you’ll fill your stomach without eating extra calories.
A simple and quick check to see if you’re properly hydrated is by looking at the color of your pee. This chart should help:
8. Stop Cutting Out Your Favorite Foods
Out of all of the tips, this one probably makes the least sense.
“So you’re saying I should eat pizza and ice cream all day to lose weight??”
No, not necessarily, but you shouldn’t eliminate all of the pizza and ice cream from your diet either.
Why?
Watch what happens when you tell your kid “don’t touch the burning hot stove.”
In the next 0.4 seconds, they’ll go and touch it, burn themselves, and complain about it.
And this is completely normal human behavior.
When something is “off-limits” or you’re told “no, don’t do that” you’re even more likely to go and do that thing. Especially with food.
This happens all the time.
For example, one client I have has said that in the past, she’s never really had a sweet tooth and doesn’t even like sweets all that much, but as soon as she told herself “I need to cut out sugar from my diet” she starving craving and binging on sweets.
Simply put, we all want what we can’t have.
So how does incorporating your favorite foods help you stick to a diet and lose weight?
By simply applying this simple trick I’ve discussed above, you won’t have to cut out or label your favorite foods as “off-limits.”
You’ll less likely crave your favorite foods because you’re able to have them more frequently in moderation.
And with fewer cravings, you’ll be less likely to binge and rack up thousands of calories worth of pizza and ice cream in one sitting because you told yourself you couldn’t even have a lick of it.
The truth is the fitness industry has lied to you if you’ve ever been told you can’t indulge in your favorite foods on a diet.
Because you totally can.
You just need to be smart about it and have it in moderation (like with everything else in life).
And I get it, it’s much simpler to draw a yes/no line and cut out your favorite foods, but you’ll be doing more harm than good.
As long as you’re in a calorie deficit, you can lose weight while having room to indulge in the foods you love.
This is known as flexible dieting.
9. Stay Busy and Keep Moving
If you find yourself not busy at all and lounging around just spacing out, it can be easy for your mind to drift to thinking about your next meal or just eating in general.
Instead, stay busy and keep yourself moving.
Have some free time during your break or lunch time at work? Go on a quick walk.
Got some extra time before heading out to work? Get a short 15-minute workout in.
The point is, working out and staying active doesn’t have to be anything crazy or all in.
You might not have a whole 2 hours a day to dedicate to working out, but if you likely have four 15-minute periods or breaks in between your day to get some movement in.
And some is a whole lot better than nothing.
Besides, if you’re pre-occupied with moving around and getting stuff done, you won’t have time to think about how hungry you are or what type of food sounds good for dinner.
10. Hunger is NOT an Emergency
Look, I know I spent the entire article telling you how to manage and control your hunger while dieting.
But I want what’s best for you by setting you up with realistic expectations.
And that’s by telling you that it will be completely normal to feel hungry while dieting and being in a calorie deficit.
Even though the intuitive eating community and other “nutrition goo-roos” have made it seem like you shouldn’t ever feel hungry and any sign of hungry should be immediately satisfied by eating.
Hunger is NOT an emergency. You’re not going to die and wither away if you are hungry.
If this was the case, our ancestors would have died and we would have gone extinct millions of years ago.
However, this doesn’t mean that you should constantly be feeling ravenous and wanting to eat your entire pantry and fridge every day. If you are, make sure to see point #3 and make sure you’re not starving yourself.
But a low level of hunger? Totally fine, and here’s why.
Let’s discuss, how does your body burn fat as fuel?
Yes, through a calorie deficit, but what exactly happens?
When you apply a calorie deficit by eating fewer calories than your body burns, your body still needs a certain amount of calories (energy) in order to survive and function.
This means it will have to get that energy from somewhere (usually fat).
Although you may think you’re outsmarting your body, it’s a complex system that has evolved to survive over millions of years.
It doesn’t care whether you want to lose fat to feel better, look better on the beach by summer, or fit better into your clothes.
All it’s concerned with is staying alive and staying the same.
So just like an angsty teenager, what does it do? It disagrees with what you’re doing and rebels by trying to make you do the exact opposite.
It starts to mess with your mind by telling you, “hey, I don’t think we’re getting enough energy to maintain our weight so I’m going to make you hungry in order to eat more.” And this is why it’s so common to feel hungry when you’re dieting.
The bottom line is, you’re going to be somewhat hungry and you shouldn’t panic or declare it a state of emergency.
You might want to change your body by eating less, but your body doesn’t like that so it will try to make you do the opposite.
Ideally, on a scale from 1-10, 1 being you’re absolutely starving and you would consider eating another person and 10 being you’re absolutely stuffed and another bite of food would make you throw up.
The normal hunger you should experience will be between a 3 and 5.
Try your best to keep your hunger levels from going below a 3 as this is typically the level where your logic and dieting mindset gets thrown out the window.
But, when you do experience this hunger. Do. Not. Panic.
Just stay calm, apply the tips I’ve mentioned above, and feed yourself accordingly.
Now, with all that said, here is a list of:
10 Foods to Help You Stay Full in a Calorie Deficit
- Egg Whites. A whole cup of egg whites is only 125 calories and has a whopping 25 grams of protein. As mentioned earlier, we want to focus on high protein foods. Egg whites are an excellent source of 100% protein and are low calorie.
- Greek Yogurt. This requires little to no preparation, contains a ton of protein, and is low calorie. In addition, greek yogurt is an excellent high protein replacement for sour cream, milk, and other sauce bases.
- Potatoes. They are actually rated amongst the top foods on the Satiety Index (SI). This means that they are incredibly filling foods. And best of all, they’re a relatively low-calorie carb source.
- Popcorn. Another carb source that is high volume, relatively low-calorie, and contains a ton of fiber. Just keep in mind, you don’t want to get the extra butter or movie theater butter options. I would recommend investing in an air popper or buying Orville Redenbacher SmartPop for a lower-calorie option.
- Strawberries. A whole freaking pound of strawberries is only 150 calories. A WHOLE FREAKING POUND. Eat that shit.
- Watermelon. Again, a whole freaking pound for 140 calories. Also contains a ton of water to keep you hydrated and full.
- Oats. A high fiber carb source that will keep you full. Its thickening nature helps it digest slower and keep you fuller for longer.
- Chicken, Fish, Pork, Steak. Many meat sources will help keep you full because of their high protein content. However, one thing to be wary of is how lean the meats are. You don’t want to use up your calorie budget on fatty cuts of meat.
- Spinach. A pound of spinach only has 104 calories. Let me know how stuffed you’ll feel after eating a whole pound of it.
- Protein Shakes. These are especially helpful if you are struggling to hit your protein intake goal. I would recommend casein (slow-digesting) over whey (fast-digesting) if you are wanting to stay full.
Final Thoughts On How To Stay Full In A Calorie Deficit
Look, I get it.
Dieting and being in a calorie deficit is not easy. It sucks.
The main reason why people fail at diets and don’t see results is because they get hungry and eventually fall off the wagon and give up.
But that doesn’t have to be you.
You have the power to make the process suck less.
And I’m going to be honest, it won’t be smooth sailing.
However, if you apply these tips, it will certainly help you get going in the right direction.
And this time around, you will succeed.
If you need any help at all, please reach out. Shoot me an email with “how to stay full in a calorie deficit” as the subject line.
Otherwise, you want something a little more hands-on, extra accountability, and want to take the guesswork out of the equation of your individual journey, you can head over HERE to check out my online coaching program to see we would be a good fit to work together.
Either way, looking to forward to hearing from you.
Talk soon,
-Aus
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