I seem to have lost the ability to tell whether I am full or not.
I am always hungry and it seems like no matter how big or small the meal I have I still feel empty. This is so weird. What's up with that?

Leah, most of us have, sadly. Both dieting and overeating contribute to that. Something that helped me was eating slower - ideally with a cold lunch like a salad that already has the protein and carb in it; I hate cold food, so I can't necessarily do that with hot food, I eat faster - to notice when I was full. I'm talking really slow here, sitting down with the salad plate for 40m, not just "chew 20x" slow. Now I try to eat a similar volume of food at my meals (mine happened to be the size of a small soup plate I have, so I no longer eat on the larger plates). It is funny cause in the morning, I can tell how hungry I am - if I want a couple pieces whole-grain toast only or if I want a bowl of oatmeal, plus fruit, plus eggs, but at lunch and dinner, I could eat half what I usually eat, or 4x as much. After the first meal, I totally lose sight of the hunger signal.

It took me a while to be able to tell when I was full. Maybe...2 months into my program? The problem when I started was that I was used to keeping my blood sugar levels very high, all-the-time. Whenever they dropped back to "normal", my body would cry out for more food to keep it up there. It was a never-ending cycle, and I could not tell when I was satiated, full, or even really "hungry" most of the time.

Like I said, it took something like 6-8 weeks of controlling my blood sugar such that there were very few spikes and dips over that entire period for me to be able to "feel" what full or hungry were. There are lots of food plans out there that do this really well. They space your meals out evenly during the day and night, NEVER SKIP MEALS or go more than 5 hours without a snack, and many cut back - but don't necessarily cut out carbs for the first part of the program. Many of these plans start out like some sort of food nazi planned them, but that is only the first part of most of them. They usually lighten up later, after you can tell when you are full again.

Ask around for plans in your area that have been proven to work. People usually know which places and plans in your area will be more after your wallet, than helping you lose weight. There are lots of free places and plans as well.

Take care
CFJ
My Journal (http://www.diettalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55018)

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Knowing we're full is only half the problem though. Surely many of us eat because of appetite and not hunger. After a large meal we can always find room for dessert although we're too full for another piece of broccoli or forkful of spinach.

Perhaps we don't know we're full because we don't allow ourselves to feel hunger. How many times do we eat because we fancy something or it's a meal time without actually feeling hungry?

I don't remember the last time I was truly hungry.