If your hungry but you’ve hit your calories for the day, should you eat?

The other day I asked a question on IG and FB: If you are hungry but you’ve hit your calories for the day, should you eat? This was a tough one because a part of you is probably thinking “no, you can’t add more calories in.. especially if you want to lose weight!” and others are probably thinking “duh..yes you eat. Your hungry!”

But if you are someone trying to lose weight, or at least you don’t want to put on weight, this question is tough. But the answer is simple- you eat! At the end of the day, you need to learn your body’s cues and what it is telling you. However, some of us are not so good at our own natural cues and instead we may sound like this “um, I think I’m hungry.” <— in this case NO you are not, your bored. Go find something to do and walk away from the pantry. If however, you sound like this “Oh my god, I am starving! Why am I still hungry?! I just want fooooooddd” <—Eat!!!! So of course, that is your first step, find out if you are legit hungry.

Now, here is where it can get tricky. Sometimes our hunger cues are so STRONG and it may feel like we need to eat an entire meal BUT this is where you can sabotage your goals. Just because you feel THAT hungry, does not mean you need THAT much food. Chances are, if you have hit your calorie goal for the day you just need enough to tie you over. So don’t go all “Jessica said I can eat” and then go out and buy yourself McDonalds- that will make you go over by 500-1000 cals and that is not good. Instead, try one of these choices:

• Yogurt with fruit on the side
• Rice cake with nut butter
• Cereal and milk
• Protein shake

Any of those above choices will probably be enough to rid that hunger cue and the nice thing is it only puts you over by a bit. But at the end of the day, the BEST way to reach your fitness goal or weight goal is to have a diet that is FLEXIBLE. If you don’t allow yourself flexibility and going over some days, you will not sustain that way of eating for long and that is where people fail.

So eat away but make a good nutrition (food) choice! 🙂