I've had quite a strange experience with hunger and weight. I'm in the group that put on weight, which I think was partly due to chaotic sleeping times leading to chaotic routines generally. I was eating at random hours and couldn't remember when I'd last eaten, let alone how much. I felt hungry all the time and rather hopeless about shedding the extra weight I'd put on. I got my sleep into a normal pattern a few years ago, but I was used to chaotic routines for everything else - it's not as if I have a job to work them around - so they stuck.
Then my GP decided to try me on low-dose amitriptyline for pain. It stopped me from being hungry, and it also gave me insomnia. It did squat for the pain so I wasn't on it for long, but the reprieve from the ravenous appetite made me determined to try losing weight. For some reason, my appetite stayed normal even after I came off the amitriptyline. I do get hungry at mealtimes, which has forced me to stick to good routines for meals. Occasionally I get a bit randomly peckish, especially around my period, but not enough to cause serious trouble. Other things that changed noticeably was a slight increase in energy, enough that I can now shower in the mornings most of the time rather than the evenings, which makes life easier for both myself and my partner.
The weight loss has been going beautifully, at a rate of about 1lb/week, although it's slowing down now as I'm nearing target. I didn't realise until coming to this forum that I'm actually quite unusual in being able to lose weight at all. I'm now curious as to why, and also curious as to why the appetite didn't come back once I went off the amitriptyline. (And come to that, most people get sleepy and hungry on amitriptyline, and I got the opposite, which is also strange, especially since the previous time I was on amitriptyline, it did make me sleepy.)
I reckon I was accidentally taking in too many calories before, despite not thinking I did. Now that I've learned more about nutrition and where calories like to lurk, I've reassessed my ideas of what counts as a snack and so forth. So one theory I have is that overeating was actually triggering the increased appetite, and that eating at sporadic times was messing with my hunger signals as well. People have been having a fairly learned and in-depth discussion of this sort of hunger over at the weight loss forum I hang about in, although right now I can't for the life of me remember what they say about it. It's certainly a common problem, it's not just us. One thing I do remember is that food manufacturers these days are very very good at making us eat as much as possible, and that salt + sugar + fat is the key combination for that purpose. 3 Fat Chicks is the forum is anyone wants to snoop around there, it's a good place.
The other thing I'm wondering about is whether I'm currently able to do this - lose weight, not get starving hungry - because my sleep is a lot better than it was. I am a keen practitioner of darkness therapy, and every night at 9.30 I put on glasses with a nice strong orange tint which blocks all blue light and sometimes muck about with the lighting, depending on whether or not my partner is there to object, and then make sure that I sleep in total darkness (yep, I'm quite good at groping my way to the loo in the dark by now). The idea is that blue light suppresses the release of melatonin, and if you block blue light then you get a good strong flow of melatonin starting when it should, which is a few hours before bedtime. It works like a charm for me, the effect is approximately as good as a good sleeping tablet but without the problems attached. I don't think my sleep is perfect by any means, doubtless it's still doing plenty of the weird things sleep does with ME, but it's definitely the biggest improvement I've ever managed, and I now get sleepy at the peculiar hour of 11ish.
Anyway, poor light/dark signals are the norm these days, as we no longer live and work outdoors. The light thing is vaguely recognised in that SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is quite well known now, and often treated with light therapy, but the darkness thing doesn't even tend to get raised apart from occasionally with shift workers. Research is starting to be done, though, particularly in regard to melatonin. Shift workers tend to be a lot shorter in melatonin than everyone else, and at much higher risk of breast cancer and other hormonal problems, that sort of thing. One of the websites I like for learning more about darkness therapy (wouldn't bother with their products, though, hugely overpriced) has a selection of
articles about how it relates to obesity. I'm too tired to read scientific writing this evening, but there's probably a few useful things in there. I didn't magically lose weight the second I started darkness therapy, nothing's that good, but I suspect that I would have had a much harder time of it before I got my sleep patterns under control. The improvement in my sleep was enormous, and appalling sleep is the norm with ME along with weight that gets messed up one way or the other, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's a correlation there. Although I am tired enough to be wittering by now, let me know if I'm completely failing to make sense and I'll edit later.
Eating small snacks frequently throughout the day might help, especially if you're getting a mix of proteins, carbs, and fats.
