<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Hi everyone. Here are some more helpful quotes from people who wrote about feeling hungry despite eating big meals. "Don't read Protein Power. It is an out-of-date book. Read Protein Power Lifeplan, which has just come out in paperback, or will shortly. A selection of law carb books: NeanderThin paperback http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312975910/ http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?pid12975910 The Schwarzbein Principle: The Truth About Losing Weight, Being Healthy, and Feeling Younger http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1558746803/ http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?pid58746803 For a comparison of several LC plans, see Dana Carpender's book _How I Gave up my Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds_. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966883101/ http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?pid 66883101 Protein Power Lifeplan, by Eades and Eades http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446525766/ http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?pid46525766 "Life Without Bread: How a Low Carbohydrate Diet can Save Your Life" by Christian B. Allan, Ph.D, and Wolfgang Lutz, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0658001701/ http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?pid58001701 [Links to Books-a-Million included to show that Amazon.com prices are no longer cheap.]" "Carbohydrates are famous for causing this kind of reaction. Try eating food with more fiber in it, which moves through the system more slowly, especially when you are eating high carbs...Fiber, protein, and fat help level out the peaks and valleys of the hunger urge, and keep the blood sugar levels more stable... Frequent small meals, instead of the traditional 3 a day, are also helpful in avoiding thoseravenous pangs. Keep a gf sports bar like the Ener-G bar handy if you can't work small meals into your schedule. I find just half the bar fixes me right up until it's dinnertime." "I have the food cravings after I have ingested gluten for me bile salts seem to help the burning after eating gluten and the craving after a full meal." "Have you considered low blood sugar? Your story is typical. Carbohydrate produces an over excretion of insulin (for unknown reasons) which occurs shortly after eating and subsides within an hour or two. If you have access to a blood sugar tester you can check it out yourself. Most people with diabetes have a tester. Blood levels taken at the time you are having symptoms will show a level of 70milligrams %, probably lower. Normal two hours after eating is 120. What happens is your blood sugar (from eating starches or sugars or alcohol) shoots way up (over 180mg % immediatly after eating large quantities of carbohydrates which stimulates your body to produce insulin which in turn brings the blood sugar level down fairly quickly, but too far so, and you get exactly what you are describing- an insulin reaction. Diabetics recognize the same symptoms when they take too much insulin. Try going easy on carbohydrates. Also eat smaller meals, more frequently if necessary. If you can't control it, see your doctor, as hypoglycemia (which is the medical name) can be an early marker for diabetes which is a disease characterized by too little ! insulin." "After being diagnosed and following the Gluten free diet, I could not get enough food. I was diagnosed in January. It was my body craving nutrients. My specialist told me that this would happen along with the weight gain." "If you are feeling hungry after a big carbo meal, it is because your blood sugar was pumped up and is now declining. I try to make sure I eat carbo with veggies (pasta with lots of spaghetti sauce)and meat if possible. This seems to keep me full for quite some time. I am nauseated 24/7 so don't eat a lot and keep losing weight - the only blessing I've found with this! The other thing I do is if I eat a sandwich, then I don't do other carbs in a great quantity and I don't have a dessert. Remember our food has less "stick to you" ingredients AND always more calories per serving than normal food. Good Luck." "I can totally relate to eating making you hungry. If eat dense carbs at all, I get fat and terribly hungry after a short time so that I practiallyhave a panic attack. I am pre-diabetic, maybe you are too. If I eat only protein and veggies,nothing sweet including fruit, I am okay." "Your post sounds just like me. I gain weight very fast since being gluten free. I exercise and hour and 15 minutes a day, average 5 days a week. I have recently been having SLOW success loosing weight on a high protien, low carb diet. Your post rang a buzzer in my head when I read it tonight. I have been eating salads more the last couple weeks and have not had much trouble with raging hunger. For dinner tonight I made Indian curried food. We had rice, curried potatos and curried black eyed peas. All carbs! As soon as I finished the dishes I had to have something else to eat. I knew I wasn't hungry, couldn't possibly be, but I ended up with a bowl of popcorn. And I was still hungry! I guess we better avoid the carbohydrates almost like we do gluten." "When I was first diagnosed I was very hungry all the time. I think when your body is not getting the nutrients it needs it trigger hunger. If you still have fat in your stools you are not absorbing the fat-soluble vitamins and that may be what your body is responding to. Exercise that is burning calories may be telling your body that you need more food, also. Perhaps cutting down on your activity level will help "reset" your cravings." "Your problem rings a bell with me! I am a celiac for 10 years and have put on lots of weight even though I am on a diet and watching my food intake. When I eat a meal with high carbohydrates (a no no) I react the same way. So here's how I handle it. I eat no added sugar or fats. This means no pasta, cookies, cake, desserts. Add no sugar to your food when cooking. Check lables and make sure that the food is low sugar and fat, otherwise don't eat it. What really happens when you eat high carbs, your body is sensitive to sugar and then your body produces too much insulin, thus in a few hours you are hungary. If you eat no sugar or fat, then you will loose weight. It took me a long time to figure this one out, but it works!! " "You said you noticed that you get hungry after a meal especially rich in carbohydrates. Let me guess....refined Carbohydrates?? Refined carbs are table sugar and ANY KIND of flour products. IN other words bread,macaroni,pasta,cake, cookies, pretzels,bagels,white rice,crackers are ALL flour products and all flour products are the evil "refined carbohydrates" Any time the miller grinds up the whole grain to produce a flour product, he throws away the outer fibrous part and throws away the nutritious germ of the inner grain. But why refined carbs really are evil is because they cause your blood sugar levels to spike up to high levels. This high rise in blood sugar then makes your body produce high levels of insulin. Insulin's job is to put the sugar into the cells of your body. But this overproduction of insulin, produced by the high sugar spike, then drops your blood sugar level even lower than ist was before. This low blood sugar level is what makes you hungry. The insulin overproduction is what is also making you fatter. Insulin stores fat. If you have any tendencies to Diabetes, then you are killing yourself by eating refined carbs. Whole grains, as nature made them is the answer for most people because they don't produce the high blood sugar level spikes. But for celiacs most grains are out. Actually, the best diet for celiacs is with no grains at all...this is the diet I follow. See... www.scdiet.org www.scdiet.com The book on the sc diet may be at your local library... BREAKING THE VISCIOUS CYCLE by Elaine Gottschall Also if you want to see an MD give an explanation of the blood sugar level process then go to.. www.drmirkin.com " Thanks for the help, everybody!! Wendy