I have not been hungry for the past 2 days but feel like I should eat something. I think it may be because of the brainwashing I had in the past about slowing down your metabolism if you don't eat. I've seen posts from people who routinely fast, so I guess that shouldn't be something I should be worried about. Do any of you routinely have days when you don't feel hungry and don't eat anything?

Yes, that is the benefit of a VLC (under 20g) diet. You can reduce your intake of food without hunger. That is why the instructions are "Eat when hungry, stop when full" aka Meal Timing or Intermittent Fasting. When you eat can be as important as what you eat. There are many options but say you only eat two meals in a six hour window, i.e. Lunch at noon, dinner at six, and have nothing but water, coffee or broth the other 18, no snacking. You will be tapping into stored body fat after burning through stored glycogen, which doesn't happen if grazing all day. Dr Fung's website has so much on Timing of Eating I can't now find the article I wanted http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...602#post9204602
But Dr Naiman also has a good explanation of why insulin is reduced and hunger lessens. http://burnfatnotsugar.com/intermittent-fasting.html

Oh yes, very much so. Your body is eating just fine. It's eating your body fat.

Long term, I suggest get veggies with every meal and maaaaybe take a multi-vitamin.

If it's convenient and comfortable not to eat, don't eat.

Everybody, it seems, has a different experience of hunger, appetite, satiety, and so forth. Just one more aspect of LC eating that takes time to work out for your individual body.

For a whole day cycle? Rarely.

When during a planed fast? Occasionally.

Mostly for me it's about meal cycles. If I'm not hungry at a particular "eating time" I can easily skip the eating part. I may eat a bit more the next time I eat. Currently eating about once a day during the week unless very active, then I'll have some kind of snackage, probably out of habit, like almost everything else I do - 90 percent unconscious habit.

Practicing and Establishing better habits is what I'm working on. Eating when hungry is one of them

I routinely have a "breakfast" of tea and coconut oil. Always have lunch, sometimes as late at 2pm. Sometimes I have dinner; last night's full dinner was too much. Today I am planning the same hearty lunch, but dinner will be yogurt and berries or something light like that.

Or, if I am not hungry enough for even that, tea with coconut oil for dinner.

The larger and longer apart my meals are, the better my own body responds.

People often say "if I have a big meal now ill be starving all the next day." Happens to me sometimes when I eat out, usually because there can be more carbs in a meal than you think.
I don't eat breakfast, try to postpone lunch as long as possible. Today it was at 5 PM Hunger pangs? Sure, but they usually occur at the same expected times, and soon go away.

Hi everyone, I am happily losing at a nice rate on less than 20g of carbs a day. The best part for me is when I am not hungry. But I do find that I have days where I do feel hungry all day, that's when I eat fat bombs, takes that away real quick. FAT BOMBS ARE THE BEST. But when the hunger is not there, I just don't eat, so the fasting happens naturally. I don't even think about food.
I feel that if my body needs it; it is going to ask for it, and I think those days are my hungry days. It is so much easier to tell what real hunger is now.

Oh! And I made it under 200 this morning. First time since the year 2000. I am such a happy low carber today!!

Mike, I'm still recovering from Mother's Day. Even though at a trendy Farm to Table restaurant, those farms have carbs everywhere.

Giterdone..there's a theory (or LC wive's tale) that you feel hungry before a "whoosh" or another drop in weight. Welcome to ONEderland.

It really depends on your last meal.

My test is simple and effective.
If I go to bed almost hungry and wake up hungry, I ate my last meal just right.
I slept using my backup energy(losing weight).
If I go to bed not hungry and wake up not hungry, I ate my last meal too much.

True, but if you wake up in the middle of the night starving you're likely fasting

Eating this way has really taught me to follow true hunger....something I couldn't identify before. I was always on such a carb high-low roller coaster, I didn't know what true hunger actually was. Now I just follow hunger, which usually means I eat fewer meals. I am usually hungry at breakfast time so I eat that....eggs and bacon, and I virtually never get hungry at "lunch" so I skip it. Why eat if I'm not even hungry? Your body will tell you when it needs food.

I used to wonder about how infrequently (compared to before) I now eat, but it has finally become my new normal.

Yes, I can relate to this. It's nice to be in the middle of a meal and know you're totally satiated and can stop without concern of becoming hungry a few hours later. My full indicator now works very well!

This way, you can really eat only when hungry and stop when full and know that both those signs are accurate.

If you do a bit of research on intermittent fasting you may come across many videos by Dr. Jason Fung. There is a lengthy thread on this site about his work. He treats hundreds of patients with low carb/high fat diets and intermittent fasting. Ive seen him say that fasts of three, four, five, even up to ten days are not a problem if you don't do them too often and too close together or unless you have very low body fat to start with. He says he himself does a 24 hour fast a few times a week usually. So not eating for a reasonable time because you aren't hungry is not likely to be dangerous.

Regarding your question, I can fast for about 48 hours before I get any real hunger sensation, and if I tough it out that passes after 15 or 20 minutes. But only on low carb, if I'm eating carbs and I skip a couple of meals, man do I feel it! It's just one of the good things about this way of eating, it makes itself easy to do!

That works!! I'm going to give that a try!