Appetite shifted first...

2026-10-07 12:34

I’ve been at this for 13 months and I’m down 64 lb, but the part I keep thinking about isn’t the total. It’s how often my hunger and energy notes shift before my weight graph does.

I mark a simple 1–5 for morning appetite, afternoon energy, and whether dinner sounds appealing. Last month my 10-day average sat almost flat while my appetite was oddly quiet and my sleep was broken.

When sleep improved, hunger came back to a steadier place and the graph started drifting down again. Nothing dramatic, just a slow nudge.

I’m cautious about reading too much into one stretch, though. For those who track body signals, which ones have felt more trustworthy than the scale: hunger, energy, sleep, or something else?

I’d love to hear what patterns you actually trust.

2026-10-14 05:05

Same pattern here. I weigh daily but only look at the 7-day median, and I keep notes for morning hunger (1–5), afternoon energy, and “does dinner sound good?” Last month my median was dead flat for 9 days while hunger went 4→3→2 and energy ticked up.

Then I dropped 2.6 lb in four days. I think the scale is just the last thing to show what appetite is already telling you.

Do you track a lag, like how many days between your appetite shift and the whoosh? I’m trying to figure out if mine is consistently ~5 days or just random.

2026-10-19 09:24

I work nights too. My appetite goes weird 3–4 days before the scale moves.

What helped: I split my notes into shift days vs off days. Averaging them together made everything look flat.

Also I track one dumb thing: can I finish a normal plate? Two meals in a row where I leave half usually means a drop within a week. Not always.

Your 10-day average might be hiding two different patterns. Is your appetite odd on nights you work or on your days off?

That split told me more than the daily number.

2026-10-19 13:57

I’ll be the contrarian: for me, morning appetite is laggy noise. The leading signal is my 4 p.m. energy score.

I log it 1–5, then compare its 7-day mean to my weight trend shifted forward 5 days. My last two stalls: energy mean dropped ~0.8 about 5–6 days before the scale flattened, then appetite followed.

Dinner appeal was basically flat. Have you tried cross-correlating your scores against future weight change instead of same-day?

My Sheets formula showed energy at lag

2026-10-27 22:18

I run a cafe, so my weird leading indicator is the broken-cookie bowl. I used to graze on the misfits while prepping and call it nothing.

Now I put a tiny tally on the whiteboard every time I catch myself. When I get three days wih zero tallies, my afternoon energy jumps a point before the scale budges — and dinner actually sounds good again instead of just “meh.” On graze-y days, I’m not hungry at dinner but wake up blah.

Anyone else track “prep bites” instead of meals? I’m wondering if it’s the constant tasting or just hand-to-mouth habit.

Curious what signal shows up first for other food-handling folks.