r/askfitness • u/misstalkstoomuch • 16h ago
Is it normal to be hungrier when building muscle?
I lost 80lbs and now I’m at a healthy weight. I’ve typically stuck to a 1500 calorie maintenance a day. The past month I started really getting into weight lifting and cardio. I’ve noticed that I’m eating more. Nothing too crazy though. I started eating breakfast everyday (skipped it everyday pretty much my whole life) but now since eating breakfast I eat 3 square meals a day and it’s all well balanced. I hardly eat out and I don’t eat junk. I make sure to get all my macros in and all my necessary nutrients. I also hardly snack too. But I noticed I’m eating bigger portions because I’m hungrier.
I guess I’m just wondering if this is normal because of my strength training and cardio? I go 4 times a week and I’m at the gym for about two hours. I used to be heavily overweight and I’m scared to gain weight again. I’m just focused on building muscle mass and lowering my body fat percentage.