Beating hunger and managing calories

Question

After I work out (6-7pm), I eat a post workout meal which will largely consist of low GI carbs (like wholewheat pasta or sweet potato), veg (onions, peppers, tomatoes and spinach usually) and a protein (chicken/tuna/beef). On top of this I'll have a protein shake and an hour after that I'll probably have some cottage cheese.

Around 9.30 I always get hungry again, and because its starting to drift towards bed time I don't like taking in another load of carbs. I'm pretty certain a big bowl of pasta is enough carbs for after a workout, but my body seems to be constantly hungry.

It's worth mentioning that by the time I'm working out I've already eaten 4 small meals, so my post workout meal and cottage cheese are my 5th and 6th meal of the day, well into 3000 calorie intake.

Should I just listen to my body and eat when it's hungry, or should I stop when I've hit my calorie allowance?

I'm 6ft 1, 140lbs ish... so I'm not what you'd consider to be a big guy by any means but my goal is add lean muscle for basketball. In the gym I do 20 minutes cardio interval training and 30 minutes full body workout with free weights and cables.

Answer 1

At 6' and 140lbs, you are very thin, so you likely need to eat more in order to gain muscle, but if you want to control your hunger, you need to stop it with the pasta (and maybe the sweet potato).

When you eat a high carbohydrate meal, your blood glucose level raises. In order to bring this back to baseline, your body releases insulin. However, insulin clears from your bloodstream slower than the glucose, so at around 2 hours there is raised insulin in your blood stream while your glucose level is back to normal (or possibly lower). This state causes hunger.

In order to avoid this hunger response, you need to avoid the insulin response. Whole wheat or not, pasta is going to send your blood glucose levels up. If you eat again at 9pm, make it a low carb meal so you don't get hungry again in the middle of the night.

Answer 2

If you're not afraid of gaining weight, then eat and see what happens. If you start to gain unwanted pounds, then adjust (yeah I know it's not that easy, but wait there's more).

You could also try to change when you eat your post workout meals. Maybe just a small bowl of pasta and a little protein right after the workout and the rest of your list: remainder of the pasta, protein, cottage cheese, veg closer to bed time.

Experiment. Break them into chunks, eat them all at once.

btw, you don't mention how many times a week you're doing your 50 minutes, 20 Cardio/30 Resistance, but if it's more than three then you'll need plenty of carbs to sustain that volume.