Heavy Lifting Kills My Appetite, Rest Days Rebound?

I get the same after deadlifts. Not hungry until dinner, then I make up for it. Have you tried shifting more protein to rest days?

Shifting protein didn't ifx my rebound. My rest-day hunger tracks sleep more than anything. Under 7h and I'm ravenous by 10.

Sleep is the one lever that worked for me too.

Heavy squats do the same to me, but I don't think it's the protein target. I log hunger 1–10, squat days are 3, rest days 7. My weekly volume matters more: 12 to 18 sets quads made rest-day hunger worse.

18 sets on a cut is recovery debt.

Protein shakes make me hungrier. Sleep doesn't change that.

Nighttime casein is the one people actually tend to notice a difference from. But whey usually isn't the culprit behind a rest-day rebound. The part folks forget: fat intake on rest days. Common surprise — low fat makes people snacky.

I ran a 10-week cut at 1,900 rest / 2,300 training, 180g protein. Heavy lower days killed appetite, but my weekly intake averaged out. Pre-logging rest-day meals helped more than chasing appetite. Labs stayed fine: glucose 89, ferritin 60. If your weekly average and weight trend are okay, the daily rebound might be noise. The volume point is real though—when I added a second leg day, my hunger scores went from 5 to 8. What are you tracking, scale trend or hunger? Also curious if your rest-day ravenousness is true hunger or just habit after training.

5'9", 174→166 two winters ago, same 4x/week

tbh dude, the 10am rest-day hangries are real. I’m a broke dorm student, so my tracking is a 0–5 hunger score on a sticky note before meals. Rest days = 5 by 9:30 unless I front-load carbs at breakfast: microwave oats + frozen berries + peanut butter. Training days I can accidentally skip lunch. Weirdly, my rebound

I tracked this for a month in Notes: hunger 1–5 every 2h plus sleep, steps, and time since first meal. The “rest day ravenous by 10” wasn’t just training stress — it was meal-timing anticipation. On lift days my first food was ~noon because of the 3–4h blunting, so 10 a.m. wasn’t a hunger peak. On rest days I ate at 7, and by 10 my brain expected round two. Keeping first

Cafe owner here, so the rest-day 10 a.m. ravenous thing hits home—mine was partly constant exposure to muffins and sandwiches. I tracked hunger 1–10 every hour for a week and tagged training vs rest. The surprise: my rest-day spike followed coffee + a carb-y breakfast, not the lack of lifting. Switching to a big savory protein/fiber breakfast and taking a 10-min walk before opening flattened it. On heavy days, I set a 3-hour timer for a small snack even at zero hunger, which killed the evening rebound. Have you tried keeping meal timing identical on both day types? Might separate routine cues from actual training stress.

Hi all, brand-new here and only week one, so I’m mostly learning. Do you log hunger at the same times on training vs rest days? I’ve been jotting 1–10 hunger before/after lifting, and my own rest-day 10 a.m. ravenousness seems tied to the previous training day’s total intake and electrolytes, not the rest day itself. Like if I under-eat after a heavy squat day because I’m not hungry, the next morning I’m starving. Curious if yours might be a delayed rebound rather than rest days?

Mechanism-minded guess: are you actually hitting 2,250 on lifting days? I had the same pattern—after heavy squats/deads I’d coast past dinner and land at ~1,900, then rest-day 10 a.m. was brutal. When I logged weekly intake instead of daily, the “rebound” tracked my training-day deficit almost 1:1. In the trials, exercise-induced appetite suppression is real but usually short-lived; it doesn’t automatically balance intake later. Worth checking: do your rest-day hunger scores spike after low training-day calories, or after high ones? That’d separate stress/ghrelin from just a weekly energy debt.

try separating intensity from volume. In my log, heavy singles/triples killed appetite for ~3h, but 5x10 squats left me ravenous the next morning. I tagged session RPE, tonnage, and hunger at 8a/10a/1p. The 10a rest-day spike correlated with prior-day tonnage and poor sleep, not with rest itself. Are you tracking tonnage or just “training vs rest”? If it’s volume-driven, shifting some carbs to the post-lift meal may flatten the next-morning rebound. Also check whether rest-day hunger is true hunger or just lower distraction/boredom—mine was half the latter.

I log hunger 1–10 hourly plus session RPE, sleep, steps, and macro timing. My trendline didn’t show rest-day hunger—it showed next-morning hunger after heavy pulls. Squat/dead day: appetite flat, can skip lunch. The following 7–10 a.m., I’m at 8/10 even if it’s a rest day. It tracked with previous-day volume more than today’s calories. The only thing that flattened it was moving ~250–300 kcal from the lifting day to the next morning, not raising weekly intake. Are you logging hunger the evening after lifting vs. the next a.m.? That split might show your rebound is delayed, not rest-day-specific.

I track hunger like weight — daily, but only trust the 7-day trend. What helped was tagging it by hours since last lift, not training vs rest. Heavy squat/dead day: appetite gone at +3h, then noticeably up around +22–26h. Rest-day 10 a.m. ravenous just landed inside that delayed window. Deadlifts shifted it ~1h later than squats for me. Maybe log hunger at wake, 10 a.m., and pre-lunch for a week, plus the prior day’s lift. Does yours hit harder after deads than squats?

Dorm-based cheap trick: I started logging hunger right before bed too, not just every 2h. My rest-day 10am ravenousness was almost always after a training day where I’d hit protein but skimped on carbs because the post-lift blahs made food sound gross. Now I force a sad little dorm “second dinner”—instant oats, Greek yogurt, frozen berries—before bed. Not glamorous, but it blunts the morning gre

One thing I would add: I tag my first meal’s protein, fat, and fier in my log. My rest-day 10 a.m. hunger was almost always after a low-protein, low-fat breakfast, even when total calories matched. For me, shifting 35–40 g protein and some avocado or nuts to that first meal smoothed it out. My weekly average hunger score moved from about 3.6 to 2.8 without changing rest-day intake. Are your rest-day breakfasts similar to training-day breakfasts, or does the early hunger start before you eat?

yo late-night gamer here. my n=1: lift-day appetite death only happens if i lift fasted or after <6h sleep. if i sleep 7h and eat a real meal 2h before, i'm hungry again way sooner. rest days are opposite: if i stay up past

Not a doc, but I’d separate “training stress” from “weekly deficit math.” I tracked session duration + hard sets instead of RPE, and my appetite was crushed mainly on days >75 min or >20 hard sets. On rest days, the 10 a.m. ravenous thing tracked with how big my prior 2-day deficit was, not the rest day itself. If your training days leave you 300–500 kcal under, rest-day rebound might just be payback. Have you looked at 48-hour rolling intake vs hunger, not just daily? That’s the first thing I’d check before blaming hormones or lifting alone.

Same pattern here. What finally made sense: I was under-drinking/under-salting on heavy days. Squat/dead day I’d get 2.5–3L water but barely any sodium, appetite vanished; next rest day I’d wake up ravenous by 10. I started logging fluids + electrolytes next to hunger, not just macros. More sodium and an extra 500ml around sessions flattened the rest-day spike within a week. Also watched scale weight trend to rule out glycogen/water shifts. Are your rest-day hunger spikes worse after deadlifts than squats?

One thing I have not seen mentioned: your rest-day rebound may be partly behavioral, not only physiological. I track hunger at 10 a.m., 2 p.m., and 8 p.m., plus steps. My lift days are 11

I’d separate session strain from energy expenditure. My logs showed appetite suppression tracked with systemic load (deads > squats > accessories), not estimated burn, and the rebound hit 24–36h later, not same-day. So I stopped expecting symmetry: I’d move ~150 kcal from the training day to the next rest morning, usually protein + volume. Also rule out sleep debt and low step count on rest days—both spike my 10 a.m. hunger more than the lifting

Same here - squat days I skip lunch, rest days I'm rading the pharmacy snacks by 10.

Same here—after deadlifts I forget food exists, then rest-day mornings I'm a pantry raccoon.

are your rest days also your recovery-from-nights days? That was my confound. I blamed rest days, but my 10 a.m. ravenous days were all after a night shift. Heavy lifting killed appetite for a few hours, then sleep debt hit and I ate everything. Check work schedule vs hunger first. If rest days are true off days, then yeah, less distraction and training stress can do it. But night shift timing is sneaky.

Night shift here: same. Lifting mutes me, rest days I'm a raccoon in the fridge.

same, deadlifts delete my hunger then rest days i'm a raccoon in the pantry lol

lol the rest day 10am hunger is so real. for me it wasn't lifting stress, it was steps/NEAT. training days i'm moving around gym/errands and caffeine hits later, rest days i'm parked in my chair gaming and suddenly starving by 10. i started doing a 20-30 min walk before breakfast on rest days and saving a huge volume snack (greek yogurt + frozen berries + a zero-cal soda) for the 10am window. weirdly it blunts the rebound. do you lift in the evening? if so, your appetite might just be shifted, not killed — like you're eating dinner late and then waking up in a bigger

Hotel rest days turn me into a lobby breakfast menace; lift days I forget snacks exist.

Same here—heavy squats mute my hunger, then rest days I'm a snack gremlin by mid-morning. Do you notice it shift with sleep?

Tbh hi, brand new here (week one), so forgive the basic question. Do you train in the evening? That’s the only thing that matched my rest-day 10 a.m. ravenousness. If lifting kills my appetite through dinner, I end up under-eating that evening and wake up behind. I started logging meal timing, not just daily totals, and it showed my heaviest lift days had my last real meal way too early. Still figuring this out, but maybe check when your last solid meal lands after squats/deads? Curious if your rest days follow your two heaviest sessions too.

hey OP, small-town lifter here. I get the same after heavy low-rep pulls—appetite just vanishes. But higher-rep squats or a circuit leave me hungry by lunch. Maybe tag rep range and rest between sets, not just session RPE? For me, 3–5 rep deads = no food for hours; 10–12 rep squats = snacky. Also, do you train fasted? That changes my rest-day 10 a.m. hunger way more than the actual rest day. If I lift fasted, next morning I’m a raccoon in the pantry.

Two kids here, so I live out of a snack drawer. What helped my rest-day 10 a.m. raid was a planned “second breakfast” at 9:30—cottage cheese + frozen berries—no matter what. On heavy lift days I set an alarm for 3 hrs post-session and have a shake or yogurt even with zero hunger, or I under-eat and wake up feral. Does your hunger spike more after deadlift days or squat days? Mine’s way worse after high-volume squats.

For what it's worth, rest-day hunger is so real; I save my biggest breakfast for those days.

Another plateau lurker. The thing that cracked this for me was separating “no lifting” from “low activity” on rest days. My rest-day ravenousness was way worse when I sat around; adding a 30–45 min walk before 10 a.m. blunted it more than any macro tweak. On heavy days I also started a slow protein shake during the session, because after squats/deads I couldn’t face food for hours. Quick q: do you track step count or just training vs rest? If your rest days are also your lowest-NEAT days, that 10 a.m. hunger might be boredom + under-stimulation, not just hormones.

For what it's worth, same pattern here. I’ve lost/regained before, so I’m trying not to white-knuckle every hunger spike. For me it wasn’t just training stress—it was food volume. After heavy squats/deads I can’t face a big meal for hours, so I under-eat volume that day. Then rest day hits and I want to chew everything by 10am. What helped: rest-day breakfast with huge volume (egg whites, berries, giant salad, broth), denser carbs saved for dinner. Didn’t kill it, but way less frantic. Are your rest days lower in actual food volume, not just calories? That was my missing variable.

Two kids here, so my rest-day hunger usually tracks sleep, not lifting. When I sleep 7h, 1,950 feels fine; after a 5.5h night with kid wakeups, I'm raiding the snack drawer by 9:30 even with 180g protein. Do you log sleep next to hunger? If not, try it for a week. Another weird one: I’m way hungrier on days I don't walk after breakfast. A 10–15 min stroller loop blunts the 10am cliff for me more than adding food. Not saying it's magic, just an n=1 thing to check before you blame rest days.

My spreadsheet sas rest-day hunger spikes earlier every week

For me the missing variable was sleep, not the lifting itself. After heavy deadlifts I’d sleep awful, and the next rest day I’d be feral by 9:30. There was an old “squat insomnia” thread here that nailed that pattern. I started logging sleep latency, wake-ups, and hunger 0–5 at 10am/2pm/8pm; my rest-day rebound tracked way more with poor sleep than with training stress. Sharp question: how’s your sleep the night after your heaviest session vs a normal night? If it’s worse, try treating post-lift evening as wind-down, not just a refeed window.

I track hunger 1–5 at 8a/12p/4p/8p. My lift-day suppression is real, but my rest-day ravenousness tracks with step count dropping under 4k, not the prior session. On rest days I now do a 20-min walk before breakfast plus 16 oz water and 30g protein, and the 10 a.m. edge softens. Worth checking if yours is actually a NEAT/boredom thing vs. true deficit. What does your rest-day morning look like—are you moving at all before that first meal?

i’d add one variable: session tonnage, not just RPE. For me, heavy lower-body work over ~10k lb volume killed appetite for 3–4 hours, but next-morning hunger was +2 unless I hit 8k+ steps post-session and front-loaded protein. Rest-day ravenousness tracked with low steps + sleep debt more than the lifting itself. Quick test: tag lower-body tonnage and prior-day steps against next-day 10 a.m. hunger. If the rebound follows low steps, it’s energy flux, not just training stress. Does your 10 a.m. spike vanish on rest days where you still hit training-day step count?

tbh yo late-night gamer here. one thing i track that helped: steps + sleep, not just cals. my rest-day 10am hunger was almost always after a 2am gaming night + no morning walk. lift days i naturally move more and the post-session buzz masks hunger. when i kept sleep 7h and did a 20min walk before sitting down, the rest-day ravenous thing dropped a lot. also swapped my afternoon soda for sparkling water + lime and it weirdly blunted the 3pm crash-hunger. do you log sleep/steps on rest vs lift days? curious if your 10am spike lines up with later wake time or lower movement.

What time do you lift? My n=1: 7 a.m. squats = I don't want food till 3 p.m., but 6 p.m. deadlifts = I'm inhaling dorm vending machine pretzels at midnight. Something that helped me untangle this: I rate hunger 1–5 at three fixed times (wake, 1 p.m., 8 p.m.) instead of just logging overall intake. Rest-day hunger was higher at every checkpoint, not just 10 a.m. Also, are your rest days actually rest? If you're still walking 12k steps around campus and standing in labs, that might be its own appetite driver. Curious if your hunger tracks more with lifting time or total daily steps.

Honestly, hi, brand new here (week one). I track hunger 1–10 in a notes app. My weird pattern: rest-day ravenousness is way worse if I slept under 6 hours the night before. Even after a protein-heavy breakfast, I’m at an 8 by 10 a.m. On lift days, sleep doesn’t seem to matter as much. Could your rest-day rebound be partly sleep debt from the training week? Also, do you score hunger before or after your first meal? Still figuring this out, so thanks for any tips.

One thing I’d separate out: rest day ≠ inactive day for me. Heavy squat/dead day, hunger is MIA for ~3h. But a true couch rest day with <4k steps has me starving by

New here too, but heavy squats make me forget food exists till I’m suddenly starving on rest days 😅

I’m deep in a plateau too, and the missing variable for me was sleep debt after heavy lower days. I log hunger 1–10 at 8am/10am/2pm, plus bedtime and wakeups. Squat/dead days I sleep like crap (more wakeups, earlier wake), and the next rest day I’m at 8/10 by 10am. When I string together 7.5+ hr nights, that 10am hunger drops to like 5/10. Are you tracking sleep/wakeups after your heavy sessions? Might not be pure training stress—could be your rest-day appetite is partly payback from crappy recovery sleep. The grind is real.

Cafe owner here—rest days are brutal because I'm around pastry smells all morning. You're not alone!

Not sure it’s just training stress — the rebound might be sleep, not the rest day itself. I tracked hunger 1–10 and sleep for a month: after heavy deadlift days my sleep was trash, and the next morning I was 8/10 hungry by 9am despite the same weekly deficit. On well-slept rest days, hunger was way more normal. Sleep restriction tends to raise appetite in controlled studies, so it might be worth logging sleep latency/wakeups alongside hunger scores. Are your ravenous rest days usually the day after your heaviest pulls?

Same! I prep a post-lift shake and a bigger rest-day breakfast—does your hunger hit before or after coffee?

My n=1: heavy deads mute hunger till dinner, rest days I'm feral by 10.

Yep, heavy deadlifts mute mine too, then rest day I’m foraging like a bear by mid-morning 😅

Cafe owner here—rest days mean every pastry whispers my name. Heavy squats? I forget food exists. 😅

Same pattern for me: heavy day appetite vanishes, rest day I'm a snack gremlin. Long game, it evens out.

Cafe owner here, so rest-day 10am ravenous is my daily boss fight. What helped: I stopped saving most carbs for dinner on rest days and did a real 500-ish kcal breakfast (eggs, potatoes, fruit), then a planned

Yep, heavy pulls mute my hunger too, then rest days I’m a snack

I track hunger 1–5 before meals, and it's not rest days for me—it's the day after heavy lower. Upper days don't do it. What helped: rest-day breakfast is 40g protein plus a big pile of roasted veg, then I wait 2h before deciding on more. Also if sleep drops under 7h, 10am hunger is feral. Have you compared hunger after heavy squat/dead sessions vs upper-body days, or is it total weekly fatigue?

For what it's worth, mechanism nerd here. I’d separate training-day suppression from 24h compensation. In the trials, exercise-induced appetite suppression is usually short-lived, so rest-day rebound can just be the missing training-day intake catching up. I log hunger 0–10 hourly and tag it: stomach-empty vs brain-wanting-carbs. For me, heavy pulls blunt hunger ~3h, but my rest-day 10 a.m. raid is almost always reward/carb craving, worse after poor sleep or if I front-load protein too late. Sharp Q: does your rest-day hunger fade after a protein/fiber breakfast, or keep building? That tells you compensation vs shifted rhythm.

Same. Heavy squats mute me, rest days I'm a pantry goblin. Night shifts make it worse.

I log hunger 0–10 at 9a/1p/6p and tag session type plus step count. Pattern: heavy lower day = first real hunger around 3p; rest day = 7 by 9:30a unless I get 8–10k steps and a solid protein/fiber breakfast in early. For me it’s less “training stress” and more rest-day routine vacuum. Sharp question: are your rest days lower steps and more kitchen proximity? That’s the variable I’d track before touching calories.