New to Dieting

Hey all,
Have a question for the experts. I am naturally an ectomorph. Before I started lifting and eating big I was 6’1" and about 150 lbs, way skinny. Over the last couple years I have put on about 70 lbs with only food and exercise (no roids, creatine or anything else) and am now 6’1" 220 lbs and a guess-timated 13-15% body fat. Obviously I have been on one long continuous bulking cycle and have become used to eating anything and everything I can. I am now interested in shedding some fat and have started to restrict my diet. Now, my question is, should I be feeling the hunger pangs. I am still taking in between 2500 to 3000 “clean” calories a day (down from about 5000 cals per day) but I always feel hungry. I have not felt this hungry in a long time, is this normal? Will my body adapt to this or I am causing harm to my muscle mass by going hungry? This “restricted diet” thing is new to me and I’m looking for some words of wisdom from the experienced. Thanks!!!

Don’t make huge changes to your intake right away.

If you were regularly eating 5000 calories a day, then you may start losing fat by dropping down to 4500 calories a day.

Heck, you might be able to change meal timing and meal composition and lose fat, if you are lucky.

If you drop your intake a lot your body may shed fat, muscle, change it’s metabolism and otherwise wonder what the heck is going on.

There are plenty of great articles and threads on nutrition around here…

I agree with vroom (recurring theme today…). You probably dropped too quickly. I would slowly get it back up to around 4000. Hold it there for a while and see if you start losing fat. 2500-3000 at your weight and you’re going to drop muscle, especially being an Ectomorph. You never really grow out of that, fortunately or unfortunately- however you want to look at it.

Thanks for the advise guys, thats kind of what i was thinking of doing anyway (just to satisfy my hunger) but it’s good to have get other opinions on it, thanks!