Need diet/eating advice please

dklbwf

Hello everyone,

I have been eating fast food for 7 days a week for past 7 years now and have finally decided to begin a new diet/lifestyle where I try to meet my calorie calculations according to myfitnesspal. I am 5'9 & 210lbs and wanting to reach 180-190lb mark and just wanted to see what everyone might think of my current schedule. Myfitnesspal has me at 1400 calories daily

Gallon of water each day
Bannana for breakfast
Snack - Green apple for
Lunch - Chickfila grilled chicken sandwich with medium waffle fry
Dinner - Whole bag of birds eye garlic shrimp

I run 2miles at 5am monday/wed/friday

I have been doing the above for 2 weeks now and have lost 4 lbs so far but just would like to get some advice/opinions on my dieting and if I am heading in right direction for weight loss. I am not bored with the food schedule yet but Im sure I will want different lunch/dinner sometimes lol

Thanks n advance for any help,
Dez

juggernaut1974

Does that menu fill you up? Seems woefully lacking on vegetables which are good to fill you up on relatively few calories (not to mention full of micronutrients)

Secondly - do you really see yourself eating this same thing EVERY day without tiring of it?

While losing the weight is a great goal, I think a lot of us that have been successful found that just 'losing' the weight isn't enough - it's keeping it off as well. And to do that you need to learn sustainable eating habits for when you transition to maintenance.

There's such a wide variety of food out there - so much deliciousness. Eating the same thing every day (to me anyway) doesn't seem sustainable and frankly seems sad, as you're missing out on so many other wonderful things!

herbachampion

Hi! It looks like your doing a diet rather than a lifestyle change. While it may get the weight off, it is not something that you will be able to sustain forever. you really need to increase the amount of protein you are eating. Not only will it help you to stay full with the amount of calories you are targeting, but it will fuel your muscles, increase your metabolism which in turn will burn fat. And although you are only eating out at lunch, you would be amazed at how grilled chicken, which is normally healthy, very quickly turns unhealthy when it comes from a fast food place. You definitely need to start off with a stronger breakfast as well.

ndj1979

that does not look like a lot of calories for a 210 pound male…

OP - I am about the weight you want to get to 184 pounds and cutting right now. I am losing a pound a week and eating 2250 calories a day ..

my diary is open ….

dklbwf

ceoverturf wrote: »

Does that menu fill you up? Seems woefully lacking on vegetables which are good to fill you up on relatively few calories (not to mention full of micronutrients)

Secondly - do you really see yourself eating this same thing EVERY day without tiring of it?

While losing the weight is a great goal, I think a lot of us that have been successful found that just 'losing' the weight isn't enough - it's keeping it off as well. And to do that you need to learn sustainable eating habits for when you transition to maintenance.

There's such a wide variety of food out there - so much deliciousness. Eating the same thing every day (to me anyway) doesn't seem sustainable and frankly seems sad, as you're missing out on so many other wonderful things!

I definitely think i will get tired of the current menu but just lost on what foods to add. I am going to look into seeing what foods will keep me in the correct count. Thanks so much for your advice and I will look into adding different foods

dklbwf

heardcl wrote: »

Hi! It looks like your doing a diet rather than a lifestyle change. While it may get the weight off, it is not something that you will be able to sustain forever. you really need to increase the amount of protein you are eating. Not only will it help you to stay full with the amount of calories you are targeting, but it will fuel your muscles, increase your metabolism which in turn will burn fat. And although you are only eating out at lunch, you would be amazed at how grilled chicken, which is normally healthy, very quickly turns unhealthy when it comes from a fast food place. You definitely need to start off with a stronger breakfast as well.

Thanks so much, I am not into cooking at all so I struggle with what to cook so bannanas/apples are such a easy option for me but I'd love to have a bigger breakfast in the morning for sure

dklbwf

ndj1979 wrote: »

that does not look like a lot of calories for a 210 pound male…

OP - I am about the weight you want to get to 184 pounds and cutting right now. I am losing a pound a week and eating 2250 calories a day ..

my diary is open ….

Thanks so much for sharing, I will checkout your diary and try to add some of your choices to mine. 184 would be awesome weight for me but I know it's going to take some work

Christine_72

Check out ndj's diary. Add friends that share the same goals as you, and are having success so you can get ideas from their diaries

Liftng4Lis

You need some serious diversity in that diet. Greek yogurt with fruit and nuts are great for breakfast and has fantastic protein. Snacks: hummus and pitas or veggies, apples with peanut butter, hard boiled eggs. Lunches and dinners: meat, veggies, rice or quinoa. Add some food in there! MOST important, where are your treats? #chocolate

debubbie

With 20-30 pounds to lose to get to your goal weight, your weight loss should probably be set to 1 pound a week because more than that is going to be too aggressive to maintain long term. This may give you some more calories to eat each day.

I eat around 1800 calories a day, you can friend me if you would like to check out my food diary for some ideas.

futuremanda

I agree that 1400 is too low. Did you use the app? There's a glitch with it right now -- it shouldn't have given you less than 1500, and I'd bet you could do more and still lose. (I mean, I am 5'4.5 and female and weigh less than your goal weight and I can eat more and still lose. So.)

Also! If the most sustainable path for you right now would be to keep your fast food routine, then look around for more options that you would like that would fit. Surprisingly, some of the breakfast menus are not too bad.

You're going to want some fat & protein in your breakfast. I recommend the greek yoghurt. Liberte and Iogo make some really yummy ones. You spoon it into a bowl, so, not a lot of prep there! Don't go fat free, get the full fat stuff. Have your apple or banana as well.

There may be frozen foods that work for you as well. Go shopping and look at labels. Think about what you'd like, and what would fill you up, as well as calories. And keep in mind that you can add to it. Like if you get a thin crust pizza, you could put more stuff on it before putting it in the oven. You can buy whole rolls of sausage patties, and you can microwave an egg (or do in a pan with a bit of oil, don't know how much you hate food prep) and put between two frozen waffles with some herby cream cheese or whatever you like for a sandwich. If a whole package of something would be too much, think about the package as making several meals, and what you could eat on the side.

Veggies. If you want some. Okay. Buy pre-cut veggies (more expensive) or buy some and like, put on some music and chop 'em up. Won't take too long. We're talking a lot. Put them in a big pan or on a baking sheet. Roast for... an hour or so. Look up recipe for roasted veggies for temp. (Some of the time is how crispy you like them.) Now, put 'em in the fridge. At dinner, pull out what you want to eat, and drop into a frying pan. Add 1 tbl olive oil, some herbs and spices. Cook just long enough for it to be warm. Voila! Really tasty veggies! At actual meal times, this takes like 2 minutes. (BTW. I used to chop up onion leave it uncooked, and add it to the pan with the oil when I heat that day's veggies. Adds a lot of flavour and keeps it from overcooking.)

Did you know you can buy whole chickens that have been gutted? Put chicken in roasting pan. Put cut veggies around. Roast for an hour or so. Now you have chicken and veggies for days. Steak and pork chops and burgers go something like "put in pan with oil, wait 4-7 minutes, flip, 4-7 mins, you got yourself food." (Look up the exact times for your meat for safety, but yeah. It's short if you cook from fresh and takes no effort.)

Freeze food you can't eat within 3 or 4 days.

I second things like rice, cous cous, eggs in any form (though hard boiled is really portable), meat like steak or pork chops. These things are surprisingly easy to cook. Like, if you can boil water or turn on your burner for a few minutes, you can make those things.

Get a kitchen scale to help you if you decide to make some stuff for home. Makes it easy to know your calories. They're not that pricey, like $15 to $50, anything you like should work.

Here's my 2 cents:

You likely have more than 1 thing you want to change. Thing 1 is your weight, which means changing the calories you eat. That's huge. Maybe you want to stop eating out so much (you'd save a lot of money, at the very least) and get used to food prep. Maybe you'd like to start paying more attention to nutrition. I'd say start where you're at -- don't try to go from mostly fast food too All Prep Clean Eater 1400 Cals! When Thing 1 feels easier, start chipping away at other changes. Like try one new simple recipe for a thing you would like to eat that looks easy to do, see how that goes. Does not all have to happen overnight.

I was basically allergic to food prep. Like, if I could not pour it, or toast it, or nuke it, no thanks. I started with shakes, because I could make the same recipe every day, and it got super fast. That got me FAR before I started to work on expanding that prep into other food options. But eventually I got to where I made food for every meal. (And I got good too! < 5 mins per meal, with some extra prep once or twice a week for chopping a bunch of veggies.)

nickatine

5 minute breakfast, 1 slice toast with peanutbutter, 2 eggs scrambled, 3/4 cup greek yogurt. Coming in at around 430 cal, and almost 40 grams of protein. Op I'm sure u could teach yourself to fry a couple eggs.

mulecanter

Men need food. You look like a real man. Here's my advice. Stop with the fast food, starch is evil. You want lean meat and veggies. Chicken, pork and broccoli are your friends, beef, pasta, rice, potatoes and bread are out to get you. Deep fried bad, grilled good. A good treat is chocolate protein powder mixed with milk and ice and blended at Warp 9 until smooth. Look up the calories of things and log correctly--soon you will find high fiber/low calorie foods that fill you up and keep your net calories at goal level.

asm2014

An easy food to add would be rotisserie chicken, you can buy a whole chicken cooked fresh at costco or henry's/sprout's and probably other places. Add some steamed veggies as a side dish, like broccoli as others have said.

dklbwf

Thanks so much everyone for your advice, i felt I was doing poorly with my eating choices and you all have confirmed that. I just suck at cooking and struggle with what different foods to add to my daily menu so I go for the frozen dinners that take 5-10 mins to warmup/cook. I am going to start adding folks and viewing food diaries to get some ideas. Will up my calories to 1800

Liftng4Lis

dklbwf wrote: »

Thanks so much everyone for your advice, i felt I was doing poorly with my eating choices and you all have confirmed that. I just suck at cooking and struggle with what different foods to add to my daily menu so I go for the frozen dinners that take 5-10 mins to warmup/cook. I am going to start adding folks and viewing food diaries to get some ideas. Will up my calories to 1800

Remember, most frozen dinners contain a lot of sodium and will therefore cause water retention.