Diary help: Can you take a look?

ghoti_fish

Hi
I'm hoping someone can look at my diary and help me balance my macros.
I am a semi-vegetarian which means I sometimes eat fish and recently have been occasionally eating salami and bacon (pigs are delicious) but have been a proper veggie for many years. I blame my husband for the slip!
I have always struggled to meet my protein goal on here and now that I've upped my exercise and begun lifting weights too I think its probably important to eat enough protien to repair myself.
I know that nuts and eggs and cheese are good sources of protein but sooo high in calories (Also eggs creep me out a bit if I can see them) - can anyone look at my diary and suggest where I'm going wrong/ where I can squeeze in more protein? My weekly % this week is only 8%!
Another slightly unrelated question is: my breakfast is always a tiny percentage of my calorie intake for the day. My husband says it ahould be one of the biggest - is this true? What does everyone else eat for breakfast?
Sorry - many many questions. Please let me know what you think x

melaniecheeks

Your diary isn't set to "public".

The old saying about breakfast being the biggest meal of the day has no scientific basis - spread your calories whatever way you like throughout the day.

Greek yoghurt?

kkarcher94511

nuts actually are not high protein at all-total marketing gimick. Example: 1oz almonds: 163 calories, 14!!!! grams fat 6g protein..........lame. green veggies are very high protein, so especially as a vegetarian, the obvious answer would be to increase your intake of greens. granted, they are a high volume food but per calorie you get:
17ounces(unrealistic amount i know, 8-10 would be better but bear with my point): 164calories, 1.8g fat, 13.6g protein.
generally, the darker the green the higher the protein, so collard greens, kale, etc are pretty high protein. my point here is that BROCCOLI has more than twice the protein of nuts per calorie. ditch the nuts, add more greens. fat free cottage cheese, fat free plain greek yogurt, quinoa, beans, peas, etc. these are all great protein sources

ghoti_fish

Oops! I think it's set to public now. This week i've been eating strawberries, blueberries and yoghurt for breakfast, if i'm super-hungry I throw a bit of cereal in there too. I have a go ahead yoghurt biscuit before I go to the gym which is probably not enough but I go at 6am and cant get up any earlier for breakfast - I would be too miserable!

RodaRose

Instead of baked beans that have sugar, have regular beans. Also, chic peas, lentils, green peas, more corn, lentils, soy milk, hemp seeds, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, dark leafy greens like spinach, kale, collards. Also broccoli. Also, tempeh, tofu, edamame
Almonds, cashews, and pistachios contain 160 calories and 5 or 6 grams of protein per ounce.
If it matters to you, marshmallows are not vegetarian. Most of them include a product made from animal gelatin.
Eat tiny breakfasts or non at all. As long as you get protein in your day. Your diary looks mostly good.

melaniecheeks

I take it today is not a typical day! What was your exercise?

jkal1979

I took a look back to when you started logging and two things stood out.

1. You have quite a few quick added calories. Don't use these unless you have absolutely no choice.
2. Foods labeled generic.

If you read this link, it will help you find the correct entries to use and let you know which ones to avoid.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

auddii

Here's a list of good protein sources; if you skip down, there are vegetarian and vegan protein items as well:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/926789/protein-sources

ghoti_fish

melaniecheeks wrote: »

I take it today is not a typical day! What was your exercise?

Ha nope! Out shopping with my sister and she wanted to go into McDonalds so I made the most of it. Don't even feel guilty!
My exercise was 1hr in the gym - I did some shoulder presses, lat pull downs and some leg curls before I hit the cross-trainer and the treadmill.

RodaRose wrote: »

If it matters to you, marshmallows are not vegetarian. Most of them include a product made from animal gelatin.

I am not as strict as I used to be - world's worst 'vegetarian'

jkal1979 wrote: »

I took a look back to when you started logging and two things stood out.

1. You have quite a few quick added calories. Don't use these unless you have absolutely no choice.
2. Foods labeled generic.

If you read this link, it will help you find the correct entries to use and let you know which ones to avoid.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1

The quick added calories are either when copying a meal that my husband has logged or when I use the app to calculate all of the calories in a meal I make then divide it by the number of portions - I don't have a handle in how to create meals in here yet.

Thanks all for the advice. I had completely forgotten about green vegetables as a source of protein! I've got loads growing in my garden

Asher_Ethan

For me to burn almost 2000 calories at the gym I would have to be there for over 4 hours. How did you measure this calorie burn?

Do you weight train often? What is your weight now? I feel like you should have more protein in your diet from the couple of days I glanced at.

You don't HAVE to have more fat in your diet but your daily calorie goal is about the same as mine and I find fat keeps me fuller longer for the calories we get.

ghoti_fish

The calorie burn uploads directly from my fitbit. Its based on my whole day's movement - today I have done over 16000 steps which were obviously not logged while lifting so my lifting tends to go unlogged. Its always super high and then will adjust overnight and get smaller when I look at my diary tomorrow. I tend not to eat many of my exercise calories back as I dont think its accurate. Plus with my calorie goal at 1700 I dont need any extra! (Today is not a typical day)
I weigh around 210lbs and am 5ft 3. I've only been lifting in the last week but have been cycling for years and have found protein for recovery a real problem - when I was stricter as a veggie I ached for days after a proper spin out on the bike so its bound to be worse for weight lifting. I don't feel like I have too much trouble eating enough fat!

AliceDark

Well, part of the problem is just data entry error. The Quick Add Calories function doesn't carry over macro information, so you can assume that your macros are wrong on any of the days when you had a significant Quick Add. The other thing that is messing up your data entry is that not all of your items from the database include all the macro information. (This is because the person who originally created the entry didn't enter the macros, so it's not your fault, but it is something to be aware of). For example, your Chinese Takeaway - Crispy Shredded Chili Beef, 0.5 order on 8/15 just has the calories listed, not the macros. So your protein numbers aren't quite as low as you think they are.

Having said that, you do need more veg protein sources. You can feel free to look through my diary if you want (I average 100-120g of veg protein per day), but I eat the same things over and over again, so it's pretty boring. I have to sit down in the morning, map out my protein for the day, and then fit in the rest of my food around that. The deal I have with myself is that protein is non-negotiable, so if I don't want to eat meat, I have to do whatever it takes to get in my protein (even if it means I don't always get to eat what I want). My go-tos are eggs, cottage cheese, greek yogurt, beans and protein powder/bars.

ghoti_fish

Thanks Alice, I hadn't thougt to check that the macros were added into food I log - will be doing it from now on. I worked out that I need 75 grams of protein just generally per day, using the 0.36g of protein per lb of body weight. But if I'm exercising how much more do I need to increase that by?
Thanks to all who suggested cottage cheese - I love it and will be putting it in my next food order.
Today is going to be another bad day as I'm seeing my friend for dinner which will probs end up being some sort of takeaway and hubby and I stopped off at a newly opened bakery on our way back from the gym. This must sound terrible but I can't stress myself out about food like I used to; I'll just end up giving up again.
So anyway lunch needs to be as healthy and as proteiny as possible. Things I have readily available: eggs, spinach, runner beans, courgettes; some sort of frittata/omelette?

AliceDark

ghoti_fish wrote: »

Thanks Alice, I hadn't thougt to check that the macros were added into food I log - will be doing it from now on. I worked out that I need 75 grams of protein just generally per day, using the 0.36g of protein per lb of body weight. But if I'm exercising how much more do I need to increase that by?
Thanks to all who suggested cottage cheese - I love it and will be putting it in my next food order.
Today is going to be another bad day as I'm seeing my friend for dinner which will probs end up being some sort of takeaway and hubby and I stopped off at a newly opened bakery on our way back from the gym. This must sound terrible but I can't stress myself out about food like I used to; I'll just end up giving up again.
So anyway lunch needs to be as healthy and as proteiny as possible. Things I have readily available: eggs, spinach, runner beans, courgettes; some sort of frittata/omelette?

You don't need to worry about increasing your protein if you are exercising -- treat your 75g as a minimum, do your best to hit that every day, but don't worry about it after that. When it comes to losing weight, calories are the thing to worry about -- macros are important for long-term health, satiety and adherence to the diet overall. It's important to try to balance your macros, but at the beginning, focus first on your calorie goal and make tweaks to your macro ratios as you go.

That fritatta/omelet sounds amazing, btw! I make a lot of egg dishes with whatever veggies I have on hand -- they're easy, quick and you'll get a lot of protein. I also always keep a bowl of hard-boiled eggs in my refrigerator for snacks.

ghoti_fish

If only more than one of my chickens was laying eggs.... At least the veggie patch is doing well!