Does eating same foods every day help?

FitFunLosAngeles

Francl27 wrote: »

Yes it would be easier. I'd be tired of it after 2 days though. I'm a foodie. I need variety.

I'm with you. Although I am utterly convinced from the above comments that eating the same foods every day would result in easier weight loss, I don't think I could sustain that for too long. As some of the above comments suggest, maybe the best solution for me is a happy medium between repetitive eating and a little variety now and then.

Timshel_

FitFunLosAngeles wrote: »

Does eating same foods every day help?

I had links to a few studies about high success rates in "dieters" which did conclude that most with good success and continued compliance had steady, predictable meals. The idea is that you know portions and outcomes from food you frequently eat so it was easy to budget and make sure you were metting caloric goals.

Looking at a few years of logging now, I generally have a dozen foods for each meal that I tend to eat. Like for breakfast I always always have oatmeal or bagel and coffee, with little variation except on Saturday or Sunday morning. I just know what I am eating and the calories.

fishshark

i will get the motivation to eat the same things.. even if its my favorite meal and i somehow cant do it. I need to break it up. Im not a good candidate for meal prep.

kommodevaran

My impression is that people who say they eat a lot of different things and people who say they mainly eat the same things over and over, have the same amount/degree of variety. We humans like the freedom of choice, but usually stick to our favorites.

distinctlybeautiful

I'm a vegetarian who relies heavily on dairy for my protein, so yeah, I eat a lot of the same things on a daily basis. I might be able to get creative and come up with other ways to get my protein, but I'm not tired of it. So yeah, I suppose it helps me because I can hit my goals without a lot of fussing or planning. I like to change things up too, but my staples are my staples.

LivingtheLeanDream

We are mostly creatures of habit so if you find you are eating similar foods day in, day out now and staying at a weight you're happy with/or still losing, thats generally a good thing It can become boring though so its nice to have a mix of different foods so that doesn't happen.
I eat same breakfast every day, (poached egg/toast) but my lunch and dinners will always vary.

My calories per day per meal however don't vary much, 500 breakfast +mid morning snack / 500 cals lunch/ 650-800 cals dinner/ 400 cals snacks. I don't even have to log my meals any longer as I know instinctively how much I'm eating.

WarningTheHermit

I'm not sure what the rules are for this forum, some others tell you to search for older posts, some get mad at you for bumping old posts, so guess we'll findout after this message.

So I'm kind of picky, well, I'd say pretty picky. When it comes to healthy things like vegetables there's really only a few that I actually enjoy eating, ( broccoli carrots and cauliflour) is there any downside to eating a large amount of these? I know carrots turning your skin orange but that takes a LOT of carrots supposedly? I'll switch it up if I need to, this is just what I've been eating currently when something calls for veggies.

janejellyroll

WarningTheHermit wrote: »

I'm not sure what the rules are for this forum, some others tell you to search for older posts, some get mad at you for bumping old posts, so guess we'll findout after this message.

So I'm kind of picky, well, I'd say pretty picky. When it comes to healthy things like vegetables there's really only a few that I actually enjoy eating, ( broccoli carrots and cauliflour) is there any downside to eating a large amount of these? I know carrots turning your skin orange but that takes a LOT of carrots supposedly? I'll switch it up if I need to, this is just what I've been eating currently when something calls for veggies.

It is not against the rules to bump old posts here. Some people may get annoyed at it, but that's their individual response. You're always going to be annoying someone or other in life, right?

hesn92

For me It just makes life easier. It takes me hardly anytime at all to pack my lunch and snacks because it’s the same thing most days. I open my fridge and know exactly what things to pull out and which Tupperware containers I need lol. Logging is also easy because I can just click “copy yesterday”. I tend to get on kicks where I’m really into something, I’ll eat it every day for a long time, then get sick of it.

hesn92

Woo, dang. Old post lol. Oh well.

deepwoodslady

I often eat the same things over and over for dinner because I have food prepped (have a lot of the same thing pre-cooked) and it's just easy to grab from the freezer if I am eating differently from my family. I do try to make sure my precooked meals will have a variety of vitamins and nutrients.

jondspen

To OP - it is easier to log the same foods, but I would say more do it just b/c we as humans are typically creatures of habit. Also, since morning and noon times are typically the time when we are most rushed, it's quicker to have the same routine than do something different.

malibu927

It wouldn't help me. I need variety, and depriving myself of certain foods can lead to binges for me.

WarningTheHermit

Unlucky, i guess bumping an old topic isn't the way to go because people only read the first post xD duly noted for next time.

psychod787

I think we all have some go to meals. Though, there is some research on the repetition helping desensitize people to food. Basically food loses some of its reward value and you eat less. Kind of like living next to the train tracks. They keep you up for a while but over time it stops bothering you.

Gisel2015

I don't eat the same food everyday. Although I don't care much for cooking, I like variety in my meals, and my husband would be bored to death if he ate the same thing all the time (and me too).
My husband cooks breakfast but he has 2 or 3 simple recipes that he alternates during the week. That is fine with me because it saves me time in the morning to do other things.
I have been in maintenance for 8 years, and in my case I don't consider eating always the same thing a reason for my success, because I don't eat always the same meals.
However, I understand if for convenience, to save time or make logging easy people, do repeat the same recipes all the time. Just do what is better and more efficient for you.

Lillymoo01

I have a couple of standard go-to meals for breakfast and lunch because these are what I enjoy. Logging is neither harder or easier if I were to have 1 or 10 though. I just add my common food combinations to meals and add from there, adjusting individual amounts if I need to.

SammyW103

I have about 3 breakfasts, Cheerios, eggs or toast that I vary. Im newish to this tracker as I used my Fitbit tracker long after I stopped wearing the steps tracker. I know that of the 3 breakfasts, only the eggs keep me full without a snack until lunch.

Lunch I’m more varied as I have many lunch meetings, I wish that wasn’t part of my job as I find its very hard to calorie restrict and not look like I hate what I ordered! Or talk with salad in my teeth!

Dinner varies and I end up just logging the highest calorie ingredients with a fudge factor for oils, etc.

This method (tracking) is the only thing that’s ever helped me lose weight.

TonyB0588

FitFunLosAngeles wrote: »

I like to look at the diaries of people who have maintained their weight, and I notice many of them tend to eat the same thing every day - particularly weekday breakfasts and lunches.
I wonder - does the time-consuming aspect of logging food in MyFitnesspal encourage people to eat the same things, or do people tend to do it because it is just easier?

My main breakfast item is cereal, but we usually buy a variety of them. I may use one box every day until it's finished and then move on to something else, or maybe two different boxes are opened and I alternate on different days. I have a boiled egg nearly every day, and that's easy because it's on the stove boiling while I'm eating the cereal or doing other stuff. Sometimes toast with different spreads - jam, marmalade, butter, etc.

In our house cooked meals are not measured, therefore leftovers come back every day until all gone. Slight variations if the meat runs out before the veg, or the starch isn't enough to go with the meat by the time we reach the third day.

People who buy most of their meals in restaurants will perhaps have more variety to log on MFP if they're trying different menu items from different places over a period of time.

Gisel2015

It looks like the OP hasn't posted/visit the forums since September 2016. So I guess that she is not longer interested in our answers.....

fitoverfortymom

For meal prep, it's just easier. I have a variety of dinners and mix it up on weekends. It also saves money to be repetitive.

VUA21

2 cups of coffee, 1 protien shake. That's my breakfast a good 5-6 days a week. I'm a creature of habit and NOT a morning person.