Help with diet

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  • cheryldumais
    cheryldumais Posts: 1,907 Member
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    I am assuming your goal is to lose weight. If you continue as you are you will lose weight but you are likely to gain it back and become very frustrated. You are making drastic changes that are unlikely to be sustainable. I understand your desire to prepare the same meal over and over for simplicity and I too recycle the same dishes weekly but you have so little variety in your meals that you are likely to be missing out on nutrients. Vegetables and fruit add fibre as well as many vitamins we need. I lost 100+ pounds and I can tell you that when I find I'm struggling the most it's because I got lazy about getting my veggies. I use shredded cabbage alot instead of lettuce in salads and as a filler for tacos etc and I find it really makes me feel full. Steamed broccoli fills me up too and with a little butter and salt and pepper added it's tasty. Losing weight meant I had to cook more but now it has become a habit and I don't mind.

    One of the reasons you are always hungry is the lack of fibre in your diet. For example if you eat a chocolate bar it's about 180 calories. That's the equivalent of 2 or more apples. Which do you think would fill you up? If you compare that to veggies you are really getting alot more bulk. You're hungry because you are eating high calorie foods that have little bulk. If you change that it will help.
  • jekkarez
    jekkarez Posts: 32 Member
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    WinoGelato wrote: »
    Is some of this an estimate regarding calorie goals, how much oil is absorbed during cooking, and how many calories you burn doing exercise, sure. But the numbers are more than zero and right now that’s the number you’re using for oil and for exercise burns. That number is definitely wrong.

    Additionally as I’ve said before you are significantly under eating overall. You don’t need to overcompensate for estimation. You need to pick reasonable numbers that are appropriate for your stats and goals, log accurately, monitor and adjust after a period of several weeks.

    Yea I agree

    I know I need to re-calibrate things...that's why I am on this forum.

    I believe I've made my diary public now... Will be happy for feedback
  • jekkarez
    jekkarez Posts: 32 Member
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    I am assuming your goal is to lose weight. If you continue as you are you will lose weight but you are likely to gain it back and become very frustrated. You are making drastic changes that are unlikely to be sustainable. I understand your desire to prepare the same meal over and over for simplicity and I too recycle the same dishes weekly but you have so little variety in your meals that you are likely to be missing out on nutrients. Vegetables and fruit add fibre as well as many vitamins we need. I lost 100+ pounds and I can tell you that when I find I'm struggling the most it's because I got lazy about getting my veggies. I use shredded cabbage alot instead of lettuce in salads and as a filler for tacos etc and I find it really makes me feel full. Steamed broccoli fills me up too and with a little butter and salt and pepper added it's tasty. Losing weight meant I had to cook more but now it has become a habit and I don't mind.

    One of the reasons you are always hungry is the lack of fibre in your diet. For example if you eat a chocolate bar it's about 180 calories. That's the equivalent of 2 or more apples. Which do you think would fill you up? If you compare that to veggies you are really getting alot more bulk. You're hungry because you are eating high calorie foods that have little bulk. If you change that it will help.

    Fair enough

    What would you suggest dropping? And what are the potential substitutes? Veggies and that are great abstraction.... But I would like specifics
  • sytchequeen
    sytchequeen Posts: 526 Member
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    that's very little food for so many calories... yes I see why you are hungry.

    My diary isn't normally open. I'm going to leave it open for a couple of days so you can compare. Todays isn't finalised yet. Yesterday is a great example of me being greedy and eating too many meatballs :D

    But I'm still eating well, and I need fewer calories than you do

    myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/sytchequeen
  • Annie_01
    Annie_01 Posts: 3,096 Member
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    You don't have to drop the rice. I eat rice and/or pasta every day and keep my calories below 1400...closer to 1300.

    Try bacon and eggs for breakfast with cheese. All 3 or those things have fat and protein. Cut back on the almond butter to account for those calories. You don't need 400 calories worth of almond butter.

    Mix some veggies with your rice and it will give you more volume for very little additional calories. It certainly would be more volume that 4 Tbl of almond butter.

    I am opposed to almond butter...prefer peanut butter...but you have to realize that if you eat that much almond butter you are cheating yourself out of food that would help with the hunger issues.

    Add beef to your diet. It is fattier that chicken. I sometimes do about 2lbs of ground beef into patties...cook them up...grab and eat.

    I don't like avocados either...they go bad too quickly for me.
  • ceiswyn
    ceiswyn Posts: 2,256 Member
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    jekkarez wrote: »
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    jekkarez wrote: »
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    jekkarez wrote: »
    Panini911 wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    You are WAY under eating for your stats and activity. I’m a 5’2 female at 125 and I eat more than 1680/day.

    Are you trying to lose weight? What did you put in MFP for your goal?

    you have very little to lose right? what rate of loss did you select?
    and again, YOU NEED TO EAT THE EXERCISE CALORIES BACK. you say you spend two hours at the gym, then you need to estimate how many calorie burned and add those to your day.

    fat: what is your fat goal? I can hit it without eating tons of PB and I eat pretty low cal. But you can eat a yummy dessert. Use full milk VS skim. add cheese. Cook your chicken in oil. use oil based maridnate for chicken. Add butter or cheese to the broccoli.

    reducing carbs: you can mix rice and cauliflower rice but there are yummy ways to make cauliflower rice (and you can use coconut butter making ti to increase fat!)

    ~Sigh....

    The yummi bit is irrelevant right now.... It is just that I feel hungry.

    I don't know an effective way to estimate my calorie loss when at the gym yet.... The fitness app the dude who made my training gave me says that it's around 300 calories a day so I can estimate that.

    I am not sure what loss rate I chose, but I think it was round loosing 500 cal a day or something

    The yummy part is entirely relevant to feeling hungry. It should not come as a surprise that if you eat things that you don't enjoy much, you are not going to feel satisfied afterwards. Hunger is only half physical, and you're completely ignoring the mental side.

    At the age of 30 I am pretty sure I know how I feel about hunger and why

    Yeah, at the age of 30 I knew everything too.

    At the age of 40 it turned out I'd been wrong about most of it.

    If you're that confident of your skills and knowledge in this area, I'm not really sure why you're posting to ask for help.

    What I am not asking is what mental state I need to enjoy my food

    That's good because that's not what I advised you about either :)
  • Annie_01
    Annie_01 Posts: 3,096 Member
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    One other thing about the rice and veggies. I keep a few frozen bags of things such as peas and carrots, corn, onions, bell peppers to add to things such as rice to help bulk them up. I just saute them in a little olive oil ( remember not to drink it out of the bottle) then add my rice. It is a great way to use up leftover rice. I do the same thing with pasta but I usually add a few tomatoes (fresh or canned) to them.
  • jekkarez
    jekkarez Posts: 32 Member
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    Annie_01 wrote: »
    You don't have to drop the rice. I eat rice and/or pasta every day and keep my calories below 1400...closer to 1300.

    Try bacon and eggs for breakfast with cheese. All 3 or those things have fat and protein. Cut back on the almond butter to account for those calories. You don't need 400 calories worth of almond butter.

    Mix some veggies with your rice and it will give you more volume for very little additional calories. It certainly would be more volume that 4 Tbl of almond butter.

    I am opposed to almond butter...prefer peanut butter...but you have to realize that if you eat that much almond butter you are cheating yourself out of food that would help with the hunger issues.

    Add beef to your diet. It is fattier that chicken. I sometimes do about 2lbs of ground beef into patties...cook them up...grab and eat.

    I don't like avocados either...they go bad too quickly for me.

    How much rice/ pasta do you eat a day?

    Before the butter it was 80 grams of avocado and the sole reason was to add up the fat after I've already reached 1400-1500 calories with rice and chicken and oats.... I needed something wit lots of fat and almost nothing else. (Was 150 grams rice at lunch and 170 at dinner)
  • Scottgriesser
    Scottgriesser Posts: 172 Member
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    So the bottom line is you still feel hungry after eating your meals. Right?

    Sub out the rice for other forms of carbs like broccoli or cauliflower. Get to eat waaaaaaay more for the same numbers. Sub out even more carbs in general for more protein/fat as those are more satiating for most people. Make sure you are eating enough in general as 2 hours 5 days a week depending on what you are doing can be a *kitten* ton of calorie burn.

    And then there's this...you are eating at a deficit. Chances are you are going to be hungry.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    kimny72 wrote: »
    jekkarez wrote: »
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    jekkarez wrote: »
    ceiswyn wrote: »
    jekkarez wrote: »
    Panini911 wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    You are WAY under eating for your stats and activity. I’m a 5’2 female at 125 and I eat more than 1680/day.

    Are you trying to lose weight? What did you put in MFP for your goal?

    you have very little to lose right? what rate of loss did you select?
    and again, YOU NEED TO EAT THE EXERCISE CALORIES BACK. you say you spend two hours at the gym, then you need to estimate how many calorie burned and add those to your day.

    fat: what is your fat goal? I can hit it without eating tons of PB and I eat pretty low cal. But you can eat a yummy dessert. Use full milk VS skim. add cheese. Cook your chicken in oil. use oil based maridnate for chicken. Add butter or cheese to the broccoli.

    reducing carbs: you can mix rice and cauliflower rice but there are yummy ways to make cauliflower rice (and you can use coconut butter making ti to increase fat!)

    ~Sigh....

    The yummi bit is irrelevant right now.... It is just that I feel hungry.

    I don't know an effective way to estimate my calorie loss when at the gym yet.... The fitness app the dude who made my training gave me says that it's around 300 calories a day so I can estimate that.

    I am not sure what loss rate I chose, but I think it was round loosing 500 cal a day or something

    The yummy part is entirely relevant to feeling hungry. It should not come as a surprise that if you eat things that you don't enjoy much, you are not going to feel satisfied afterwards. Hunger is only half physical, and you're completely ignoring the mental side.

    At the age of 30 I am pretty sure I know how I feel about hunger and why

    Yeah, at the age of 30 I knew everything too.

    At the age of 40 it turned out I'd been wrong about most of it.

    If you're that confident of your skills and knowledge in this area, I'm not really sure why you're posting to ask for help.

    What I am not asking is what mental state I need to enjoy my food

    You seem to be glossing over the fact that you need to eat more. You are hungry because you are not eating enough. I am a small, barely lightly active middle aged female, and I ate almost as much as you are to lose weight.

    I don't see anywhere that you have posted your stats. If you don't have much to lose and you have set yourself up to lose 1 lb per week, it is imperative that you log your exercise and eat back at least some of those calories. Otherwise you are under-eating and yes you'll be hungry. Your trainer can't tell you how many cals your exercise is burning anymore than anyone else can, it's an inexact science. Find a reasonably similar exercise entry in the diary and log it.

    No one can tell you definitively what to eat. Different types of foods are satiating to different people. You just have to play around with it and think about in the past what sorts of meals make you feel full and stick with you. Unfortunately, calorie counting can often require a bit of trial and error, which can add weeks to a program and not everyone is patient enough for that.

    These posts may help as well:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1161603/so-you-want-a-nice-stomach/p1

    5’8 and ~180 he posted it upthread. Gym 5 days a week and not eating back exercise cals because not sure of the burn....

    Agree with all you’ve said.
  • cheryldumais
    cheryldumais Posts: 1,907 Member
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    jekkarez wrote: »
    I am assuming your goal is to lose weight. If you continue as you are you will lose weight but you are likely to gain it back and become very frustrated. You are making drastic changes that are unlikely to be sustainable. I understand your desire to prepare the same meal over and over for simplicity and I too recycle the same dishes weekly but you have so little variety in your meals that you are likely to be missing out on nutrients. Vegetables and fruit add fibre as well as many vitamins we need. I lost 100+ pounds and I can tell you that when I find I'm struggling the most it's because I got lazy about getting my veggies. I use shredded cabbage alot instead of lettuce in salads and as a filler for tacos etc and I find it really makes me feel full. Steamed broccoli fills me up too and with a little butter and salt and pepper added it's tasty. Losing weight meant I had to cook more but now it has become a habit and I don't mind.

    One of the reasons you are always hungry is the lack of fibre in your diet. For example if you eat a chocolate bar it's about 180 calories. That's the equivalent of 2 or more apples. Which do you think would fill you up? If you compare that to veggies you are really getting alot more bulk. You're hungry because you are eating high calorie foods that have little bulk. If you change that it will help.

    Fair enough

    What would you suggest dropping? And what are the potential substitutes? Veggies and that are great abstraction.... But I would like specifics

    Because my maintenance calories are about 1500 I would forget the almond butter or reduce the rice or reduce the chicken. Broccoli adds about 30 calories/cup. Shredded cabbage is less than that. Since most folks on here are telling you that you're not eating enough anyway I don't know why you feel you have to drop anything? I often add shredded cabbage and broccoli to a stir fry with a little soya sauce and sesame oil. You could do that with your chicken and serve it over the rice. If you make a large panful of that you can eat it several times throughout the week. Drop the almond butter and you have loads of calories for veggies and sesame oil.

  • jekkarez
    jekkarez Posts: 32 Member
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    Okay.

    First of all I would like to thank every one of you who have taken their time to review this post and comment and even stick through and keep on discussing this to help me along

    I will take your advice on the current diary I have built and see how I can adjust it to fit better.

    I am not entirely sure how robust this application is regarding communication, but I would appreciate any tips or hints I can get as a PM if it exists here.

    Thanks again for all of your advice and time allocated to helping me out in figuring this thing with calories and the rest of it
  • Annie_01
    Annie_01 Posts: 3,096 Member
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    jekkarez wrote: »
    Annie_01 wrote: »
    You don't have to drop the rice. I eat rice and/or pasta every day and keep my calories below 1400...closer to 1300.

    Try bacon and eggs for breakfast with cheese. All 3 or those things have fat and protein. Cut back on the almond butter to account for those calories. You don't need 400 calories worth of almond butter.

    Mix some veggies with your rice and it will give you more volume for very little additional calories. It certainly would be more volume that 4 Tbl of almond butter.

    I am opposed to almond butter...prefer peanut butter...but you have to realize that if you eat that much almond butter you are cheating yourself out of food that would help with the hunger issues.

    Add beef to your diet. It is fattier that chicken. I sometimes do about 2lbs of ground beef into patties...cook them up...grab and eat.

    I don't like avocados either...they go bad too quickly for me.

    How much rice/ pasta do you eat a day?

    Before the butter it was 80 grams of avocado and the sole reason was to add up the fat after I've already reached 1400-1500 calories with rice and chicken and oats.... I needed something wit lots of fat and almost nothing else. (Was 150 grams rice at lunch and 170 at dinner)

    It varies depending on how many available calories that I have left and how many vegetables that I have added to bulk it up. If I was going to estimate maybe between 1/2 to 3/4 of a serving. Though there are times when I eat a full serving of either one. It all depends on what I have added to the dish.

    One bit that I have learned along the way and I think most people will agree...If you are constantly hungry your chances of failure are high. You will soon cave in and start eating everything in site at least that has held true for me in the past. We can only tell you what we have done to avoid that.
  • Annie_01
    Annie_01 Posts: 3,096 Member
    edited April 2019
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    As far as that 27g of oatmeal...I can't image that small of amount helping to avoid hunger.

    Some days I take yogurt and add oatmeal to it and slice up a banana. Mix it all together and that will satisfy me. If I am hungrier than usual I will add a couple of fried eggs to it. I use fat free yogurt but you could use the full fat version. There again that would certainly be more filling than 4 tbl of almond butter.

    eta You could mix a Tbl of that almond butter with your yogurt to give you more fat.
  • veganbaum
    veganbaum Posts: 1,865 Member
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    Just to maybe help put your mind at ease - I am female, older than you, 5'8" and weigh about 40 lbs less than you. I lose on 1900-2000 calories a day. The loss is slow, by choice.

    You should definitely be eating more. I will say my logging is generally pretty on point. I use a scale and double check entries when I first use them. I want to get the most out of my calories as I can. If you're a loose logger, you may need to increase your calories, but leave some on the table as a buffer.
  • jekkarez
    jekkarez Posts: 32 Member
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    How can anybody calculate the amount of oil they get from cooking per 1 meal when cooking in bulk? I use roughly 2.5 tablespoons of olive oil for the chicken and the same amount for rice..... But I cook 480 grams of chicken that turns to roughly 450 in the end and I take 140 per 1 meal....

    Same goes to rice.... 2.t tablespoons of oil for 300 grams uncooked rice.... Gives me some 900 or so grams of cooked from which I take 150..... How do I know how much oil is in that?