I need some advice.

JoeyFitness1718

I am 18 years old and I am struggling with my food/calorie intake. I find it really hard to stick to a diet plan because my family always buys bad snacks and I always find myself snacking on bad food because we don’t have good food in the house. When I ask them to buy good snacks, they will buy some good snacks that will only last me for like 2 days. I tend to eat quite a lot of snacks because I get quite hungry. So towards the end of the week I find myself snacking on bad foods because it’s either that or I starve.

L1zardQueen

What are your meals like? How many calories are you eating a day? If you need to snack, maybe you are not eating enough calories at meal time. Just a thought.

ETA forgot a word

JoeyFitness1718

I’d say I have 3 eggs scrambled with 2 slices of wholemeal bread a day for breakfast, for lunch it really depends but probably not a lot. Maybe a sandwich? Sometimes soup and then dinner I have a big meal most of the time. I do find myself snacking a lot around mid afternoon and late at night

PAV8888

The base, foundation, the most important aspect of your energy balance... is the energy balance!

The correct number of calories to meet your goals (which presumably, in your case would be to maintain your weight or to slowly gain some weight as you build even more muscle mass) comes first, before the type of calories that you're eating.

Past that, of course, why would you not prefer to eat a healthy mix of food? Of course you would and should. But not to the detriment of meeting your energy balance goals.

Sounds like you are spending most of your day in a relative energy deficit and are catching up to your caloric needs with snacking in the late afternoon and after dinner.

You could have a larger breakfast or lunch and see if this alleviates your afternoon snacking. Neither of the two meals, as described, sounds particularly dense in calories (with the caveat that your 500 Cal breakfast could easily be much more than that depending on whether you're using butter or other fats that you didn't discuss).

And yes... veggies are good and should be eaten... in addition to eating sufficient calories to fuel your activities and your body!

JoeyFitness1718

Sorry I’m not the smartest haha. So are you just trying to say have bigger meals? So like quite large meals and then I won’t really be as hungry during the day?

L1zardQueen

Yep, eat more at meals. That’s what I do, so snacking is not necessary for me.

JoeyFitness1718

How do you know how much exactly to eat in a meal though? Is it just eat until your full or?

L1zardQueen

Do you weigh you food on a scale? Or measuring cups or spoons?

PAV8888

JoeyFitness1718 wrote: »

Sorry I’m not the smartest haha. So are you just trying to say have bigger meals? So like quite large meals and then I won’t really be as hungry during the day?

It sounded, to me, that:

a) you're not really counting calories: you're just being somewhat conscious of what you eat and trying to eat "healthy".

b) you have given no indication that you under, or over-eat when you take the day as a whole (losing or gaining an appreciable amount of weight on a consistent basis would be an indication of under, or over-eating)

c) you HAVE given some indication (run out of snacks in a day or two, wanting to snack a lot in the early afternoon, late night time frames) that you are probably fairly lean right now (as evidenced by your picture too) and that you are, perhaps, not fully fuelling yourself when you're hungry but delaying food intake till you're REALLY hungry (hence the snacking).

IF THE "snacking" is a problem (it is YOUR judgment and presentation that are making it sound like a problem, I, personally, would have no problem eating Twinkies IF I HAVE ALREADY EATEN A BASE AND SUFFICIENT level of nutritious food), then you could reduce the pressure that you feel in terms of WANTING to snack by eating some more of your calories during the time periods where it SOUNDS as if you've eaten a few fewer calories than you probably should.

"eye-balling" you at a good 3,000 Cal a day to maintain if you're fairly active as a young guy, a 500 Cal breakfast and 6-700 Cal lunch leaves you with the bulk of your calories needed to come in during the rest of your day.

And while a take-out meal or restaurant meal might take care of 1800 Cal fairly easily... an "at home" meal will probably result in snacking to make up the numbers your body will tell you it needs to eat.

A lot of assumptions there, right? That's where YOU come in and interpret the information and see whether it fits or not.

--do you even need to manage your weight right now is probably the first question I would ask.
Not everyone does, and not everyone does to the same extent. Why are you currently concerned / not trusting that your body will tell you when you need / don't need to eat?

--if you're finding yourself hungry and snacking (yet not gaining weight long term), then perhaps look at increasing your caloric intake during breakfast or at lunch.

--it could be as easy as an extra glass of skim, reduced fat, or full fat milk. Or perhaps some beans or potatoes with the scrambled eggs. Or... something more than a sandwich for lunch. Or a ton of other stuff!

Womona

It’s nice that your family is willing to buy healthier snacks for you. Maybe you can help with the shopping so you can be more in control of what comes into the house.

I agree with everyone’s post that maybe your regular meals can contain more food. Nothing wrong with snacking, even the occasional “bad” food. Just keep in mind you may be going through a growth spurt, where you want to eat anything that isn’t nailed down. But that will pass.