Out of calories for the day and haven't had dinner. Any ideas?

aleena2975

Not sure how I miscalculated beyond having a large(ish?) Breakfast but I'm out of calories for the day with only 55 g of protein acquired. My total kcal for the day is showing 1550 and I try to stay at 1600. I want to increase my protein with a shake or maybe some meat. Not sure if I should just try to survive til the morning. I had breakfast at 10am and lunch at 5pm. So maybe I'll be okay since my lunch was late today too?

lisakatz2

Pre-record your meals in your food diary. It will help you keep on top of your macros and calories.

Before I started doing that, I was always falling short of my protein goals.

AnnPT77

It's one day, not life, the universe and all that is vital.

If you're hungry, eat something. Keep it light calorically if feasible, and log it. (Don't try to "make up for it" tomorrow.) It's a minor number of calories in the big picture. Suffering is optional. :flowerforyou:

If you're not hungry, and not eating won't cause problems with your sleep quality, skip eating. One day of sub-ideal nutrition (if that results from not eating) isn't going to have an significant impact, either.

Most important: Learn from the experience. Maybe pre-log, as was suggested. Maybe think about days when you want a little bigger breakfast, and have some ideas in the back of your mind about lighter lunches or dinners to balance out the day.

But since something you're finding less than ideal happened, think it over, and change your future plan in some way to make it less likely to reoccur in future. Don't spend more than about 10 minutes thinking about that, but do it. Then let it go, and move forward with your revised plan.

It'll be fine. One day is a drop in the ocean. Figuring out some new habits that make it (relatively) easy and less stressful to reach your goals: That's the big deal. Trying things that don't work, and learning from them is a natural, useful part of the process.

Best wishes!

tomcustombuilder

Don’t worry about it and try harder tomorrow to regulate the timing of calories

Adventurista

If you are running a deficit to lose weight, consider bumping up from 'weight loss' to 'maintain weight' amount of calories for the day, or even add up to 500 cals if hungry... 500 cals are about 1/7th of a lb for weight loss, so just an extra day slower in losing weight...

J72FIT

AnnPT77 wrote: »

It's one day, not life, the universe and all that is vital.

If you're hungry, eat something. Keep it light calorically if feasible, and log it. (Don't try to "make up for it" tomorrow.) It's a minor number of calories in the big picture. Suffering is optional. :flowerforyou:

If you're not hungry, and not eating won't cause problems with your sleep quality, skip eating. One day of sub-ideal nutrition (if that results from not eating) isn't going to have an significant impact, either.

Most important: Learn from the experience. Maybe pre-log, as was suggested. Maybe think about days when you want a little bigger breakfast, and have some ideas in the back of your mind about lighter lunches or dinners to balance out the day.

But since something you're finding less than ideal happened, think it over, and change your future plan in some way to make it less likely to reoccur in future. Don't spend more than about 10 minutes thinking about that, but do it. Then let it go, and move forward with your revised plan.

It'll be fine. One day is a drop in the ocean. Figuring out some new habits that make it (relatively) easy and less stressful to reach your goals: That's the big deal. Trying things that don't work, and learning from them is a natural, useful part of the process.

Best wishes!

All of this!

Corina1143

Lesson learned.
Light supper, mostly protein.
Move forward.

Sinker202

Some great suggestions here. Additionally go for a brisk 30 minute walk and earn a couple hundred calories back. That's like - a lamb chop allowance, or a couple eggs for a light ommlette dinner.

BCLadybug888

Sinker202 wrote: »

Some great suggestions here. Additionally go for a brisk 30 minute walk and earn a couple hundred calories back. That's like - a lamb chop allowance, or a couple eggs for a light ommlette dinner.

I realize too late for the OP, but this is a really good idea, to make a Veggie omelette, probably 2-300 calories and could be quite filling. OP had 50 cal left to eat, so eating 200 cal over target would just use up some deficit.

Going for a 30 min walk, while providing some extra calories to then eat potentially, could also fire up your appetite leaving one quite hungry, so proceed with caution with this solution to not enough calories left 😆

ech9570

So glad you brought this up. Please look at your total calories as a suggestion and not a rule. When I re-started recently, I increased my "allotted" number of calories so that it rose from about 1200 to 1600. (my starting weight was 222) I was having problems with meal planning and I cook for my husband as well. I also have a deeply entrenched "diet mentality" that was causing me to over-control then lose control and gain back all my weight and then some.

I went to a mindful eating seminar and basically learned that "diet rules" should not be a part of healthy eating. (check out Michelle May's site amihungry.com) With all my chronic yo-yo dieting, I have lost the ability to figure out if I'm hungry or not when I eat (mainly emotional eating). So, I use the calories as a suggestion. If I end up over on some days, so be it. That's the way people naturally eat. Some days over, some days under. My suggestion to you would be to go ahead and have a healthy supper and post it to your daily log.

My previous choices in this same situation would be to throw up my hands and get a pizza. And eat the whole thing. Which would start a cascade of negative thinking that would usually end up with me quitting whatever program I've been on. And this has to stop for me to get back to eating normally to provide fuel and becoming as fit as possible as I go along.

SweatLikeDog

Don't worry about it. Look at the bigger picture. Look at your numbers over the week instead of the day. So long as you usually hit your numbers most of the time, the over and under days will balance out.