Real whole foods a heck of lot less calories

packer43064

I love food. Who doesn't right? I also like eating healthy. I get my motivation to lose weight and to even be doing this from just plain old being healthy. It just feels right.

I've noticed over the past year or so since I've really have been trying that eating real whole foods taste great and is a whole heck of a lot less calories.

Convenience is great , but when I can make something with real ingredients and it is somehow magically 150 less calories that should say something. It means I have 150 more calories I get to eat! Whoohoo! Also where are these 150 extra calories come from. Let alone most of the time it tastes better. My GF eat more processed food and it seems like there are only 4-5 things on her whole diary while I could have 15 things easily.

Anybody else eat a more whole diet? Enjoying that it seems like you can eat a lot more food than others?

Now I'm no saint or anything. I don't drink whole milk that has never been pasteurized or never have a Mountain Dew. I'll pick my battles where I want and can. I eat peanut butter. Not that stuff with extra sugar or can sit on the shelf for 3 years once opened. Brown rice...whole wheat bread. Fruits, veggies. I can eat half a pound of watermelon or cantaloupe and be 100 calories in the hole. Eat 8 oz of reesces or 8 oz of doughnuts....budget blown!

For example. My breakfast is 398 calories for half a pound of cantaloupe, 3/4 pound of refried beans(in the fridge for a few days so just reheated them up and ate plain), and 1 cup of milk. I feel full and will last for several hour easily. Have 20g of protein and over 100% of a few different vitamins and have some potassium. How does a 300 cal "breakfast sandwich" even compare?

Question to ask while I'm here. Most days my protein levels will expect me to eat 150g of this throughout my day. Work day is usually like this. I can never get near this...at all. I don't know, shouldn't eating healthy be natural? I can hit 50-60g a day quite easily. 3x that?! The last thing I want to do is eat 4 eggs a day and 3 cups of milk or half a pound of chicken and protein shakes. I'm just not into eating that much and it just feels like a chore. Some greek yogurt, an egg, cup of milk, and some refried beans on a wheat burrito is more my style as far as protein. No where near the 150g suggested though.

Francl27

150g of protein is probably too much, but you really should try to get at least 0.8g of protein per pound of body weight (or 1g per pound of lean mass, if you know it). Lots of meat, fish, eggs, Greek yogurt etc.

williams969

If you're not a body builder, just an average person looking for optimal health, 150g IS probably more protein than you need. If you know your body fat percentage (or can get a reasonable estimate via measurements, i.e. US Navy method), you can calculate your protein needs a little better.

For general optimal health, 0.6-0.8 g of protein per lb of LBM (lean body mass) is certainly sufficient. For you (looking at your ticker--I see 171lbs), estimating 20% BF (IDK, correct me if I'm wrong), a range of 82-109g of protein is appropriate (of course, more if you want).

So, nothing wrong with Greek yogurt (23g protein per cup--YAY!) and beans (I eat a lot of those, too--YUMMY!). Two servings of each of those daily is close to 60-70g protein. Yeah, you might have to eat some eggs or meat to get the rest of your protein, but not EVERY meal (ugh--that would be boring).



TL:DR Find a more appropriate protein goal, based on 0.6-0.8g/lb of LBM, and fit that into your diet with your Greek yogurt, eggs, beans, and maybe an occasional piece of lean meat to fill out your day. My diary's open to see where I get my 100-115g a day (yeah, I'm taking one protein shake a day--but I like the vitamins in it and drinking my calories is good for me to fit it all in).