Struggling to fill up my calories - any suggestions?

gracieabem

Hi there,
I've come to the realisation that I've been eating too little having filled out my diary for a couple of days. This came as a bit of a shock to be honest because I thought I was doing ok. Today is the first day that I am trying to eat more. I still want to make healthy choices most of the time. This is a lifestyle change for the better, so I have to be realistic.

If you could take a look at my diary and suggest things I could eat, this would be much appreciated. Today feels like a bit of a blow-out for me. I'm having an egg and some baked sweet potato chips for dinner and some pre-made cous cous - it's a wet day and I feel like some comfort food. Sweet potato is a favourite of mine, yum! But I'm still under calorie intake.

Actually MFP has spun me out. I had no idea I wasn't eating enough calories. The previous two entries are fairly typical of my diet and exercise. I actually do some resistance training at the gym, with small cardio intervals except I've only logged the cardio bits because I haven't figured my way around the strength section and, truth be told, I cannot remember the names of most of my exercises lol. I do this 3 days a week and run 3 times a week (Couch25k - week 7 day 3 is tomorrow!)

I'm really looking forward to some of your advice.

Pebble321

It looks like you are making pretty good food choices... but yes, your calories do look very low.

A couple of suggestions:
- add calorie dense extras to your meals - like a slice of cheese with your toast and vegemite, olive oil drizzled on your veggies, avocado, chicken, tuna or similar to dinner.
- fit in a few extra snacks - fruit, almonds, natural yoghurt, boiled egg etc.

This will get your numbers up to a healthier level without making you feel too full.

Crossfitchrisd

Add nuts and seeds to your diet. Quick, easy, high calorie foods that your body needs.

gracieabem

Thank you, Rubybelle. Yum, this is all stuff I really like. LOVE avocado and nuts and eggs and fruit and yoghurt... err actually all of it. I just have to learn to sneak in some extra stuff at each meal or, like you say, snack more.

I know I said that the last two entries are pretty typical of my food intake, but I should say that I usually don't do the frozen meals. I just picked up one on Monday between gym and dog training because it was just 'one of those days.' Had to add extra vege to it. Usually I have veges and meat in some form... steamed veges and salmon, a nice home made lamb and vege pizza, baked chicken and vege... the list goes on. Probably could do with adding some more carbs to my main meals. I do love pasta and it's easy to make a healthy one, so many different options.

Thank you Chris, I did go through a stage of adding some pepitas, sunflowers and chia seeds to my brekky cereal and then I just stopped. I used to also get a trail mix with seeds and almonds and dried cranberries... that was yummy!

Crossfitchrisd

Looking at your diary I can see that it severely lacks good fats. only 15g a day total doesn't begin to cut it. Bump it up to at least the minimum set by the system. I personally reset all the %'s because I think the carb target is always way too high initially when people set up their accounts.

gracieabem

Ok, thanks Chris. More nuts, seeds, avo, fish it is. How do you reset your %. I'd be interested to know how much carbs I should be eating.

Edit - although I don't think it would've added up to anything substantial, my lamb and salad kebab listed as no fat, although I'm pretty sure it did have fat (not much of the good stuff though) so that particular reading may be a bit low. Still, not enough good fats overall.

Crossfitchrisd

To change the %'s click on Goals then click change goals, then click on custom, after that you can change the individual %'s for carbs, pro and fats. I personally have a very custom % that is highest in fat, but for the everyday person I find that 40/30/30 works best which is also known as the Zone. 40% carbs then fats and pro are both 30%. That should give you the most well rounded energy boosting balance.

gracieabem

Thank you, Chris. I have gone and adjusted my percentages as per your recommendation. And then I went back and looked at my diary! Wow lots of gaps there... I didn't even quite make the carb % or the fat % and definitely not the protein %. And that was just yesterday when I was trying quite hard to just fill my calories full stop.

This is going to take me a couple of weeks to experiment and get used to. Truth be told, I'm very excited about the prospect of eating more (good) food. I really cannot complain, except that I'm still a little overwhelmed by this discovery.

AmberFaith90

I used to struggle to fill up my calories, as well. This is what I do now - I make fruit smoothies. It's nutritious, and it can be around 200-300 calories of pure nutrients.

Today, I had 1 cup of Silk Unsweetened Original Almond Milk, 1 cup of strawberries, 1 banana and 1/2 cup of blackberries. Just mixed it together in my blender and voila! This came out to be around 240ish calories. It's yummy, too!

My body is tricked into thinking I'm getting dessert!