Food Diary help request

RiseAndConverge

Hi there,

I'm wrapping up my first month being active on MFP, am down 10 lbs, and was hoping you wouldn't mind taking a look at my food diary and giving me some tips. I feel like, for the most part, I'm eating very well. I'm usually satisfied as far as how much I'm eating, but I tend to have quite a few calories left everyday. Should I be "eating back" exercise calories as I've heard mentioned on this board or is it fine since I'm satisfied? I also want to keep in mind that the calorie tracker might be tracking more calories than were actually burned and the food may be more caloric than listed. I like having a 200 calorie buffer zone.

What I want to avoid is my body going into starvation mode because it's not getting enough calories and my weight loss stops because of it. I also want to make sure everything I'm doing leads to a sustainable lifestyle. I dont want to go overboard for a couple of months and then backslide.

Thanks in advance!

RiseAndConverge

bump

RiseAndConverge

morning bump!

UponThisRock

Your diary made me hungry, lol.

I think you're eating very well, and you're making good progress. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

And I think your suspicions about calorie burn estimates are correct, I wrote a blog post about it: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/UponThisRock/view/i-don-t-think-you-burned-that-much-252676

tophat1

Your diary looks fantastic. My only suggestion would be to watch the sodium.

If I'm low on cals, I finish my day with a tsp or two of natural peanut butter. I generally eat back half my exercise cals.

CassieReannan

You diary looks perfect.. Suggest eating more on work out days and cutting out sodium.

AngieM76

I think your diary looks great. I agree on some of those days I would watch the sodium so you dont have bloating but it looks ok otherwise. I am not one to eat my exercise calories back in but its really up to the person. Some people it them and some dont.

Latinalicious

Hi hon, just looked at your food dairy; its actually not bad exept that you are eating only three meals per day. The oatmeal in the morning, are you eating it dry? Milk or water? Sugar? its important to add those little extras.

If I may suggest, since it works well with me, change the food dairy setting; maybe to look like this or anything similar:
Breakfast
Morning Snack
Lunch
Afternoon Snack
Dinner
Evening Snack

Once you break down you food portions to smaller portions and almost every three hours you may start to see a big change. I have manage to lose 55 lbs within 10 months (first 15 lbs within two months) without special foods, suppliments, or exercise. As I have told many of my friends, you should not be under your caloric goal daily if you are eating every three hours or so.

RiseAndConverge

I make my oatmeal with hot water, nothing added. If I'm still hungry after that I'll add fruit or possibly even eggs depending on the day. The almonds that I list are generally a mid morning snack. My habit is to get up with my 1 year old, make us both oatmeal, get ready for the day, get to work and about 9:30am I'll snack on almonds. I go to lunch at 11/11:30 because I tend to be hungriest earlier in the day. This holds me until I get home when the hubz and I have a 6pm dinner so he can leave for work at 7:30pm. After that, I'm generally full for the day and, if not, I'll have a glass of milk or snack on cucumbers.

Sodium, obviously, is my biggest weekness. I dont have a sweet tooth, I have a salt/spicy tooth.

RiseAndConverge

As far as not burning the calories MFP lists, my sister hit up groupon and found an HRM/biggest loser calorie tracker thing for me for my birthday! I'm so excited and cant wait to start using it!