Small Meal Tips?

bates

So I have always been big into trying to eat smaller meals throughout the day, but I often become stumped as to what is considered "small." I usually just stick to, breakfast, lunch, mid day snack, and dinner, with an optional post-workout bite.

Can someone help me in regards to ideas for small meals?

ivykivy

It depends on your calorie needs. To me small is 300-400 calories because I would not get all my calories in other wise. Most of the time i stick to 500-600 breakfast (eggs fruit) lunch 300-400 ( tuna and chips or fruit/nuts ) snack popcorn or fruit or yogurt dinner chicken/turkey and vegetable another snack nuts and coffee.

thumper44

Hope some of this helps.

Your at approx 1800-2100 calories per day.
Try to aim for 5-6 meals, eating every 3 hours with each meal being 300-350 calories.

Each meal doesn't have to be something new, it can be easy as splitting up one of your meals and making smaller portions.
Ex.
Tuesday you had two meals that were 700 calories each. 1400 calories. You could have split that up into 3 meals. Split up the chicken with the bread/pita and have another bite later.

Monday you had one meal that was 990 calories. So you could make that spaghetti, eat 1/2 and eat the other 1/2 a few hours later.

Try to fill out your food diary before you eat everything and plan it out, takes a bit of time, but after a while you get used to eating certain things, sizes.

Watch out for the processed foods, they contain alot of sodium.

shellybelly83

I try and eat 1500-1800 calories per day, so I try and divide that number as equally as possible between 6 meals. Check out my food log in my signature to see some examples.

bates

Hope some of this helps.

Your at approx 1800-2100 calories per day.
Try to aim for 5-6 meals, eating every 3 hours with each meal being 300-350 calories.

Each meal doesn't have to be something new, it can be easy as splitting up one of your meals and making smaller portions.
Ex.
Tuesday you had two meals that were 700 calories each. 1400 calories. You could have split that up into 3 meals. Split up the chicken with the bread/pita and have another bite later.

Monday you had one meal that was 990 calories. So you could make that spaghetti, eat 1/2 and eat the other 1/2 a few hours later.

Try to fill out your food diary before you eat everything and plan it out, takes a bit of time, but after a while you get used to eating certain things, sizes.

Watch out for the processed foods, they contain alot of sodium.

Yeah dinner is what SERIOUSLY kills me, I do fine throughout the day pacing myself. But since I'm still at home (for the time being), my parents eat the typical HUGE dinner as their last meal, which is usually made and then eaten at around 7pm. A lot of which is carb heavy and I already know that I'm not supposed to eat carb heavy foods late.

bates

It depends on your calorie needs. To me small is 300-400 calories because I would not get all my calories in other wise. Most of the time i stick to 500-600 breakfast (eggs fruit) lunch 300-400 ( tuna and chips or fruit/nuts ) snack popcorn or fruit or yogurt dinner chicken/turkey and vegetable another snack nuts and coffee.

How do you manage 3-400 in breakfast? I usually have 4 egg whites, and a piece of fruit and its less than 200. If I make my honey wheat pancakes its around that but what do you usually make that takes up that much? I know that a bigger bfast will help throughout the day but it also makes me feel like I did before dieting where I would have 6 whole eggs covered in cheddar cheese (mouth watering), and I don't want to subconsciously fall back into eating a lot, you know? I hope that last bit made sense lol

thumper44

This has been my breakfast for the last 2 weeks or so.

Bananas - Raw, 1 medium (7" to 7-7/8" long) 105 cal
Beatrice - 1% Milk, 0.5 cup 55 cal
Cheerio's - Multigrain Cereal, 0.5 cup 55 cal
Quaker - Large Flake Oats, 0.25 cup uncooked 90 cal
Dymatize Elite - Whey Protein Isolate Shake - Chocolate, 1 scoop 117 cal
total 452 cal

bates

geeze 1/2 cup of cereal?!?!?!?!? thats such a tease, especially since cheerios are so addicting!

i also do 1/2 cup dry quaker, but thats usually it. I'll have to start making breakfast bigger and DEFINITELY making dinner way smaller. Tonight's dinner was insane only because I had to workout so late and was absolutely starving, not to mention I know I had a lot of extra

bates

Alright so for today I went with the small meal approach, it seemed to work decently as far as fullness goes. I'm coming up on dinner here in about 2 hours lol so we will see how that turns out. But does it look alright for today?

I know I kind of over did it on the post workout with all the nuts/peanut butter