Diary is Open - Please look at Today's Lunch

ShifuYaku

Because I'm just worried it might not be healthy enough. I just wanted to ask you all, does that lunch in my diary really look so bad? I would like you to look at it. I now keep having this feeling that the food I am eating is bad for me. I no longer love eating as much as I did, in fear that I'm eating the wrong foods. I know I'm eating healthy, but is it healthy enough? I feel fat all the time... and I feel like I'm gaining weight. It might be stress, or it might be the fact I never work out or don't do many things. What is wrong with me ?

doIlhands

Not bad food wise, maybe try eating smaller portions? Like 1 or 2 fillets instead of 3, and 2 or 3 oz of pasta instead of 4? 1000cal for 1 meal is alot.

ShifuYaku

Well I can't control how much is in the package, and I don't like to leave food un-eaten. But I didn't eat breakfast so I thought that was alright. And I'm just guessing how much pasta there was.

ghimm

Its ok to leave food uneaten. Thats why I keep tons of tupperware. One thing that really helped me is realizing that just because it's on the plate doesn't mean it has to be eaten.

It's also quite a few carbs for one meal. The foods themselves are pretty healthy, but the combination all in one meal might be a bit excessive.

Bassgirl51

You can control it. Wrap half of it up put it in the fridge and save it for later.
And I would skip the chocolate almonds for regular almonds.
Meals should be around 400 cal each for MOST people plus snacks. Total 1600-1800 all day.
Guys and really active females get to eat more.

Without knowing your specifics or how active you are that is a ballpark.

positivepineapple

I would start measuring your portions if I were you, its easy to underestimate and it can lead to weight gain.

ShifuYaku

But if I buy this stuff at an open market on campus, how am I supposed to measure it? I would like to know that.

Ms_Lassie

It seems that your snack is what gave you a larger calorie count for lunch... Maybe looking for a lower calorie substitute? It's hard though especially if those things are your favourite! I love my chocolate covered raspberries & really struggle to give them up sometimes.

Maybe some leafy green salad with your lunch? Just don't give up - try different things, if you keep at it you will find what works for you

ShifuYaku

I usually eat salad, I just didn't want to buy one because they are so expensive, and I'm trying to save my money.

dancerom

That answered the question I would ask you... Was this the only meal in the day... ? Or what is going to be your dinner?
I'm missing veggies for making me feel healthy when I look at it...

And I can HIGHLY recommend breakfast. I never ate it for years. And always tried to lose weight - it never worked. Until I started eating breakfast. As I'm on low carb now it's either a protein shake, protein rich green smoothie, eggs, lentils and spinach or some quark with linoil and a few berries (every now and then), depending on time, mood and what I have at home.

Now that I got used to it, my eating changed, I have less cravings and wake up hungry, so I even started to have an small after bed before mini-workout and shower protein shake. And it feels great!

Just enjoy what you're eating and feel if it is the right thing. Were the chocolaty almonds the right thing to eat in that moment or were they just there...? That's what matters most in my humble opinion. Go, eat, feel, count and have fun in your life!

R_Bedard

528 calories for 11 chocolate almonds - I would skip it! That is the amount of calories for 1 meal!

PNJB796

With a scales dear Shifu! Dear Shifu! Dear Shifu! with a Scales Dear Shifu! Dear Shifu! A Scales!

(Sung to "There's a hole in my bucket, Dear Liza!")

ShifuYaku

528 calories for 11 chocolate almonds - I would skip it! That is the amount of calories for 1 meal!

It was more than 11 almonds, the measurer is off.

ShifuYaku

Well I ate the almonds because they were what I brought with me to school so that I wouldn't be hungry during the day. I didn't eat breakfast because when I left home, there wasn't time, and then I didn't have time while I was at work, and by the time I did have time, it was lunch time.

ShifuYaku

With a scales dear Shifu! Dear Shifu! Dear Shifu! with a Scales Dear Shifu! Dear Shifu! A Scales!

(Sung to "There's a hole in my bucket, Dear Liza!")

The market doesn't have scales...

donteatmycookie

It doesn't look UNhealthy, per se. Obviously most of those calories are going towards those chocolate covered almonds (they sound delicious!). Just keep in mind that nuts are pretty dense in calories, so even if it seems like a small snack, it's taking up a lot of your calories for the day.

Maybe try something that's more filling and less calorically dense. There aren't many vegetables here, so maybe try some spinach and or small salad instead of pasta? You say that's how much was in the package. Is it a pre-packaged lunch you bought somewhere (like a cafeteria or a food stand?) If so is there a way you can navigate away from pre-packaged foods and make something like this at home? That way you can control the portions.

I don't think your lunch was unhealthy (I think a lot of that big number came from the chocolate covered almonds). I think it was probably more unbalanced than unhealthy. Try for vegetables (a salad, some broccoli or carrot sticks), maybe some dairy (nonfat greek yogurt, or one of those easy-to-grab Chobani yogurts). You'd get tons of protein! The apple was a good choice!

Also, I don't know if not eating breakfast was just an isolated thing for this day or not (since I dont know your routine), but you should always try to eat breakfast to kick-start your metabolism and give you energy in the mornings. If you just try to make up for it at lunch, you'll prrobably feel weighed down all day.

When I first started trying to eat healthy, I had a lot of trouble trying to eat healthy AND balanced meals. Here's a blog with a huge list of different meal plan examples: http://undressedskeleton.tumblr.com/Mademenus. They're all around 1,000 calories so they can be modified and added to, so if your intake is around 1800, you can add to the examples to suit your personal taste more.

Please don't feel so bad. Eating healthy is hard as hell at first. It gets easier as you find more foods you like and start mixing up your lunch menus.

ShifuYaku's Lunch
Sodexo - Lemon Dill Tilapia, 3 fillet: 270 calories
Sodexo - Pasta, 4 oz: 280 calories
Apple - Fruit 1, 1 apple: 53 calories
Hy-Vee - Milk Chocolate Covered Almonds, 0.6 cup, or about 11 pieces (40g): 528 calories

1,131

ShifuYaku

I'll tell you all now, they were DARK chocolate almonds, which the food diary doesn't have in it. So I compensated with milk chocolate almonds.

ShifuYaku

Ach, it's no use. I am hearing a lot of things that I already know. It's just that a lot of these things you are telling me to eat are not available here at school, and I didn't have time to go to Price Chopper and buy anything nice like a salad for lunch. I'll probably tomorrow because I have a lot of time before I go to school.


My real question for all of you now is to tell me what I need to do in order to shock my body out of this plateau.

VorJoshigan

Looks great to me. Maybe you'd feel better if you shifted the almonds to the snack zone?

I like to eat fewer carbs than you, but that's just a strategy, and it doesn't work for everybody.

Honestly the worst thing about your lunch is that you're stressing out about it. Stress has always been a trigger for me to just go and eat more food, so it seems counterproductive.

Good luck!

ShifuYaku

And another thing, I'm not new here, so I have been eating healthy for a long time. I just wanted to know if anything I'm eating recently is bad for me, like today's foods. The almonds, I ate the rest of the ones I had bought so that I wouldn't have to eat them anymore.

Britt2Fitjrny

Sounds to me like you have A LOT of excuses...