Need Help with Diet Plan

Eat whatever you like. Try to make good decisions most of the time - give your body fruits/veggies, whole grains, lean protein, fats, etc. Have some not so nutritious stuff sometimes. Stay right around your calorie goal (+/- 50 cals or so?).

Repeat, repeat, repeat.


That's really all it takes. No special fancy plan needed!

You are definitely on the right track. Eating every 3-4 hours is key. A little bit of everything is essential - fruits, grains, veggies, lean protein, etc.. Your largest calorie intake of the day should be in the morning and should include some protein. The oats are good, but I find that if I add protein to my morning meal I feel less hungry in a few hours. Lunches for me are usually salads with different lean protein (chicken, salmon). And, I snack on veggies throughout the day. As for dinners, I'm no help there. I haven't figured out the whole dinner thing yet. After working 10-12 hours, I don't feel like preparing anything.

You are definitely on the right track. Eating every 3-4 hours is key. A little bit of everything is essential - fruits, grains, veggies, lean protein, etc.. Your largest calorie intake of the day should be in the morning and should include some protein. The oats are good, but I find that if I add protein to my morning meal I feel less hungry in a few hours. Lunches for me are usually salads with different lean protein (chicken, salmon). And, I snack on veggies throughout the day. As for dinners, I'm no help there. I haven't figured out the whole dinner thing yet. After working 10-12 hours, I don't feel like preparing anything.

Sorry - but some of this is just misinformation.

OP - eat when you want. There are a lot of successful people here who eat once a day. Meal timing is about personal preference. It will not impact your weight loss. Breakfast doesn't have to be a big meal....you don't have to eat it at all.

And as long as your entire day is balanced, each meal/snack does not have to be. Meet your macros on a daily basis, not an hourly one.

Plan your meals in advance for the week, and do as much work ahead as possible. You can pre-cut meats and vegetables and store them in bags or plastic bins in the fridge for a few days - or freeze them now and thaw them according to how your plan is set up for the week.

Recruit the kids to help out with both the food preparation and even the meal planning where it makes sense. It provides family time and valuable learning for them to apply as they grow to adulthood. If they're involved, you're less likely to have issues with them eating healthy meals with you, because they will be invested in it too. They'll be on their own sooner than you think, and there are so many kids out there that think cooking involves stuffing frozen bricks into the microwave.

Make use of one dish or one pot recipes. I will batch cook a couple of times a month, which saves me time at the back end. If I'm already committed to being in the kitchen anyway, it takes just as long to make a gallon of bolognese sauce as it takes to make a quart.

The good news is you don't have to be perfect, you just have to be better.

1) tracking for a couple of weeks before I worried about losing.
(although seeing what I was eating I couldn't help but rein back a bit)

2) seeing where I could make small changes on things that weren't that important to me.
(Don't even think of taking chocolate out of my diet!!!)
--Reducing quantities where I won't notice it so much
--Swapping out things instead of eliminating them.

3) Look at my diary and started adding foods that had positive healthy effects specifically for the health issue in my family.
I found most of the things I "should" add were really yummy too! salmon, avocado, oatmeal, mango, red grapes....
(Sort of think of food as medicine to deal with family history of various health issue oatmeal is good for heart health, mango and red grapes lower cholesterol, tumeric and cinnamon good for arthritis)

4) every couple of weeks I see where I can make another couple of small changes.
If you completely revamp your diet, it's way easy to revert to old ways in times of stress. (and who doesn't have stress?)
If you make a series of small changes, food still offers you some sense of comfort.
sort of a comfort continuum, and after a while the first small changes will seem comforting in themselves.
You don't have to be perfect you just have to do better.

5) also rather than being uberstrict with the target MFP set for me. (I swear this saved my life.) I was happier once I gave myself a range:

ROCK BOTTOM: 1200 cal
TARGET: MFP Calories for lose 1 lb a week (when that hit 1200 I changed to lose 1/2 lb per week)
TOP OF RANGE: Maintain Calories for my GOAL Weight.

---

(SAFETY VALVE: Maintain Calories for CURRENT Weight - remember to keep updating this number as you lose)

---

I naturally tended to do 2-4 days between 1200-1300 cal then a day at about 1500-1600 cal then back to the 1200-1300 cal. (No hard science here, but I credit the zig-zagging calories with preventing plateaus.)

--As long as I stayed under the top of my range I should continue to lose, even if it is at a slower rate.
--As long as I don't go past my safety valve I shouldn't gain.

6) I only worry about it 1 lb at a time.
Once I found ways to lessen the stress, I found it way easier to focus on the process and let the results follow. (It's what worked for me some people need the stress to get them motivated. Me I get scared and overwhelmed and don't see the big goal as achievable. )

7)
The closer I got to my goal the smaller I made my deficit. Yes, this took longer to get to my goal, but I was focusing on (am STILL tweaking) strategies for maintenance. What I found difficult (and haven't yet conquered) it establishing a guideline for a range for maintenance, being that I'm not really good at hitting the same number everyday.


Food is not the enemy.

Oddly enough on my journey here I've reduced guilt over food.
I have the occasional treat and I fully enjoy it with no guilt involved.
The thing is since I'm not eating crap all the time, now the occasional treat is just that a TREAT it's special and I enjoy it so much more than when I was unconsciously shovel junk food into my face.

I figure if I've got a good plan that I can actually maintain I can keep this off for a long time to come, without feeling deprived.

Good Luck

You are definitely on the right track. Eating every 3-4 hours is key. A little bit of everything is essential - fruits, grains, veggies, lean protein, etc.. Your largest calorie intake of the day should be in the morning and should include some protein. The oats are good, but I find that if I add protein to my morning meal I feel less hungry in a few hours. Lunches for me are usually salads with different lean protein (chicken, salmon). And, I snack on veggies throughout the day. As for dinners, I'm no help there. I haven't figured out the whole dinner thing yet. After working 10-12 hours, I don't feel like preparing anything.

Some of your post is just... well... a myth.

Meal timing and frequency have NO impact on weight loss or metabolic rate. Eat when you want and as often as YOU want. There is no science behind it besides that for some people it may help them from getting too hungry before their next meal. But not everyone is like that. Personal preference.

Another myth is that breakfast should be your biggest meal. Again, it is personal preference.