When You're Out of Calories and it's only 5pm...

the worst thing you can do is to eat high-glycemic carbs - dooom. What you want to do is to eat low-glycemic index carbs so they release slowly and don't result in the devastating blood-sugar crash.

search on YouTube for 'Quinoa Breakfast Recipe' by Heather Nauta.

This is a good example. You can eat 500 calories of breakfast cereal (hi gi) or eat 500 calories of this recipe. The difference is obviously not the amount of calories.

You eat the cereal and it will race into your bloodstream, start turning to fat and then soon you'll be hungry as your blood sugar crashes. Part of these calories have already gone to fat stores and your body doesn't want to cash it in!

Eat the low-gi porridge and your blood sugar will rise slowly. Lets say it's getting on lunchtime and you're starting to feel hungry but for some reason you can't stop to eat - you'll find that your blood sugar doesn't crash, it just keeps letting down slowly.

Do you want to have a miserable diet experience? Go ahead and eat 500 calories of bread for breakfast.

To sum up using an example - instead of rice, lentils will keep you going much longer. You just have to be patient after eating as your blood sugar levels rise more slowly than you're used to.

Hope this helps - works for me!

If you aren't going to finish that bread.....can I have it?

Sure, it's made on whole grain with some added fiber. It will make you feel full, but no quick blood-sugar rush for you.

Cottage cheese and fruit. about 200 calories depending on the serving size and the choice of fruit - and it can really fill you up. Not saying to go over goal 200 every day, but, it's better to take a small hit than to starve and give in to a bigger one later.

*kitten* happens - Sometimes all the planning in the world won't help a bad situation. i.e., Leaving home and the lunch is on the counter - forcing you to eat from the cafeteria at work. Odds of staying healthy then are slim.

Best to roll with the punches, wake up tomorrow, shake it off and start anew.

I think everyone deals with situations in their own way. Some people need to be uber strict to succeed. They see taking an extra 200-500 calories in over their goal in a day (or even less) as being failure. eh. not so much. if your deficit is 500 calories a day or more, this scenario, at worst, would mean you didn't lose THAT day. you're not going to gain weight by staying at or under maintenance.

as long as you're not living by some deadline, and just living life, who cares if it takes 5 months, or 10 months to reach your final goal? I'd rather lose it slow and maintain the loss, than put myself up against harsh, over strict expectations.

oh - and, I've lost about 50 so far, with about 70 to go, so I'm nearly halfway there

go for a 60min walk, there's about 500 calories
but really does it matter, so go over today and then tomorrow start a fresh, noone can be perfect every day there has to be ups and downs unless every single day you ate/drink exactly the same thing and did exactly the same amount of activity

nuts and dried fruit are a relatively small calorie hit about 100-200 and are very filling and add Protein and Carbs plus essential fats.

Here's what I do, but there's a caveat - I am gluten intolerant, so avoiding the cakes isn't really THAT hard:
If I don't have any calories to go, I eat a light dinner - something with vegetables and protein, and no fat. Sometimes I just drink a protein shake. Then I log it and live with it. This means I can track, at the end of the week, what might have made me go over.

But here's the more important part of what I do: I aim at low GI foods. This isn't about low carb or fancy diets, this is about feeling full and avoiding cravings. So for breakfast, either a boiled egg, vegetables and youghurt with no sugar, or oat-meal with youghurt and berries, and loads of tea. If I get hungry before lunch, I have a couple of crackers - mine are oats, but anything whole-grain will do - in the drawer at the office. Water and crackers, and I can live. Then, if there's a cake at the lunch table (it often is!), I go get my salad for lunch, eat it, have some tea or coffee, look at the cake, chat with the people, then have a square of 70% (or darker) emergency chocolate from the stash in my desk. 10 grams - normally one square of a 100 gram bar - is about 60 calories.

First of all, if you eat healthy food before unhealthy food, it's easier to limit yourself, and even to say no. Scandinavians are still among the slimmest people in Europe, and I am pretty sure it comes from what every Scandinavian child hears when faced with a treat: Healthy food first! We are all conditioned to eating two slices of dark bread with cucumber and cheese before we can even think about going at those incredible cream cakes. (Which, btw, are a lot less calorie heavy than pies, muffins with butter and cheese icing and chocolate cakes, but that's another story.)

Next: when you do low GI, you don't get the blood-sugar rush that leads to cravings. You are not giving up bread or anything else you like, you just pick the versions that contain fiber, so whole grain bread, brown rice, whole grain pasta, whole grain flour in your pizza, even. Also, swap a lot of the fruit for vegetables. Don't avoid your greens (5-6 units a day), but rather than five apples, do three large carrots and a couple of tomatoes.

Then: A small trick. Avoid mixing fat and sugar. Mix fat and protein or sugar (carbs) and protein, but fat and sugar together tricks the brain into wanting more. You know those moorish crisps? Or the fries you can't stop picking at? You may not taste the sugar - as it comes in the shape of starches - but it's there.

Last: Don't avoid the celebrations. Plan for them to happen through the day, and make sure you have a reward for yourself with them. I sometimes go get a large, delicious latte or I go wild eating fruit, because I know I will be recentful and unhappy if I don't feel like I joined the others. Hence the emergency bar of dark chocolate. And make sure to chat, enjoy the company, laugh at the jokes, and don't look at the cakes. The ritual of celebration isn't really about the food, it's about taking the time to be with the others and express solidarity and friendship.

Out of calories by 5...stop eating

I am eating at 1400 plus exercise calories. I therefore know that even if I don't exercise, if I have a 200-300 breakfast and a 300-400 lunch,I have 700-900 for dinner and snacks. So that's what I do. On a day with no exercise, it can mean I struggle a little to get something I really want for dinner, especially if I've had snacks. But normally it works out OK.

Can you do something similar - "portion out" your days allowance to help ensure you have enough left for the end of the day?

Oh, and if I do end up a little short, a 30 minute brisk walk normally gains me a little wriggle room without feeling too much like hard work

Out of cals by 5pm go bowling, walking, dancing,visit the gym workout at home then you can have something healthy before bed without worrying :-)

It's still better to eat something healthy and go over rather than not and binge later. I learned this the hard way. Or fill up on zero calorie foods, which I have incorporated into my daily diet (foods that take more calories to digest than they are worth).

Do you have any Jillian Michael's videos? You can pop one in for half hour and burn 200 cal...200 cal will get you a bowl of black beans with mango salsa...yum! LOL

when you are out of calories and it's only 5pm... you have a decision to make.

Suck it up and achieve your goals, sure you may go to bed hungry one night but it's a good lesson in self control.

Or cave in and realize why you are still trying to figure out how to lose weight.

Or my favorite option- go do a workout and earn a few calories back. You'll feel better only eating what you earn, and you'll be more likely to eat a better snack/meal than you would have if you just caved in.

nuts and dried fruit are a relatively small calorie hit about 100-200 and are very filling and add Protein and Carbs plus essential fats.

At 820 calories per cup, you and I must have differing opinions about what a filling portion of almonds looks like.

if there's sweets around, i just dont have any lol. but i guess it's easy for me because im scared of that stuff. i kill sugar cravings with oatmeal or fruit. i usually have 100 or more cals left over at the end of the day that i never use. it also helps to just not buy junk and sweets and u wont have to worry about it.

I make a big pan of "sauted' (with sprayed olive oil) vegetables and mushrooms -- hardly any calories -- and add whatever amount of protein that I have calorie-allowance room for.

Great idea!!!