What do YOU eat?

When I started on MFP I found I was eating too little during the day then being starving by evening. What I do now is try to have heathy but higher calorie protein based snacks during the day so I am not fainting in the evening. My favourite snack would be cashew nuts or almonds- weigh them as they are high in calories. I snack at 11am then 4pm on a normal work/school day.

Often times people switch to fat free milk, dressings, etc in an effort to lose weight. If you are well within your allotted calorie range, use the full day versions...they will leave you feeling more satisfied. Also make sure that you are consuming enough protein.

Agree with this. Don't try to go low-fat and you'll find it a lot easier to hit your calorie goal.

It can also help to plan the day in advance so that you can allot your calories more evenly throughout the day instead of facing a huge number late in the day.

Did you try to completely overhaul what you were eating? I'm confused on how you can be so far under when presumably you were eating over the 2000 calories a few days ago? Did you try to just manage portions of what you had been eating or did you change everything that you're eating?

I would encourage you to research different healthy recipes and find what works for you, your life and your schedule. Learn about lean proteins, healthy carbs and high fiber low sugar fruits and experiment to see what you like.

Cooking Light Magazine, Weight Watchers Magazine and Pinterest have healthy recipes that are tasty. There are also alot of cook books that say 5 ingredient healthy recipies or 20 min healthy recipes, which have been helpful to me.

In a "pinch" if I'm really low on time. I keep a couple of Atkins Frozen Meals in my freezer and I just add a healthy carb to them like .5 cup brown rice or couscous.

I am advocate of eating real food, and cooking and I also like meals I get tired of salad. So experiment! Baking, broiling sauteeing-all of these are healthy ways to prepare food.

For snacks I like greek yogurt, gala apples with a piece of cheese, or cottage cheese and fruit. I try to eat protein with everything. I try to eat 5 times a day so basically every three hours. If you don't satisfy your self eventually you are going to binge and have a set back.

I too am a emotional eater. Once you acknowledge that you can move forward. My faith helped me in that are. I learned to turn to God instead of food. What ever you need to do whether it's prayer, meditation, yoga whatever. Try to find a healthy way to destress to replace the emotional eating.

I hope this helps. Remember this is a process...enjoy the journey!!!! This is just the begginning :-)

Look I will speak for myself and I'm a man with 6,33 feet. I eat many times during the day. I will now focus on two breakfasts, one when I wake up, and another two hours after consisting of coffee, skim milk, cereals with fiber, protein in a supplement and some carbs. For lunch I eat a a large salad with some proteins like egg, tuna, cheese. In the afternoon I eat cereals and skim milk and a natural yogurt and I go cycling with some carb gel and isotonic drink. After drinking that I am not that hungry so I don't eat a lot, and I keep on loosing weight.

Don't drink sodas, don't eat fat cheese or greasy stuff, don't eat a lot, eat slowly, no alcohol, and plenty of water and sleep

I don't break foods down into categories of Good vs. Bad... I have a set number of calories I eat to daily, a macro ratio I am to hit as well and if I get there and have the calories for some ice cream, or cookies, or whatever I want then I just eat it.... Only food I won't eat is those things that I do not like..... Best of Luck

MFP has my calories at 2080 for the day.

I have a feeling that's not right. You'd have to be awfully tall to be 200 lb & in a healthy BMI range. (Over 6'4".)
Here's a blog post I did about goal setting, including weight & calories:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/MKEgal/view/setting-goals-667045

It includes links to several BMI resources, including this chart: http://www.shapeup.org/bmi/bmi6.pdf
Find a weight in the green range for your height & multiply it by 10 and you have your goal calories.
(My doctor uses that method, & says to ignore "net" calories.)
If you're very overweight, start by aiming for the highest healthy weight.
(Also, find your current calorie needs based on your weight, and don't subtract more than 1000 cal from that. But you'll have to adjust it down as you lose weight, until you get to the healthy weight goal calories.)

I'm having a hard time figuring out what to eat.

Healthy foods, preferably non-processed or minimally processed. The closer to nature the healthier they generally are.
One of the BMI resource links will also tell you how many servings of what food groups you should be eating.

If you want recipes, Taste of Home has good stuff, and they include nutrition info on many recipes.
http://www.tasteofhome.com/
Also, if you hover over "recipes" in their header bar, then move to the far right column, click on the top where it says "healthy recipes".

yesterday, I was 900 calories below what I was suppose to eat, and today I've already entered in my food for the day and it's saying I'm going to be close to 1,000 under. What can I do to get to my calorie goal or is eating under fine?

Don't go under 1200 calories unless you're supervised by a doctor.
That's not healthy.

Eat breakfast, and have about half your calories for breakfast.

"Breakfast is associated with lower body weight ...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24898236

This study compared eating a small breakfast, medium lunch, and large dinner, [200, 500, 700 cal]
with eating a large breakfast, medium lunch, and small dinner [700, 500, 200 cal].
"The [large breakfast] group showed greater weight loss and waist circumference reduction ... fasting glucose, insulin [&] triglycerides ... decreased significantly to a greater extent in the [large breakfast] group."
In addition, hunger was less and satiety was greater.
Abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23512957
Full text:
http://genetics.doctorsonly.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Jakubowicz-at-al-Obesity-2013-oby20460.pdf

"subjects assigned to high caloric intake during breakfast lost significantly more weight than those assigned to high caloric intake during the dinner"
Abstract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24467926
Full text: http://www.tradewindsports.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Nutrient-Timing-and-Obesity-2014.pdf

"data suggest that a low-calorie Mediterranean diet with a higher amount of calories in the first part of the day could establish a greater reduction in fat mass and improved insulin sensitivity than a typical daily diet."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24809437

I only ate and drank healthy stuff.

Like pizza, steaks, bacon cheesburgers, lots of ice cream, wine, diet mountain dew, and donuts. It wasnt easy but its a burden I had to bear in order to reach my goal.

ETA: What can you do to get food to fit into your goal? Thats a great question. First you need to figure out how much you need to intake in order to meet your goal. Then (looking at what I typed above) start looking at the kinds of foods and meals I like to eat. Start looking at the macro breakdown of those foods/meals and then figure out how you can piece them together so that they fit into your goals.

For example today I had 2 large meals.

Meal 1
Five Guys Bacon Cheeseburger and Fries - Combined this meal was 1,540 cals - 92g (f) - 118g (c) - 61g (p)

Meal 2
Subway - 12" Flatbread Sunrise Subway Melt - 920cals - 36g (f) - 90g (c) - 64g (f)
Starbucks - Caramel Light Frappacino Venti - 190cals - 0g (f) - 40g (c) - 5g (p)


I was over in my fat goal and under in my protein goal and I was 49 cals over but I really wanted some five guys today.

I dont eat like this every day, but its a way to still have all the things you like and still fit them in. I could have eaten just a 6" Sunrise Melt and had room for something else with 400 cals in it.

let's see i've pre-logged dinner and i'm currently at around 1500 of my 1700 calories.

i ate for breakfast homemade quiche with eggs (3 eggs per serving), cheese, veggies.

lunch was smoked salmon sandwich and blueberries.

dinner is going to be half a slab of ribs and a spinach salad and because i have 200 calories left i'll more than likely have some ice cream... talenti belgian chocolate

tomorrow i have planned the same breakfast with some fruit... lunch is going to be a BAST (bacon, avocado, spinach and tomato sandwich) with fruit .. dinner will be homemade pulled pork,rice and a salad... dessert will probably be greek yogurt with blueberry jam.

oh yeah i drank a lot of water but also a lot of diet dr. pepper.. tomorrow i'll be drinking a lot of diet mt dew since we get it free at work lol

I wouldn't recommend eating that far under your goal. Like others have mentioned, I'm curious if your goal calorie amount is accurate for you. I started this site at 262 lb, 5'8" female and sedentary activity level (I add in exercise as I go, and eat back some or all calories from that). I was set up to lose 1.5 lb per week. My calories were around 1700 at the beginning. Does that sound comparable to you?

Anyway...I eat whatever, really. I don't care about "clean" so much although I try to use common sense and don't eat 1400 calories of Quaker granola bars (eww anyway, those are awful tasting). My husband and I cook pretty healthy and limit our dining out to a couple of times per week. We buy fresh and frozen vegetables instead of canned. We pretty much don't eat crackers or chips (although I think those can fit into anyone's eating just fine...neither of us are big fans). We do fish for at least 2 meals most weeks, and eat TONS of veggies...we basically stick vegetables in EVERYTHING. Small amounts of rice, pasta, and bread. I don't eat a lot of meat, so I'm careful to get in plenty of eggs, Greek yogurt, lentils, nut butters, beans, etc. I have come to love breakfast foods and have been pleasantly surprised to realize that I can eat "crazy" breakfasts like pancakes, crepes, steel cut oats with fruit, eggs & veggie bacon or sausage...it feels like I am pigging out but it totally fits into my average of 1400-1500 daily calories. I love it. I also believe in frequent treats, in any given week I'll have a couple squares of dark chocolate AND go out for ice cream.

I basically follow the "if it fits your macros" type of eating style, I try not to go over on sodium and try to reach my protein goal if possible. I don't care AS much about sugar, fat, or carbs, but I definitely don't want those numbers way into the red, either. I stay under my calories every day, but usually just with 0-90 "leftover" calories. I consider that margin for error but I do not want to eat way under my calorie target as MFP has already factored in a deficit.

I just began my weight loss journey yesterday. MFP has my calories at 2080 for the day. I'm having a hard time figuring out what to eat. I've never paid much attention to what I was eating before so eating healthier is completely new to me. Also....yesterday, I was 900 calories below what I was suppose to eat, and today I've already entered in my food for the day and it's saying I'm going to be close to 1,000 under. What can I do to get to my calorie goal or is eating under fine? Thanks

I eat chicken, turkey, salmon, steak (occasionally), brown rice, nuts/seeds, olive oil, nut butters, fruits, and veggies.

Add high caloric foods such as nuts/seeds and nut butters. Even avocados.