How to Eat Up to Goal Calories without Eating Unhealthy Food

lua0210
lua0210 Posts: 7
edited September 26 in Health and Weight Loss
I'm 5'2'', 111 lbs, and so to lose a pound a week the recommendation for me was 1200 calories a day. This is fine, and I can eat that much, it's just that I also work out everyday with my school's cycling team, which creates a pretty sizable amount of extra calories I can eat (usually anywhere from 300-1000, the high end being two+ hours at 14-16 mph).

I've seen all over the place that's it's not healthy and actually may be detrimental to my efforts to eat less than 1200 net calories a day, but with a relatively healthy diet (I eat lots of fruits and veggies, but also some trader joe's dark chocolate covered stuff for snacks) I'm having trouble getting up to the 1200 net calories.

Right now I'm eating about a 150 cal breakfast (school, so I don't really have that much time to eat in the morning), a 300 cal lunch, a 150 cal snack before practice, 500-600 calories at dinner, and another 150 cal snack during study hall (boarding high school)

How do you recommend I space out my meals to get everything in, because right now I feel like I'm eating pretty balanced and well, actually keeping myself full and losing weight, and I don't want to load on high calorie foods, but I don't want to get into the "starvation mode" and there are lots of scary articles that I've found on this site about hitting a plateau that I won't be able to get out of if I don't eat more than 1200 net calories a day.

Replies

  • ruststar
    ruststar Posts: 489 Member
    You might start with breakfast to help fuel you for the rest of the day. A serving of peanut butter will give you 200 calories as well as protein, and isn't too hard to add in at breakfast time. You might also up your snacks to give you more to work with - an extra handful of nuts, string cheese. I'm not sure what your limits are for carbs, but my understanding is you need carbs for exercise, so you might add in some complex carbs.
  • Nikstergirl
    Nikstergirl Posts: 1,549 Member
    You can always add nuts, almonds are especially good, yogurt, granola, or cereal, milk... those sorts of things would help fill in the calorie gaps but are also healthy and full of protein and good carbs!
  • donicagalek
    donicagalek Posts: 526
    facebook_farmville_freak_peanut_butter_jelly_time_fun.jpg

    Sounds like it's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8MDNFaGfT4
  • lua0210
    lua0210 Posts: 7
    Thanks! I'll try to eat some more nuts and peanut butter, I just don't like how peanut butter sticks to my mouth so I never thought of eating it straight. And I love that it's passover so at meals at school there's matza that I can make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with instead of regular bread so I'm definitely doing that.
    I eat a pretty carb-filled diet, I try to get some sort of bread or pasta or potato or corn or something at every lunch and dinner, I'm just a picky eater and so since I only like whole-grains sometimes the dining hall isn't serving them and I miss out, but I have trader joe's freeze dried strawberries in my room.
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