Pescetarian struggles

nvargas
nvargas Posts: 4
edited September 26 in Food and Nutrition
I have been just recently following a mainly vegetarian diet with seafood, and I am trying to find recommendations on a 1100cal/day diet. It's hard because there are so many recipes and menus out there, but I haven't found one that is pescetarian friendly. I am also trying to limit carb intake, and while I enjoy eating vegetarian food, I also need variety in my diet, which is usually achieved by eating seafood, so I really need your help with this!!
If you have any resources and have found something that works, please, please post a reply. I would like to find a sample menu around that calorie range and would also welcome any other advice with this type of nutrition to achieve weight loss.

thank you!!

Replies

  • believetoachieve
    believetoachieve Posts: 675 Member
    Just a head's up.. 1100 calories a day won't lead to long-term weight loss for most people, especially if you're active/exercising! That's simply too few to sustain your metabolism in a happy zone. Try upping it just a little :flowerforyou:
  • I agree with believe, if you are doing any kind of exercise 1100 calories isn't sustainable. Try bringing it up to 1400 and adding a couple hundred calories of exercise (an hour of walking will get you 200).

    This is a great link on how to calculate about how many calories you need in a day:
    http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-How-Many-Calories-You-Need-to-Eat-to-Lose-Weight
  • gratenni1
    gratenni1 Posts: 33 Member
    Hi there
    Just wanted to let you know about my sruggles with that type of eating. I did it for 3 years. It was not bad at first because you were able to get fresh fish. I started losing my energy so i had to add chicken. My strenght has come back. I was eating mostly salmon . How long have you been doing it? I thought that my cholestral would go down but it didnt. I hope that this does not discourage you.
  • KeriA
    KeriA Posts: 3,338 Member
    I am mostly posting because my son is pescatarian and so we do alot of cooking in this vane even though the rest of the family isn't. He really doesn't like alot of fish and we want to avoid too much mercury too. So we do alot of vegetarian cooking. So I am interested in seeing the responses. Always looking for ideas. I wish I had more dishes like my vegetarian chilli.
  • pinksherbert
    pinksherbert Posts: 38 Member
    Hi there - I call myself vegetarian, although I do eat fish and seafood. I dont have a problem with this - what do you find hard?

    My boyf is not vegetarian at all, but knows that the food I prepare is healthy and if he can get his dinner made for him, he's happy! I do buy him meat though and he will have that when I will have fish or a veggie option in its place - eg roast dinner he has meat & I have roast salmon.

    We also eat a fair amount of Quorn which is an excellent meat replacement - high in protein and low in fat.
    Our favourite meals include:
    Veggie chilli
    Quorn spag bol
    Pesto salmon, new potatoes, & broccoli
    Griddled tuna steak, 'salsa' and cous cous
    Prawns - in curries, stir fries, bbq...
    Quorn ragout with rice
    Bangers and mash (meat for him, Quorn for me) and onion gravy
    Veg curries
    Vegetable lasagne

    Nom, nom, nom - I am hungry now and its 2 hours til lunch!

    HTH

    x
  • TheGoktor
    TheGoktor Posts: 1,138 Member
    My partner and I have been variously vegetarian, vegan and demi-pescatarian (only shellfish with no brains!) for most of our lives, and we eat a great variety of foods. I'd be happy to share some recipes if anyone wants them. :smile:
  • krissybug72
    krissybug72 Posts: 35 Member
    I eat salmon burgers (love them), veggie burgers, and morningstar farms makes a veggie chick'n patty that is tasty. I eat salmon, tilapia, shrimp, crab, clams, flounder, and also the crab delights (this is cod) on salad. Louis Kemp makes the crab delights which are fish but not crab...I also eat pizza, egg whites, and hard boiled eggs for protein. For dinner I sautee a vegetable stir fry and dice up a piece of salmon, flounder, or tilapia in it. This is very tasty and the whole bag of veggies is low in calories. Also, I make tomato salad with diced mozzarella, balsamic vinegar, and hot peppers - yummy. Progresso has a light clam chowder and a southwestern vegetable that is tasty and easy for lunch also. I have been pescatarian for about 2 months now and I feel really good. Not bored yet and I haven't missed meat at all...
  • nvargas
    nvargas Posts: 4
    thank you so much for you ideas! I had no clue about Quorn. I will go to the store and try to find it, but you had some great ideas that do sound awesome. Like you, I have a husband who is a carnivore. He enjoys eating vegetarian once in a while, but I don't push him towards that. I do the same thing as you, I'd cook him a portion of chicken, and I would have fish.
    Anyway, thanks for the ideas!
  • nvargas
    nvargas Posts: 4
    wow! lots of ideas! thank you so much. I will def. try your ideas. I think Salmon burgers for dinner tonight! and the soups, thanks for telling me about that. I usually don't even go to that section in the grocery store because many soups have chicken/ meat products, so thank you! and hope you can continue with this diet as well. I feel a lot healthier since I started doing it, and not decrease in energy. After all, fish/seafood are great protein sources... Thanks for sharing!
  • darkhorse43
    darkhorse43 Posts: 70 Member
    I'm vegan so I can only really offer some good sources for vegan recipes. If you don't know about it check out http://blog.fatfreevegan.com Her recipes are great and mostly low cal. For a lot of interesting veggie recipes check out both the Veganomicon cookbook and Vegan Planet (I think there is also a Vegetarian Planet book).
  • mjslazak
    mjslazak Posts: 179 Member
    I eat primarily vegetarian, but my husband and I tend to have fish/seafood at least 2-3 meals in a week. We try to concentrate on fish that is as sustainable as possible, and I do a lot of broiling or grilling (of both fish & the veg). Lots of salmon (Trader Joe's, if you have them in your area, has some great salmon burgers without filler), white fish like cod, and shrimp (in stir fries, or in pasta like shrimp diavolo). Now that we're heading into spring, the grill will get more of a workout, and I'll be eating more grilled veg and veggie burgers (sans the bun).

    I tend to clip recipes from the paper or magazines (yoga journal has a lot of tasty vegetarian ones) or Cooking Light (online or in print), then add them to my recipe binder if it is a success. The Moosewood line of cookbooks also have some tasty recipes, and I've also gotten a bunch of them culled from Weight Watcher cookbooks (I like 10, 15, 20 Minute Meals particularly).

    After you cook for a while, I'm sure you'll find your inspiration and it becomes fun to try different spices and combinations!
  • scarletleavy
    scarletleavy Posts: 841 Member
    Go to foodgawker.com and search seafood as a category (or any other category, vegetarian, chicken, etc) and there are page after page of recipe links with pictures. This is how I usually plan my meals for the week. I check a few times a week and bookmark anything I think I want to try. When I'm making the grocery list I check through my bookmarks and see what I want. This way you can build up a store of recipes with ingredient lists that you can call upon when you're out of ideas.

    Also, check epicurious.com, can search specifically by seafood or type of seafood you want.
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