Diet Plan

You don't need a specific diet plan, you need to eat within your caloric allotment. Try pre-logging your days.

I don't know what it means (what's 1 Protein?), and it sounds unnecessarily rigid to me, but I basically hate all diet plans.

I do think it's helpful to have an internal idea of how you like to eat and for me that means ideas about balanced meals that might end up kind of similar to that diet plan--I try to include protein and veggies in all my meals (I have 3), and then usually include some kind of fruit or starch/grain or extra veggie or dairy also (or a couple of these), depending on the total calories I'm going for and what I've had during the rest of the day.

One way to develop your own sense of a way of eating that feels intuitive and works for you is by logging what you've been eating and figuring out what is working and what isn't--what you might want to have more of and what you could probably cut. For me, I ate pretty well at meals, but could do with more protein, so I changed around my lunch and breakfast some, and I tended to eat worse when snacking, and wasn't really eating for hunger anyway, so I largely eliminated/reduced snacking. Other people will have other things that worked.

jonquilnash1 wrote: »

lemurcat12- that's awesome advice, thank you.
apparitions- it gives an example of low calorie salad dressing but i assumed any kind of seasoning.

Hmmm.. the difference is that condiments will come in all sorts of different caloric values. Salad dressing will be different than say, ketchup, or mayo (even light versions). If your talking seasoning as in spices or herbs, they will have very little calories at all. So really, you need to log everything (accurately) to see the differences.

I can see why you find it appealing to follow a diet plan if you have no idea where to start, but it could actually be less sustainable if you find it restrictive-- especially if this is not at all how you eat right now. I would try for now to log what you would normally eat, just in smaller portions to stay within your calorie goals. Then you can slowly try to monitor your macros and add/replace foods that will help your diet become more balanced.