Food portions and meal times

If eating fruits and vegetables puts you out of a calorie deficit, you won't lose weight. Or if they crowd out other foods you need so you don't hit your overall nutritional goals, that could impact your health. So yes, it is possible to over-eat fruits and vegetables. But it would usually have to be a LOT of them.

I usually eat breakfast at 6:30 AM, lunch around noon, and dinner around 7:30 PM. I don't usually snack.

You can have one huge meal a day or 12+ tiny meals a day, whatever works for you. Overall calories are what's important for weight loss, not when you eat them.

Record everything that you eat and drink into your Food Diary. See how many calories you are using for fruits and veggies and decide if you'd rather use some of those calories for different foods.

You need to experiment over time to find what works for you.

It really depends on your own needs, that is why calorie counting is so powerful because it enables you to figure out what is right for you.

For me, I eat a fair amount because I'm pretty active and I like food. So I'm typically 1800-2100 kcals per day. I'll have a 500-600 kcal breakfast (4-6oz protein, 1/2 cup grain, and often some veggies, whole milk in my coffee). My lunch and dinner are also about 500 kcals, and I'll often have a 200 kcal snack in the afternoon and perhaps a treat after dinner such as ice cream. Meals are (ideally for me) about 1-2 cups of fruits & veggies, 4 oz protein, and 1/2 cup grain/starch.

It would be very hard to overdo it on vegetables... you MIGHT have problems if you use a lot of high calorie additions to veggies (e.g., fry them, put on a lot of butter or dressing), if you eat a ton of one specific veggie and don't have variety, or fill yourself up so much on low cal veggies that you don't really get enough of the other foods that you need too.

Also, I eat breakfast 7:30, lunch 12, and dinner around 5 (often later to accomodate social things, though) Snack in afternoon around 3, ideally I like to not eat after 7.

Hi everybody! I've spent four years now in and out of different nutrition programs and meeting tons of fabulous dietitians and nutritionists and I just thought I'd let them channel through me:
Bodies need consistent and sufficient intake in order to feel comfortable letting go of their energy stores (fat). This means eating 5-6 times a day, or 3 meals and 2-3 snacks. Rarely, some people find they work better eating more in less sittings or less in more sittings, but 99.99999% of the time that's the way to go!

Back to me:
They are SO right. I've worked with probably around 50 people who have beyond serious eating issues, ranging from overeating to anorexia to binge eating disorder to everything else. This template fits everybody because it's the healthy center line, and not one extreme or the other.

Fruits and vegetables are my absolute fav, so yeah, I've actually been told I eat too many! But really, it's about balance. And as the users above me said, log it. Log everything and it'll turn out okay. Even if you're atrociously over, log it, knowledge is power! For instance, if I choose to have some silly amount of carrots and bell pepper for snack I count those calories, and more importantly, the deficit between them and something like crackers. Maybe I chose more nutrient dense hummus to go with it, it depends.

Hope this helped!
Too often people forget they have to take care of their bodies in order to sustainably lose weight

janejellyroll wrote: »

If our body had to be "comfortable" to burn energy, nobody would ever starve to death. I wish it was true that one had to be consistently fed to lose weight -- if this was the case, human history would have much less tragedy and we would have an instant solution to a global problem.

Okay, maybe I wasn't clear enough, but what I meant was losing weight in a healthy manner... You do need a deficit, I just meant don't starve yourself.

Just eat less and exercise more. Does it every time.

janejellyroll wrote: »

If eating fruits and vegetables puts you out of a calorie deficit, you won't lose weight. Or if they crowd out other foods you need so you don't hit your overall nutritional goals, that could impact your health. So yes, it is possible to over-eat fruits and vegetables. But it would usually have to be a LOT of them.

This. I log everything, but don't worry about how many fruits and vegetables I eat (I eat a lot more vegetables than fruit, though). I focus on staying within my calories and getting enough protein, mostly, and try to eat both protein and vegetables with all meals. (If I weren't getting enough fiber I'd focus on that too.)

Meal timing doesn't matter -- it's personal choice/what helps you. However, I like seeing what others do too.

I usually have breakfast around 5:30, lunch around noon, a later afternoon snack around 5 (I skip this on non workout days), and dinner around 9. I often follow dinner immediately with a little ice cream or some other kind of extra (like some cheese or fruit).

I don't pay attention to serving sizes at all, but what I think appropriate calories.macros for my meal are and what looks like a good amount to me. I believe I had about 3.5 servings of vegetables with breakfast today.

My meal times are all over the place, yet somehow I have managed to lose more than 90 pounds and maintain for quite some time. There is no magical formula--do what works for you. I am pretty consistent about lunch, but everything else varies.

Generally, I have:
-medium-sized breakfast--between 7-10 AM
-large lunch--between 1-2 PM
-very small snack--between 5-6 PM (optional/not every day...depends on hunger and workouts)
-small dinner--9-10 PM

I drink coffee and (mostly herbal) tea all day.

I try to get 10+ servings of freggies/day (mostly non-starchy vegetables) and it hasn't killed me yet! Veggie consumption is kind of like water consumption in that you are unlikely to harm yourself unless you do something really extreme.

Track everything and see what works for you over time. You can use the notes box to keep track of your meal times if you want to see if that makes any difference for you.