Does eating same foods every day help?

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  • xmichaelyx
    xmichaelyx Posts: 883 Member
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    I've spent most of my adult life eating roughly the same things every weekday for months at a time. It makes shopping and cooking easier, and tends to be cheap because I can buy in bulk. It also allows me to cook TONS of food all at once and freeze it in individual containers, saving lots of time overall.

    It makes it very easy to control calories with minimal thought whether I'm cutting, bulking, or maintaining.
  • Kamikazeflutterby
    Kamikazeflutterby Posts: 775 Member
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    I eat the same breakfast on weekdays. It's easy, fast, boring, and filling. Lunch varies, but will usually be the same thing for 2-5 days in a row. Lunch is repeated more so I can eat up things I make that my family doesn't like or is tired of eating. This week it is a simplified, lower cal version of this asparagus mushroom galette with either eggs or protein powder. I probably won't want to see the galette for another month by Saturday, but for now it is delicious. No matter what I try to keep lunch around 350 calories so I have a lot for dinner. Dinner with the family is where I get my variety and spend the most calories.
  • dopeysmelly
    dopeysmelly Posts: 1,390 Member
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    I eat the same basic thing but with small variations depending on what's seasonal. So breakfast is oatmeal with a tablespoon of ground flaxseed and a few nuts and a pile of fruit - the fruit varies depending on what's available. Lunch is usually whatever soup I've made in a batch at the weekend, with a handful of seeds, some bread and cooked veggies/rice and fruit. Dinner is more varied and depends on what leftovers are in the fridge and how much time I have, but something like pasta with veggies, beans/lentils, tofu etc. is pretty standard.

    It means I don't really have to think and I know I'm getting enough iron, calcium etc. and staying more-or-less within calories. Weekends are much less structured, but if I eat too much at the weekend, I might skip a meal to make up.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
    edited June 2016
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    I don't eat exactly the same things day after day; variety is key to success for me. I don't track anymore, just log in a spreadsheet, but did the same when I tracked. I have some rough templates for each meal; for me, this is enough to maintain a stable weight.

    My dinners have themes for each day of the week, and rotate in 12+1 week cycles, so that most days will have simple protein+carb+veg dinners, one dinner per week is something new/different, I force myself to not follow the plan one week every quarter, and some recipes are used only four times per year. This gives me predictability and stability, as well as variety, and encourages flexibility.

    I buy non-perishables in bulk, portion and freeze meat and fish, and buy fresh fruit and vegetables in as small amounts as I can, twice a week, or however long it takes me to eat it up, then I buy something else in the same category. Meal planning, cooking, waste reduction, health, enjoying good food, all go hand in hand.
  • BillMcKay1
    BillMcKay1 Posts: 315 Member
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    I eat pretty much the same breakfast and lunch and then rotate through a couple dinners both my wife and I like. Mostly for convenience. It is just easy to once a week grill up enough chicken breasts for lunches and a few dinners rather than every morning try and figure out what I want to make for lunch.

    A little bit because I am a creature of habit, both good and bad.
  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 4,997 Member
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    I tend to eat the same things a lot. But I have always done that it doesn't really have anything to do with logging. Although it does make logging easier. I guess I'm just a creature of habit. I especially have a couple of breakfasts and a couple of lunches that I rotate through. Dinner I mix up a little more but I still think we end up eating the same few meals over and over.
  • feisty_bucket
    feisty_bucket Posts: 1,047 Member
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    I eat mostly the same stuff. That's because at some point I sat there looking up food stats, plugging things into my spreadsheet, and experimenting with combos. Which is a PITA, but once done it makes good eating _very_ easy and mindless.
  • FitFunLosAngeles
    FitFunLosAngeles Posts: 36 Member
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    fittestpal wrote: »
    Honestly i just use MFP to calculate my food for the week and eat the same thing so i know what I'm eating and it frees up my time

    The simplicity of this somehow really got through to me. THANK YOU!
    Sometimes I make things a lot harder than they need to be!
  • CrabNebula
    CrabNebula Posts: 1,119 Member
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    Yes, it helps. I may eat the same things for my work breakfast and/or lunch for weeks or months on end. I don't have to worry about missing anything in my calorie counts because I know I didn't eat anything outside the box at work. I save variety for dinner (usually some 15 meal rotation where I know the cals), but even then, we may eat the same thing 2-3 times in a row because we both work full-time and don't feel like making meals from scratch every single night.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    Yes it would be easier. I'd be tired of it after 2 days though. I'm a foodie. I need variety.
  • FitFunLosAngeles
    FitFunLosAngeles Posts: 36 Member
    edited June 2016
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    Francl27 wrote: »
    Yes it would be easier. I'd be tired of it after 2 days though. I'm a foodie. I need variety.

    I'm with you. Although I am utterly convinced from the above comments that eating the same foods every day would result in easier weight loss, I don't think I could sustain that for too long. As some of the above comments suggest, maybe the best solution for me is a happy medium between repetitive eating and a little variety now and then.
  • Timshel_
    Timshel_ Posts: 22,841 Member
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    FitFunLosAngeles wrote: »
    Does eating same foods every day help?

    I had links to a few studies about high success rates in "dieters" which did conclude that most with good success and continued compliance had steady, predictable meals. The idea is that you know portions and outcomes from food you frequently eat so it was easy to budget and make sure you were metting caloric goals.

    Looking at a few years of logging now, I generally have a dozen foods for each meal that I tend to eat. Like for breakfast I always always have oatmeal or bagel and coffee, with little variation except on Saturday or Sunday morning. I just know what I am eating and the calories.

  • fishshark
    fishshark Posts: 1,886 Member
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    i will get the motivation to eat the same things.. even if its my favorite meal and i somehow cant do it. I need to break it up. Im not a good candidate for meal prep.
  • kommodevaran
    kommodevaran Posts: 17,890 Member
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    My impression is that people who say they eat a lot of different things and people who say they mainly eat the same things over and over, have the same amount/degree of variety. We humans like the freedom of choice, but usually stick to our favorites.
  • distinctlybeautiful
    distinctlybeautiful Posts: 1,041 Member
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    I'm a vegetarian who relies heavily on dairy for my protein, so yeah, I eat a lot of the same things on a daily basis. I might be able to get creative and come up with other ways to get my protein, but I'm not tired of it. So yeah, I suppose it helps me because I can hit my goals without a lot of fussing or planning. I like to change things up too, but my staples are my staples.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
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    We are mostly creatures of habit so if you find you are eating similar foods day in, day out now and staying at a weight you're happy with/or still losing, thats generally a good thing :smile: It can become boring though so its nice to have a mix of different foods so that doesn't happen.
    I eat same breakfast every day, (poached egg/toast) but my lunch and dinners will always vary.

    My calories per day per meal however don't vary much, 500 breakfast +mid morning snack / 500 cals lunch/ 650-800 cals dinner/ 400 cals snacks. I don't even have to log my meals any longer as I know instinctively how much I'm eating.
  • WarningTheHermit
    WarningTheHermit Posts: 18 Member
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    I'm not sure what the rules are for this forum, some others tell you to search for older posts, some get mad at you for bumping old posts, so guess we'll findout after this message.

    So I'm kind of picky, well, I'd say pretty picky. When it comes to healthy things like vegetables there's really only a few that I actually enjoy eating, ( broccoli carrots and cauliflour) is there any downside to eating a large amount of these? I know carrots turning your skin orange but that takes a LOT of carrots supposedly? I'll switch it up if I need to, this is just what I've been eating currently when something calls for veggies.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    WarningTheHermit wrote: »
    I'm not sure what the rules are for this forum, some others tell you to search for older posts, some get mad at you for bumping old posts, so guess we'll findout after this message.

    So I'm kind of picky, well, I'd say pretty picky. When it comes to healthy things like vegetables there's really only a few that I actually enjoy eating, ( broccoli carrots and cauliflour) is there any downside to eating a large amount of these? I know carrots turning your skin orange but that takes a LOT of carrots supposedly? I'll switch it up if I need to, this is just what I've been eating currently when something calls for veggies.

    It is not against the rules to bump old posts here. Some people may get annoyed at it, but that's their individual response. You're always going to be annoying someone or other in life, right? :)
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
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    For me It just makes life easier. It takes me hardly anytime at all to pack my lunch and snacks because it’s the same thing most days. I open my fridge and know exactly what things to pull out and which Tupperware containers I need lol. Logging is also easy because I can just click “copy yesterday”. I tend to get on kicks where I’m really into something, I’ll eat it every day for a long time, then get sick of it.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,967 Member
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    Woo, dang. Old post lol. Oh well.

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