Is this too much for a person trying to loose???

My only advice is to have an exit plan from your weight loss plan. Most agree including experts, that you should eat how you lost your weight. Thats why calorie counting works for me. I know how many calories I can eat to lose and I know how many I can eat to maintain my weight loss which is the end goal right?

Learn from where I failed in the past...start thinking of maintenance from the very start. Pick an eating plan that is sustainable.

Best!

Do you like eating 5 meals/day?
Do you like these foods?
Would you eat this exact same thing every day or vary it?

Weight loss comes down to a calorie deficit, not to the specific foods you are eating. Choosing a reasonable calorie target, appropriate for the amount of weight you have to lose is the first step. MFP will do that for you.

Once you have that, then figure out what foods you want to eat within that calorie target. Focus on foods that provide nutrition (macro and micronutrients), satiety (fill you up) and enjoyment (keeps you motivated).

Do the foods that your friend suggested fit those criteria? If yes, plug them in and see how they fill up your day calorie wise. If not, find some that do...

You're not failing if you don't give up!

You'll have to tweak things as you go. When I started I thought I had to eat breakfast after learning I don't have to I started eating a brunch and dinner. I played with my macros and found a protein/carb/fat with each meal helps keep me satisfied.

Just keep plugging away and tweak things here and there to see what works for you. As long as your logging accuraterly and staying within your calorie goal, you will lose just not as fast or in a straight line down:).

Start by eating your normal foods within your calorie goal. Then tweak from there.

CassieP16 wrote: »

Yes, I am aware what MFP has given me as a goal. I spoke to him and he showed me a woman he got from almost 300lbs down to 146lbs. So I said give me a plan. And this is what he found me. So I was just curious, it seemed like a lot of food. I am not trying to make this hard. I am sorry.

No worries! You can eat this food, enter it into the MFP diary, and see how it compares to the goal it gave you.
If you do it this way, it's important to know your TDEE. Which I'm going to get from the site I linked below.

Option one: Little to no exercise = 1977 calories a day to maintain your current weight.
Option two: 1-3 hours per week of light exercise (which is what I found better represents myself even though I don't exercise and have an office job) = 2265 calories to maintain your current weight.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

When you enter the food plan your friend gave you into MFP, if the calories it equals is less than your TDEE, then you can expect to lose weight (assuming you entered everything carefully and correctly). The lower it is compared to TDEE, the faster you'll lose. I wouldn't go any lower than 1200-1300 a day if I were you. (Note also your TDEE will slowly reduce as you lose weight so it's a good idea to check the numbers every 5-10 lbs or so).

Another key thing to decide for yourself is if you can see yourself eating food like that for the rest of your life. It would be a shame to work so hard to lose weight eating this way and then when reaching your goal weight, go back to eating how you actually want to eat. That's usually why people see weight regain. So if it were me, I would choose to eat foods I could eat my whole life easily even while eating less than my TDEE (which for me includes a lot of eating out). I might make a few adjustments like reducing treats and high calorie beverages.

The list of food he gave you has lots of higher protein foods, which is good (helps people feel fuller). I know for myself that I need plenty of fat in my diet to feel full as well. As well as some fibre. However, you mentioned he looked up this list. If so, it may not account for your height, age, or gender. It might be too generic.

Also, do you want to eat 6 meals a day? There's really no proof the 6 meals are better than 3. So again, you can try it and if it helps you feel full and helps you feel like you'll succeed, then that's the right path. But if you find it tedious or if you miss "feeling stuffed" (I personally like to feel fairly stuffed once a day so I eat 3 meals, with dinner being my biggest meal), then maybe 6 meals a day isn't right for you.

Feel free to experiment though. It's your body and you won't know what you like till you try. This is a great time to learn to cook if you don't already and to try new foods and expand your pallet.

Look_Its_Kriss wrote: »

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

Do you like cooking that often? Five hot meals a day is a lot of time spent in the kitchen. Is that sustainable long term?

meal prep is wonderful

The crock pot and the freezer is also wonderful. I cook a couple of times a week and have plenty of home cooked meals in the freezer for times that I don't feel like cooking.

CassieP16 wrote: »

Yes, I am aware what MFP has given me as a goal. I spoke to him and he showed me a woman he got from almost 300lbs down to 146lbs. So I said give me a plan. And this is what he found me. So I was just curious, it seemed like a lot of food. I am not trying to make this hard. I am sorry.

Do you really want to eat these same foods for the rest of your life? Would you rather learn how to eat the food you usually eat in smaller quantities while increasing nutritionally rich foods all at an appropriate calorie amount for you? I ask because I look at that list of food, and while it might be ok for a day or so, it would get old really quickly. For me the shear number of meals, all so small would leave me feeling hungry all the time. Not knowing the number of calories, we cannot answer your question. Put it in the food diary and see what comes out.