Breakfast

Nothing wrong with Cheerios and banana if you like them and they fit your goals. There's no magic foods - eat what you like that fits your goals.

I would have some protein and/or fats with those carbs. Protein and fat help with satiety. As long as you maintain a calorie deficit you will lose. I would recommend weighing what you eat and log everything you consume.

Mhari2015 wrote: »

I get that. I am scared at some point my weight will be at a standstill. I know there is not fast solution and I understand that this will take years. I feel that because if I am not eating enough in the morning it will need to stay in my system for longer if you get what I am saying

I'm not sure I get what you're saying, and with all due respect, I'm not sure you do. I think you've just absorbed random ideas from people or websites or magazine articles that didn't know what they were talking about or were just saying things to sell stuff or attract eyeballs.

If you're not eating enough in the morning, it's not going to stay in your system longer. If you don't put enough gas in your car for your drive across the desert with no gas stations for 500 miles, would you expect the gas to stay in your longer?

I'm not sure what you mean by "need" to stay in your system for longer, so if that adds some meaning to the sentence that I'm missing, please explain.

Your weight will hit a standstill long-term when the calories you're consuming are equal to the calories you're expending. If 1600 calories are a deficit for you now, they should remain a deficit for you until you've lost enough weight, reduced your activity, lost significant amounts of lean body mass (which almost certainly will be a subset of losing lots of weight overall), or had body parts amputated to bring the calories you use down to 1600.

If 1600 creates a really large deficit for you, more than your fat reserves can keep up with, you could screw up your hormones, which might affect calorie expenditure, and/or your body could conserve calories by using fewer calories for menstrual cycles, immune system, and maintaining lean mass (not just muscles, but hair, bones, and organs, including skin), but that's not a likely scenario for most females on 1600, unless you're extremely active or an athlete in training. If you start having these kinds of issues, you need to see a doctor, and you should eat more to let your body fix the damage you've done.

Your weight can hit a standstill in the short term if normal fluctuations and the effects of water retention (caused by reproductive system hormones,stress hormones, other hormones, sodium consumption, the body's need for water for muscle repair after a new or increased work load, or for glcyogen storage after a relatively larger meal or carb-heavy meal) and the weight of food in your digestive tract are large enough to mask the effects of body mass loss due to your calorie deficit. In that case you need to be patient.

You can also hit a standstill due to some combination of eating more than you think you are (solution: tighten up your logging and get a food scale if you don't have one) or using a method of counting your exercise calories that overestimates them (solution: try only counting 50% of your exercise calories).

When you eat Cheerios and a bananas, does it keep you from getting hungry until your next planned meal or snack?Do you get enough protein and fat overall (through your entire day)? If yes to both, you don't need to change your breakfast to " have something that will help me through the day."

If you have to leave early, and need to eat but would like other options, consider things like HB eggs, or frittata/egg "muffins", or yoghurt with fruit/nuts, or smoothies with protein and fats incorporated.... Things that can be prepared in bulk in advance, or quickly.

I've even used protein shakes as milk for cereal to increase the protein content.

I used to eat a huge fruit salad for breakfast every day. However it took so long to eat such a big volume of food! I had to get up earlier to make sure I hate time to eat it all before rushing off to work. Then I got terrible stomach aches on the train every morning.

I switched to having weetabix with some strawberries. I'm so much happier for it (and still losing weight). Do what works for you! Some people skip breakfast all together and there's nothing wrong with that. Personal trainers aren't nutritionists. It's good to get their advice, just bare in mind that it comes from their personal experience, what they've heard from other people, and what they've read on the internet.

Mhari2015 wrote: »

He is a nutritionist too

The title of "nutritionist" isn't regulated - many get their qualifications out of a cereal packet (or paleo granola bag)... Unless you know he has decent qualifications in nutrition, I'd be talking his recommendations with a pinch of salt..

I eat cereal for breakfast because I enjoy it. I usually eat the special k protein cereal because it's hard for me to meet my protein goals for the day if I eat something like cheerios. But I have days where I eat Frosted Flakes or something ridiculous just because I want to.

I eat about 1450 calories a day (plus some exercise calories) but I'm short and in a healthy weight range (125 and 5'2.5") just trying to take off a few more vanity pounds. When I was obese I ate more to lose weight. I needed my weight loss to be sustainable since I had a lot to lose. So 1400 may be fine for you depending on your weight/height/goals. But if you have a lot of weight to lose, 1400 may be too aggressive.

I don't typically have breakfast but today for example, I went out with my bf and had a huge Sunday breakfast. If it fits your daily goal you can do whatever you wish. Think of calories as dollars in your bank account. You can spend the money on what you wish but don't put things in credit. If you spend more than you get you will need to pay that back eventually