How the heck do you eat 1600 calories a day??
grimmc603
Posts: 16 Member
I'm not an eater, but surprisingly I'm overweight. I struggle eating more than 1200 calories, and the days I workout I eat less than that. Didn't notice this trend until I started to track my calories. The only thing that I have time to cook is a quick dinner. Any suggestions on grab and go food that will pack a larger calorie count without all the sugar and carbs (gluten-free as well) ?
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Replies
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At some point you must have consumed excessive calories consistently to become overweight, it doesn't just happen by accident.
Have you completely changed your eating habits and food/drinks consumed since you started to try and lose weight?42 -
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I find eating 1600 calories a day pretty darn easy. My diary is open.23
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Funny, 1600 is about the minimum I can eat without feeling like I'm starving32
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Are you weighing food?13
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I often eat less than that (at high levels of activity). Sometimes I don't even lose weight when I'm eating that low. But looking back, sometimes I'm not logging very precisely.
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I struggled with restrictive eating a few years back and averaged 1,400-1,600 calories a day. now I can't imagine eating less than 2,500
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Some suggestions -
Breakfast: egg salad made with 2 whole eggs and 1/4 cup mayo. Stir in some crumbled bacon if you want. Make it ahead and keep it in the fridge. If you're avoiding starches, eat it on lettuce leaves instead of a slice of bread or crackers. Coffee with cream or a full fat matcha latte.
Lunch: Some combination of the following - A cup of full fat yogurt. A piece of fruit such as an apple or banana spread with 2 T almond or peanut butter. Pre portioned vegetable sticks and hummus made with plenty of olive oil. A large vegetable salad with grilled chicken and full fat dressing (you can either make this salad or purchase it at almost any grocery store). A can of lentil or black bean soup. Tuna salad.
Dinner: 4-6 ounces of bake salmon with 2-3 vegetable portions (steamed, roasted, etc) drizzled with butter or olive oil. If you're still eating some starches, serve with rice or beans or pasta or quinoa. You can buy big bags of wild caught salmon and frozen vegetables at Trader Joe's or Walmart for reasonable prices. Just pull them out and cook. Same goes for the starch...premade rice or quinoa dishes.
Fats such as butter, oil, mayo, peanut butter, etc have about 90-120 calories per tablespoon so they're a great way to get your calories up without adding much volume.7 -
I honestly do not understand these dilemmas.77
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Ice cream.11
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »At some point you must have consumed excessive calories consistently to become overweight, it doesn't just happen by accident.
Have you completely changed your eating habits and food/drinks consumed since you started to try and lose weight?
This. If you have changed the habits, what are you doing differently?4 -
I'm not an eater, but surprisingly I'm overweight. I struggle eating more than 1200 calories, and the days I workout I eat less than that. Didn't notice this trend until I started to track my calories. The only thing that I have time to cook is a quick dinner. Any suggestions on grab and go food that will pack a larger calorie count without all the sugar and carbs (gluten-free as well) ?
Nuts.4 -
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Tried30UserNames wrote: »Some suggestions -
Breakfast: egg salad made with 2 whole eggs and 1/4 cup mayo. Stir in some crumbled bacon if you want. Make it ahead and keep it in the fridge. If you're avoiding starches, eat it on lettuce leaves instead of a slice of bread or crackers. Coffee with cream or a full fat matcha latte.
Lunch: Some combination of the following - A cup of full fat yogurt. A piece of fruit such as an apple or banana spread with 2 T almond or peanut butter. Pre portioned vegetable sticks and hummus made with plenty of olive oil. A large vegetable salad with grilled chicken and full fat dressing (you can either make this salad or purchase it at almost any grocery store). A can of lentil or black bean soup. Tuna salad.
Dinner: 4-6 ounces of bake salmon with 2-3 vegetable portions (steamed, roasted, etc) drizzled with butter or olive oil. If you're still eating some starches, serve with rice or beans or pasta or quinoa. You can buy big bags of wild caught salmon and frozen vegetables at Trader Joe's or Walmart for reasonable prices. Just pull them out and cook. Same goes for the starch...premade rice or quinoa dishes.
Fats such as butter, oil, mayo, peanut butter, etc have about 90-120 calories per tablespoon so they're a great way to get your calories up without adding much volume.
Thank you so much for giving me these ideas. Some people just don't know how hard it is to try and change everything you've always done. I really appreciate it.4 -
Who said you had to only eat "healthy" food? What do you think "healthy" means?
There are plenty of calorie dense "healthy" foods (in my opinion of healthy) if that's all you want to eat.9 -
There are healthy foods that have plenty of calories. My dinner last night was i think 700 or 800 calories and pretty healthy in my opinion. 6 oz grilled chicken, half a cup of homemade pasta salad with cherry tomatoes and cucumbers and more, baked potato with butter and sour cream, green beans, and a roll with butter. Lots of calories there.
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leanitup123 wrote: »I struggled with restrictive eating a few years back and averaged 1,400-1,600 calories a day. now I can't imagine eating less than 2,500
Who would of ever thought eating enough would become my biggest problem! Lol. Hoping to get there soon.0 -
I used to find hitting 1200 calories hard, mainly because I had become scared of eating much of anything. It takes time to get over that feeling (some dont experience it). 1690ish is what I am currently eating now. You can add nuts, butter, oil to hit the weight. My diary is open if you need "inspiration".
ETA: I just saw your gluten free and low carb requirement. I'm not sure what I eat will help you then lol. Good luck though, whatever you cook for dinner, maybe start cooking more of it? when you make a salad (if you do) make your own dressing and have some olive oil in it. A tbsp of olive oil is 120 calories or so.3 -
Unless you're four feet tall, there's no way you can struggle to get over 1,200 calories per day and be overweight. You may not be measuring/logging accurately.15
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Be carefully you aren't conflating low calorie with healthy. People starting a diet often do. People tend to cut out perfectly healthy food because of calorie content. Just because something is low cal doesn't make it automatically healthy.
I often see people who can't reach their calorie goal using low fat or low calorie versions of food. You can easily add a few extra calories by going with the full version. Yogurt and other dairy, salad dressings are a couple of examples. Egg whites instead of the whole egg is another thing I see. Eat the whole egg.
Add some nuts or nut butter. Avocado. Olive oil. Etc.8 -
Wait until you get that food scale. I was convinced I was eating 1,200 a day and then I found out how tiny 100g of ANYTHING actually is!! I was eating more than double what i thought I was eating.
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Hmmm, it makes me wonder how accurate is your logging... if you're overweight, there had to be a surplus somewhere to get there.7
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »At some point you must have consumed excessive calories consistently to become overweight, it doesn't just happen by accident.
Have you completely changed your eating habits and food/drinks consumed since you started to try and lose weight?
Liquid drinks ( Starbucks, Soda ) were my downfall. Also, I was recently diagnosed with a debilitating disease. So exercise was none existent for the last year. I used to go all day without eating except for dinner. Or I would grab chips or something throughout the day. Dinner was my meal, and that consisted of a meat, veggie and starch. Now I only drink tea or water, no processed foods, and no unnatural sweets like candy and ect. So, someone whose never been an all day eater trying to do this right, and trying to eat 1600 calories a day is frustrating.1 -
livingleanlivingclean wrote: »At some point you must have consumed excessive calories consistently to become overweight, it doesn't just happen by accident.
Have you completely changed your eating habits and food/drinks consumed since you started to try and lose weight?
Liquid drinks ( Starbucks, Soda ) were my downfall. Also, I was recently diagnosed with a debilitating disease. So exercise was none existent for the last year. I used to go all day without eating except for dinner. Or I would grab chips or something throughout the day. Dinner was my meal, and that consisted of a meat, veggie and starch. Now I only drink tea or water, no processed foods, and no unnatural sweets like candy and ect. So, someone whose never been an all day eater trying to do this right, and trying to eat 1600 calories a day is frustrating.
My dinners routinely come in around 1600 calories.
Unless you have a medical prohibition, there's no reason to not have a large dinner. If IF is your habitual/Natural eating pattern, just go with it.1 -
livingleanlivingclean wrote: »At some point you must have consumed excessive calories consistently to become overweight, it doesn't just happen by accident.
Have you completely changed your eating habits and food/drinks consumed since you started to try and lose weight?
Liquid drinks ( Starbucks, Soda ) were my downfall. Also, I was recently diagnosed with a debilitating disease. So exercise was none existent for the last year. I used to go all day without eating except for dinner. Or I would grab chips or something throughout the day. Dinner was my meal, and that consisted of a meat, veggie and starch. Now I only drink tea or water, no processed foods, and no unnatural sweets like candy and ect. So, someone whose never been an all day eater trying to do this right, and trying to eat 1600 calories a day is frustrating.
I eat about the same calories in 1 large meal and 2 smaller meals (late lunch and dessert). It's not hard....0 -
I agree with mskimee. You can't really log your food accurately unless you weigh your food. Then when understand the right portions, you can adjust your intake to balance everything out1
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You ARE "an eater" or you would be dead.
In fact, you apparently eat more than your body needs often enough that you are carrying more body fat than necessary.
You are not tracking properly and consistently. It is CI:CO -math-.9
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