How the heck do you eat 1600 calories a day??
Replies
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Eat more calorie dense foods.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10142490/a-list-of-calorie-dense-foods/p1
Start prelogging your food and you will see what will fit.
You don't have to avoid carbs, sugar, all processed foods or eat super low fat to have a healthy diet or lose weight. Weight loss is about calories not type of food.
You can find sample 1600 calorie meal plans online or look at other people's food diaries for ideas.
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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) ?
Nonsense. You didn't become overweight by struggling to eat more than 1200 calories. And if by some miracle you did, you will become more overweight if you eat 1600.
But to answer your question, foods higher fat will be higher in calories per volume. Nuts, nut butters, avocado, leave the skin on your chicken, cook your meals with butter or oil.12 -
It's ok to eat most or all of your calories at one meal. Just try to make sure that meal is relatively balanced. Some ways to add calories: Include a roll with butter, or a glass of milk. If it's too hard to get 1600 in one meal then add another large snack or meal. A smoothie with milk and yogurt and fruit maybe some protein powder can easily be another 300 calories. Nuts are a good high calorie snack. Bananas have 100 calories each.1
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Same here. One of the key reasons I do IF. I can hold off starting to eat and do a filling protein smoothie mid day but come dinner......0 -
Likely when you get a food scale and start tracking more accurately you'll see that you are eating more than 1200 and maybe even more than 1600. Problem will likely solve itself with possibly a few minor tweaks to your eating.7
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Fats are healthy
. Cook your veggies with olive oil or butter, add some avocado, eat more meat! Based on your descriptions that you tended to grab sugar loaded drinks in the past, and tended not to eat much food until dinner time, why not replace those sugary coffee drinks with a better version? Make a coffee protein powder smoothie for the morning to get a few hundred calories. It keeps your habits mostly intact for now, just in a "healthier" way. As time goes on, you may want to adjust, but that might be an easy place to start.
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I'm starving on 1600 calories4
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Ozeri Digital Scale is a really good one and less than 13 bucks.
Here's a typical day for me when I was doing 1600
Breakfast - Whole wheat english muffin (110 cal), Large Egg (70), cheese (50), 1/4 avocado (50) served with half an apple (350 total)
Lunch - Flatbread wrap (100), 2 tbsps peanut butter (190), 2 tbsps dried cranberries (70) (360 total)
Snack - 1 cup Nonfat greek yogurt (120 cal), 1 tbsp peanut butter (90), 2 tbsps walnuts (90), 100 grams strawberries (30) (330 total)
Dinner - Pork Tenderloin 4 oz (120), kale (30), roasted potatoes with peppers & onions (110), roasted brussel sprouts (60), 1 tbsp olive oil (120) (440 total)
Dessert - Sea Salt Caramel Halo Top (80)
Total for the day - 1560
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »
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.
This^
Ask 20 people what "healthy" is and you get 20 definitions. Should you try to improve your eating habits? Yes. Do your eating habits need to be perfect? Absolutely not.
Meet protein and fat goals. Try to get a decent amount of fiber. All things in moderation helps you learn portion control for all foods....not just "diet" foods.5 -
I actually wouldn't recommend changing everything you've always done, at least not right away. Try to make gradual changes or try to make the calorie allotment fit into the lifestyle and patterns you prefer. Change one or two things at a time.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.
If Starbucks drinks have been a major source of your calories in the past and you enjoy them, you can still decide to have a Starbucks drink for breakfast or lunch. Most of them are just milk, coffee and sugar. Milk is a good balanced source of nutrients, containing fat, protein and carbs. You might want to gradually cut back on the number of pumps of sugar they put in your drink or you may choose not to. You can choose whole milk or 2% or skim or almond milk, depending on your preference. I like a whole milk grande latte, but someone else might choose a skim sugar free mocha. Just plan it into your day. They have their calories listed on their website.
Or maybe you want to have the Starbucks for lunch, but add some protein or vegetables on the side, maybe a salad.
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I could never just eat 1600 calories. Specially on training days. Food is fuel and with not a lot of fuel your gunna run on empty. I always eat more on training days. Sugar is what makes you fat not fat we need fats in our body's to function properly. Ok I don't mean saturated fats but we need mono and poly fats. I say the more you train the more you can eat lol1
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I went out to breakfast with my wife this morning, just over 1300 calories. I imagine I won't have any problem hitting 1600 calories today.
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Sugar doesn't make you fat. A calorie surplus makes you fat. Whether it comes from sugar, kale, or lean protein is beside the point.11
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I could never just eat 1600 calories. Specially on training days. Food is fuel and with not a lot of fuel your gunna run on empty. I always eat more on training days. Sugar is what makes you fat not fat we need fats in our body's to function properly. Ok I don't mean saturated fats but we need mono and poly fats. I say the more you train the more you can eat lol
No, sugar is not what makes you fat. Completely false. A calorie surplus is what makes you fat.
As an aside, guess which macronutrient is most readily converted into fat in the body?
(Hint: FAT)6 -
You've not been using scales so you don't actually know how much you are eating. That's how other people manage it, and that's how we got fat in the first place. QED.3
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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.
I just got the scale and OMG was I wrong! In the last 30 days I only lost 4 pounds, and someone who went from 310 pounds , who was bearly active, and didn't think about calories to doing what I thought was 1600 calories and burning about 500 calories 5 days a week to only lose 4 pounds is crazy. But now that everything is measured and weighed, I definitely see now that I was under estimating the calories.33 -
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.
I just got the scale and OMG was I wrong! In the last 30 days I only lost 4 pounds, and someone who went from 310 pounds , who was bearly active, and didn't think about calories to doing what I thought was 1600 calories and burning about 500 calories 5 days a week to only lose 4 pounds is crazy. But now that everything is measured and weighed, I definitely see now that I was under estimating the calories.
I love it when people see the light! Way to go, @grimmc603. Now you'll really get truckin'!4 -
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.
I just got the scale and OMG was I wrong! In the last 30 days I only lost 4 pounds, and someone who went from 310 pounds , who was bearly active, and didn't think about calories to doing what I thought was 1600 calories and burning about 500 calories 5 days a week to only lose 4 pounds is crazy. But now that everything is measured and weighed, I definitely see now that I was under estimating the calories.
Yeah, it's an eye opener...0 -
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.
I just got the scale and OMG was I wrong! In the last 30 days I only lost 4 pounds, and someone who went from 310 pounds , who was bearly active, and didn't think about calories to doing what I thought was 1600 calories and burning about 500 calories 5 days a week to only lose 4 pounds is crazy. But now that everything is measured and weighed, I definitely see now that I was under estimating the calories.
Yay! It's going to make a huge difference for you. 1 -
Good lord some of these responses are rude! If you can't respond without being a callous jerk how about keeping quiet?
OP feel free to add me, my diary is open to friends. I'm on 1210 calories a day and some days its a struggle to hit that so I can totally relate. I'm really nervous about once I get to maintenance and have to up my calories, my little stomach is gonna pop!1 -
Good lord some of these responses are rude! If you can't respond without being a callous jerk how about keeping quiet?
OP feel free to add me, my diary is open to friends. I'm on 1210 calories a day and some days its a struggle to hit that so I can totally relate. I'm really nervous about once I get to maintenance and have to up my calories, my little stomach is gonna pop!
And yet, the responses helped the OP figure it out...if you read the update.17 -
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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.
I agree. Although when I first started watching what I eat I was on 1800 calories and I had a hard time eating that amount every day. It was just the fear that if I ate that much that I would not lose weight. Turns out I ate at least 1800 calories most days and lost 200 lbs. For me, the majority of weight loss was changing my way of thinking. I eat mostly " healthy foods", but I do not call any food bad foods. I now know that I can have a cookie or candy and it is ok. If I do go overboard on a weekend, I know that I will get right back to eating within my calorie goal the next day. Good luck to you!!1 -
I have no problem on 1560 per day. 5'10 m currently at 230 down 40 pounds so far.0
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Good lord some of these responses are rude! If you can't respond without being a callous jerk how about keeping quiet?
OP feel free to add me, my diary is open to friends. I'm on 1210 calories a day and some days its a struggle to hit that so I can totally relate. I'm really nervous about once I get to maintenance and have to up my calories, my little stomach is gonna pop!
The "rude" posters are usually the most helpful. It's just that they don't provide the answers that the OP wants.6 -
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) ?
how did you gain weight in the first place?3 -
I could never just eat 1600 calories. Specially on training days. Food is fuel and with not a lot of fuel your gunna run on empty. I always eat more on training days. Sugar Excess calories is what makes you fat not fat we need fats in our body's to function properly. Ok I don't mean saturated fats but we need mono and poly fats. I say the more you train the more you can eat lol
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OP - it looks like you have found your answer in weighing your food. That always makes a big difference. Best of luck to you!
For any other lurkers out there pondering the same thing.......
I tried the lower end of the calorie range more times than I care to admit (like 1200-1300). I found I could do it for a few weeks, but I always derailed and then went to the other extreme. For me, 1600-1700 is best for slow and steady weight loss, while still feeling satisfied enough that I don't crash and burn (and then undo my progress).
I achieve this by pretty much eating what sounds good. It varies, but I eat full fat dairy, daily dessert, I don't eliminate any food groups and I don't eat foods I don't like just because they are "good" or "bad".
Can people eat lower ends of the calorie range and be satisfied? Maybe. I just decided to take a different approach after yo-yoing for years and I have found what works for me.
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