Someone critique my diary?

make your diary public and will try again.

if you want to have crackers, Bob Greene, the author of Your Best Life Diet, says eat only the serving size which is 5. I don't think it will bother you if you aren't consuming them by the packs.

I ate some crackers the other day, but I'm trying not to make a habit out of it.

Carbs go straight to my waist, so I haven't been eating bread of any sort lately, although I love eating sandwiches. My carbs are pretty much stuff like whole grains, beans, and corn lately, with just a little fruit.

Hope this helps.

I like your diary but my constructive critique would be to reduce the sweets..

You need to eat more protein. You are eating too many carbs during the day and not enough protein. I see you are almost 20g away from your protein goal nearly everyday. Protein is going to keep you full longer as well which is another benefit of it. So try adding a little more protein in each meal as well as your snacks. Also, how many times a week are you exercising?

I woudl try to eat more veggies (carrots, brocolli, etc....). Also, i would actually suggest reducing your carbs and increasing your protein. When you are trying to lose weight, you don't need to have 60% of your calories from carbs. In fact, when I first started I was 40/40/20 (carbs/proteins/fats). The additional protein will help stimulate muscle growth which will increase your basal metabolic rate (BMR); these are the amount of calories you burn if you slept for 24 hours.

THIS!!! Higher protein, lower carbs and fruits n veggies. :-)

Hey girl,
Just had a quick look at 2 days of your food diary. Your calorie count looks good and you are staying within your 'budget'. One thing that may help is if you reduce the amount of refined sugars that you are eating with your carbs, try and cut out some of the processed food and replace it with whole foods. Like replacing a snack bar with a banana. Think about eating foods that are as close to their natural form as possible with nothing added.

Also- it might help if you try and add some more protein to your diet just to shake up your weight loss. Centre your main meal around a lean meat (chicken or fish) and lots of vegetables.

For protein based snacks try: plain yogurt with a handful of frozen berries, cottage cheese sprinkled with sunflower seeds, a skim milk cheese stick, an apple cut in half and spread with peanut butter (no sugar added), or even have a non-fat latte.

Good luck xx

I love carbs too, believe me! I'm a pasta and rice addict! Love bread! However, this contributes to the tire expanding around my waist and thighs. It is hard to give up carbs at first, but like I said, a serving per day, if you can not cut them out all together, should be doable. Carbs contain sugar and you eat sweets as well, sugar turns to fat. Replace some of those sweets with natural sugar like fruits.

Your carbs are really high. I also use a 40/40/20 ratio of carbs/protein/fats. You should try to eat carbs and protein at the same level for your meals. Too many carbs and sweets will spike your blood sugar followed by a crash which will make you constantly hungry and craving more carbs. It can be quite a vicious circle.

Overall I see some great choices in there - kudos to you.

Now the critique, (but first my disclaimer - this is just what works for me and is only my non-professional opinion, so take it or leave it).

I would change your macros to 40% carbohydrates, 30% fat and 30% protein. Ideally, you want to eat about a gram of protein per lb of body weight to help preserve lean muscle tissue as you lose weight - otherwise as the pounds go down you are losing both fat AND precious, hard to earn muscle. (I also recommend strength training 3-4x week with HEAVY HEAVY weights to also help preserve lean tissue).

For carbohydrates - you want complex - 100% whole wheat bread (good job), brown rice, veggies, etc... Stay away from simple carbohydrates or refined carbohydrates - white bread, white rice, candy, chips, cookies, your butter crackers (wink) etc....

For fat - try to get it from healthy sources - nuts or olives and their oils and fish.

For protein - lots of lean meat - usually fish or poultry or eggs (egg whites) though plain yogurt and nuts can be a source too. or you can continue supplementing with a whey shake or something. Check your yogurt - I'm not a fan of aspartame - not sure if your strawberry yogurt has it or not - I know that Chobani greek yogurt does not use aspartame as a sweetener - but I'd stay away from the fruit varieties because they are high in sugar.

speaking of which - you are smart to track your sugar - all sugar. I too, limit my fruits (yes fruits ARE healthy - will save this argument for another thread). Keep your sugar to 10% of your calories or less. You calories x 0.1 = this number. This number divided by 4 = # of sugar grams you can have in a day.

Drink lots and lots and lots of water.

I also find it helpful to try to eat lots of fiber - mostly through veggies, sweet potato, beans, or steel cut oats.

I'm not perfect by any means - but my diary is open also if you'd like to fish around for ideas. I have some "bad" days in there too though - you've been warned.

Good luck!

Your problem in a word is SUGAR...........in looking at your food diary you are going way over on your sugar intake.

Here's a link for you:

Check it out! Someone gave it to me my first week on MFP and it helped me soooo much!

http://www.extremely-fit.com/fitness-tips/2011/01/8week-transition-diet/

If you haven't used the Tools section to eyeball your BMI and BMR, that might help. I also depend on the smart phone features (charts and reports) a lot. Keeps me in line.