Exasperation with meal planning...can someone tell me how to fit 3 meals into 1200 calories?

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  • MonaRaeHill
    MonaRaeHill Posts: 145 Member
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    jgnatca: thank you for the thought and the recipe! I must have a 6" binder with vegetarian recipes in it, (30 years of collecting), with a LOT of vegan, too, so perhaps I can reciprocate......what's your favorite food group?.
    I've given up preparing meals, as I usually can't eat a normal portion, and my partner hates leftovers, so I either have to eat it, or throw it in the compost! It's easier just to make my vegetable soups with tofu and miso, put it in the fridge and have 2 cups every night. I also hide the chocolate, from my partner, AND myself, in the freezer. It bugs my teeth that way, so I am forced to delay gratification as long as possible. lol.
  • mom23mangos
    mom23mangos Posts: 3,070 Member
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    You said your partner doesn't like leftovers, but why can't you eat them? I prep 3-4 meals with 5 servings each on Sundays to eat during the day M-F at work. Dinner I cook for the family each night. Are you using a low-cal dressing on your salads? Salad is one of my go to lunches and I can make a massive one using a whole head of lettuce for 3-400 calories.
  • Hogerda
    Hogerda Posts: 7 Member
    edited February 2018
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    After losing 30 lbs I stopped eating animal products, and now I go raw on low-calorie days. Usually a smoothie, soaking some oats in water and adding lemon juice, half an apple, broccoli, spinach, some frozen berries, basically any vegetable in the fridge. No processed foods, plenty of protein and a 16 oz smoothie will have around 180 calories and keep me full for 3 hours. Then I take a walk, and make another one when I get home. For the evening meal, I will usually have around 700 calories left over, so can make pretty much anything I want.
  • ms_cac
    ms_cac Posts: 2 Member
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    I eat a lot of beans/rice/veggies/fat combinations at about 400 calorie. I will also make a ginormous tofu veggie stir fry and a big batch of rice and eat those leftovers for a few days. I really don’t like salad or raw veggies so for me the key to satisfying meals is prep in advance and throw stuff together as I need it. On Sunday I make a big pot of beans, a batch of rice, cook up some protein (for me, usually chicken breasts but also baked or grilled tofu). I make sure I have avocados on hand. I also bake a couple big sweet potatoes. So when meal time comes I might throw together tofu, kale, sweet potato, rice and a tablespoon of whatever fat I want. Or beans, rice, salsa, avocado. Or tofu, quinoa, pesto, broccoli. Microwave and dinner is served. The combinations are quite varied - I just try to cook up different stuff sundays so I don’t get bored. I feel like there are tons of options for meals, but pre-prep and portions are key.
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
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    You can make two serving meals and eat the leftovers yourself. One block of tempeh or tofu is easily just two servings in my home. Cook once, eat twice.

    How about making larger batches of things that you can freeze in single portions? Vegan chili, spaghetti sauce, beans, and many other things freeze very nicely. Most seitan recipes make a large amount of protein, but it does freeze well, so you can make seitan and then freeze it in smaller portions. I like making these things on weekend days when I'm going to be home, or letting the crock pot do it for me. Cook once, eat...well, a dozen times or more.

    Lots of meatless proteins can be cooked in single portions. Lentils are nice because they cook quickly and you can make a small amount of them. Many vegan proteins, like Gardein, come in resealable bags so you can just measure out the amount you want. TVP is cheap and can easily be measured in smaller servings. You can use that as "beef" by rehydrating it with no-beef broth or other liquid of your choice, or just throw it in a dish that has enough liquid to rehydrate it.

    There are many vegan protein bars if you like those. My favorites are Clif Builder bars.

    Quinoa works fine in small batches in my experience. I've never been able to cook small amounts of rice very easily, but leftover rice is perfect for fried rice. You can make vegan fried rice with tofu instead of eggs.
  • Momepro
    Momepro Posts: 1,509 Member
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    sueami1 wrote: »
    Momepro wrote: »
    In my case? Excercise more to give yourself a few more calories to play with.
    I also suggest logging for a while, even before making any serious changes to your diet.
    Weigh (with a scale is best) everything you eat, and write why you are eating it (i.e, lunchtime, hungry, kind of bored, out with friends, watching tv) and how you are feeling right before, right after and an hour after (hungry, comfortable, normal, full, very full bloated, drowsy).
    This gives you a baseline pattern for your normal habits and routine. From there, it's just a matter of experimenting. Are you very full after dinner? Cut back on a few things. Does lunch leave you bloated and gassy after an hour, try less or no mayo, and see if there's something you don't mind dropping each meal (fries, or cheese, or maybe only 2 tacos instead of 3).It's amazing how quickly these small and easily sustainable changes will add up to big calorie cuts. Only cut one or two things at a time, until they become habit instead if trying to do everything at once. That way they become individual habits instead of one big "diet". So when you backslide you won't drop everything at once, just one or two habits, that you can fix again more easily.

    I love this entire thought process! I have an internal war between my impatient/frightened thinking and my deeper wisdom that knows I need to make changes that last and are both sustainable and effective.

    I think I am going to sit down and make a list of all the small changes I have made already, partly to acknowledge what I've done so far, but I will also rate them according to how hard or easy they have felt to me, so that when I hit my weight loss goal, I know what I can easily keep as maintenance habits and what I can let go of as a harder-to-maintain "diet-phase" restriction.

    Thank you, Momepro, for taking the time to share your thinking!

    Glad you like it :) It's really helped me, I hope it helps you too.
  • kittybenn
    kittybenn Posts: 444 Member
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    You didn't say whether or not you like breakfasts, but I try to keep my calories around 1200-1400 and I've found that I just didn't care enough about breakfast to eat much of anything then. Call it intermittent fasting if you like, but it did leave me with more calories for lunch and dinner, meals I do care about. Usually for breakfast now I don't skip it, but have a 50-cal cheese stick, a hardboiled egg, a small yogurt or something like that. Something around 100 cals or under.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited February 2018
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    MonaRaeHill wrote: »
    I need something very simple, and made for only one person, as my partner hates leftovers so I either gotta' eat it or chuck it, which I hate to do.

    As others said, can you not have leftovers for you, at least for some meals? I find having leftovers in the refrigerator a lifesaver when things come up and I don't have time to cook.

    Anyway, with 1200 (I did 1250 for a while, also 5'3, I found it not necessary but I get it can be the right goal if you are mostly sedentary), one thing I'd think about is how often you want to eat, especially if you don't enjoy meal planning. It might be easier to do something like 2 larger meals in a day.

    Whatever you do, I'd plan how many calories you want to devote to each of your meals (roughly) and then work with that for a while. When I was doing 1250, I think I normally did about 250 at breakfast, 350 at lunch, and then had plenty available for dinner.

    Breakfast IS for some an easy place to save calories, but if you like a bigger breakfast (I currently eat more like 400-450 for breakfast), you can go with less at other meals, it's personal preference. Breakfast is also a meal where a lot of people find it easy to just always have the same thing, takes the planning out of it.

    My lunches are kind of repetitive too (when I'm not just doing dinner leftovers, which is common for me). I'll do a salad based lunch a lot, with some kind of protein on it (beans, chickpeas, edamame, tofu). Bean and/or veg soup can be easy too, and another thing you can just have pre-made and ready to heat.

    Then it's just about dinner.

    Have you seen https://www.eatthismuch.com/ -- you can give it your preferences, calorie goal, so on and it will generate food ideas. If you are struggling with what fits in a certain calorie goal for a meal or day and also hits some goals like protein, this could be useful for you.
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
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    Rather than three 400 calorie meals, you might try splitting your daily budget in a different way:

    Breakfast: 1 cup unsweetened soy milk, 1 cup Quaker Oatmeal Squares, 1/2 cup sliced strawberries (80+210+25=315)
    Mid-day Snack: 2 Triscuits, 1 wedge Laughing Cow cheese, 1/2 cup sliced strawberries (40+35+25=100)
    Afternoon Snack: Fiber One bar (90)
    Dinner: 695 calories to spend

    Or, if you do better on a bigger lunch and lighter breakfast, split up the calories that way and make your dinner something light. You don't *have* to have three equal meals in a day.
  • Mslmesq
    Mslmesq Posts: 1,001 Member
    edited February 2018
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    Finkelstien wrote: »
    just as MrsPinterest34 i rather loose a little more slowly and eat a bit more. On days where i don't work out i eat around 1450 kcal. Now i am small so i need a little less then most.

    B: Banana + proteinyoghurt = 253
    L; Three pieces of bread with hummus and jalapeno and some veggies = 417
    D : Halloumi and (vegetarian)sausage bake = 523

    1200 kcal. So i have 300 left. I usually fill this with some tangerines, a salad or a hand of nuts. Sometimes i go over. Sometimes i stay under. Sometimes i add an egg to my lunch. Sometimes i don't.
    On fridaynight i like a glass of wine so i eat two pieces of bread at lunch, drink two glasses of wine and sometimes nibble on a crisp.

    Can someone please tell me why in the world this got a woo?! This is a description of a 1500 calorie diet by a shorter woman truing to lose a half pound a week. What in the world?
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
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    Mona,

    You've said your husband doesn't like leftovers, but that doesn't mean you can't (and kudos for the composting!). I batch cook on the weekend (some of which you don't eat, but you'll get the idea). It saves me a ton of time and helps me not make poor nutritional choices when I'm at work. There's always a tempting treat around.
    • grilled chicken breast
    • quinoa
    • biscuits (I use Carb-Quick baking mix and use Smart Balance instead of butter and unsweetened soy milk instead instead of heavy cream
    • egg white muffins (egg whites, turkey or gardien sausage, quinoa, shredded cheese)--I like them for breakfast at work.

    I also have "staples" for me of protein powders (Women's Best in the UK (they ship worldwide) has a yummy vegan line), protein bars, protein chips, high fiber tortillas, and Kodiak whole grain muffin in a cup, skyr yogurt, among other things.

    For work, I throw protein (chicken, tuna, veggie burger, etc.) and frozen veggies and some quinoa in a pyrex and heat it up. Sometimes I add beans. For non-work, I often eat egg whites with veggies, beans, gardein crumbles and/or quinoa. I also tried those konjac "newdles." I was a little scared at first, but they were very filling and were quite tasty with the veggies and garlic olive oil I cooked them in. I workout after work and am short on time when I get home as I want to sleep, too. :blush: So dinner is often quick for me. I may not be a great or even a good conventional cook, but I'm a whiz with a micorwave! :wink: I try to prioritize protein as much as possible.
  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,754 Member
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    Calories in and calories out
  • MonaRaeHill
    MonaRaeHill Posts: 145 Member
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    P.S.
    Yes, money is an issue, then there's all the running around shopping, and then standing for long periods to cook it all up.
    I've thought very often, about the meal delivery option........when I get out of credit card debt, I may just try one, but living on a limited budget, it may not be an option, then, either. I just don't know. But, that's long term planning, for the short term.........gah!
    I meant what I said, I not only need the dog walker to spell me on that front, (for my mid-week 0 day), but I need an on-board chef, too!
    Alas, there's the $, so protein shakes and a ten-gallon salad every 2nd or 3rd day, is my only short-term solution.......until I can (or ya'll can), come with some other options.

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