Balanced diet

Eat your vegetables!

livenfree45 wrote: »

what is weetabix?

British

eat more color variety and a multivitabin

sflano1271 wrote: »

Hi just wondering is this a balanced diet for breakfast I have two weetabix with low fat milk in a bowl and two eggs then for lunch have 2-3 potatoes depending on the size with chicken or fish and baked beans or peas then two hours after lunch have some fruit the for evening meal have beans and brown bread or scrambled eggs with Brown bread and a yoghurt then night time if im hungry have a glass of milk or a bowl of cereal like weetabix with low fat milk.

It is a little boring if that is what you have every day.

You haven't included food weights, or mentioned how you cook your chicken/fish - is that in some kind of oil?

Here's some suggestions as to how you can increase the nutrient values:
Add a banana or handful of berries to the Weetabix.
It looks like you have your main meal at lunch time? Try adding some chopped carrots in with the peas, or add a bag of microwave vegetables. Change it up by stir-frying the chicken with some Asian greens, baby corn, onions and beansprouts, in a couple of teaspoons of olive oil, swapping out the potatoes for noodles or rice. Instead of cooked peas/beans, have a large mixed salad (e.g. lettuce, shredded cabbage, raw onion, grated carrot, sliced bell peppers, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, etc.) with an olive oil/balsamic vinegar dressing.

You also haven't said if you have any kind of butter/spread on your toast - it is important to get healthy fats in your diet, it helps with the absorption of vitamins.

Make sure you log it in MFP so you can make sure you're getting enough calories - you can add avocado or a handful of nuts if you're low. (Mashed avocado spread on toast and topped with beans is delicious - or bake your lunchtime potatoes and mash with avocado... or just slice some avocado and put it in a salad)

Looks like a bland, monotonous, poorly balanced meal plan.

The kinds of vege you are eating are all legumes, green beans and peas included. While this isn't going to do any harm in the short term, in the longer term, you would miss out on certain micro-nutrients. If you have any allergies or there are allergies in your family a reliance on legumes might not be the best thing either, but depends on whatever is or isn't going on.

There is some good advice above about foods to incorporate. I wouldn't try to do too much at once. Try testing out one or two new things each week and experimenting with how to cook them and what you think they combine well with within what you already eat.

livenfree45 wrote: »

L1zardQueen wrote: »

livenfree45 wrote: »

what is weetabix?

American Shredded Wheat.

Thanks

Except not. It's a dry, crumbly biscuit kinda thing, sort of pressed together, not like the woven strands in shredded wheat.

It sounds ok, a bit boring but ok. Are you feeling full on that? add more colour and nutrients to your meals by way of veg, and also fats, like cheese, avocado, nuts and of course even some calories left for a snack of choice like some good quality chocolate An all or nothing approach can be hard to sustain.

There's nothing wrong with having weetabix in the evening. Timing of meals doesn't matter nor does what you eat, its all about eating less calories than you burn to lose.

MelanieCN77 wrote: »

livenfree45 wrote: »

L1zardQueen wrote: »

livenfree45 wrote: »

what is weetabix?

American Shredded Wheat.

Thanks

Except not. It's a dry, crumbly biscuit kinda thing, sort of pressed together, not like the woven strands in shredded wheat.

Not really all that different

I'd also check if you are getting enough iron. Varied protein sources would take care of that.

A balanced diet starts from balanced calories.

How many calories are you eating? Is that a deficit, surplus, or maintenance? How does it compare to what you're trying to achieve? Is it too big of a deficit or a surplus or too small to optimally achieve your goals (faster is not always optimal).

If you put in the values, in grams, of the items you're eating into your MFP log (choosing correct entries that you personally verify either by looking at the box you're holding in your hand, or by visiting web-sites such as the usda standard reference database or nutritiondata.self.com), you will get a macronutrient breakdown including values of various macronutrients in grams and percentages. I am talking Carbohydrates, Fats, and Proteins.

Knowing your weight and your target weight in the normal weight range you will be able to verify that you are getting enough protein and fat and fiber. And verify (but only to an extent unless you've done a **kitten** good job of verifying that your entries are correct) whether too many of your fats are saturated as you might prefer to adhere to heart and stroke foundation recommendations that you continue to limit saturated fats in favour of polyunsatured and monounsaturated ones.

You might also be able to identify other things that may be lacking in your diet.

Once you've done this basic work to see if what you're eating makes BASIC sense, then you should look to see if you're meeting other good and healthy targets.

Fist thing to look at would be if you're eating at least "5 a day" usually defined as 3 veg + 2 fruit portions of 80g each. Just for **kittens** and giggles you can even try to go up to 8 or 10 a day as people have found benefits to doing so (without talking you out of eating more fruit which is good, eating more vegetables is probably even better). Usually a dried item "portion" is 40g instead of 80g.

Then, once you've gotten these basics down, you can go on and have a look at the individual national guidelines established by over 100 countries at the cost of probably millions of (various country) taxpayers' funds and provided for the edification of interested people just like you: http://www.fao.org/nutrition/nutrition-education/food-dietary-guidelines/en/

Once you do all that, you will **KNOW** whether what you're eating is a balanced diet!!!