300-400-500 “plan”

BlessedMom70
BlessedMom70 Posts: 124 Member
edited November 27 in Health and Weight Loss
I have been counting calories on and off since I was a teenager...and I’m tired. 🙄 Rather than tracking every single calorie on an app, I was thinking of just keeping each of my meals under a certain number (in my head as I prepare it). For instance, 300 for breakfast, 400 for lunch, 500 for dinner, 200 for an afternoon snack and 200 for a dessert/bedtime snack. 1600 or so total calories for the day.

Does anyone here do this?

Replies

  • BlessedMom70
    BlessedMom70 Posts: 124 Member
    edited June 2018
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    I did that when I decided to go on a maintenance break for about a year. I collected a few recipes and calculated them all within a certain calorie limit. I added my own commonly eaten meals and calculated them to be within a certain calorie limit. I saved them all in my Pinterest under boards that had names like "under 200 calories", "200-300 calories" up to "800+ calories". Then, since everything was pre-counted, all I needed to do was to pick and choose whatever I wanted to eat and jigsaw other meals in to fit.

    I started small initially with only a few recipes, but whenever I felt like having something new I calculated and added it to the bunch.

    Calculating in my head doesn't work for me. I'm very bad at eyeballing and I suffer from portion creep and food amnesia. That was a structure which had reasonably accurate calories but didn't involve logging every single food every day.

    I love this idea! Thank you!!
  • the8BitGirl
    the8BitGirl Posts: 38 Member
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    I did that when I decided to go on a maintenance break for about a year. I collected a few recipes and calculated them all within a certain calorie limit. I added my own commonly eaten meals and calculated them to be within a certain calorie limit. I saved them all in my Pinterest under boards that had names like "under 200 calories", "200-300 calories" up to "800+ calories". Then, since everything was pre-counted, all I needed to do was to pick and choose whatever I wanted to eat, make it per instructions, and jigsaw other meals in to fit.

    This is such a fantastic idea, thank you for sharing that!

  • KateTii
    KateTii Posts: 886 Member
    This is pretty much what I do. I prepare meals for the freezer in advance and work out the calorie count for each meal. I then eat the meals and easily log them using the recipe and meal builder. It means I have one big day of calorie counting and then lots of easy little days of calorie recording.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    I've never done that but it's a great idea.
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    I don't track and this is pretty much what I do. I have higher and lower days, so I have a selection of foods for snacks and lunches depending on the day. Breakfast stays the same and dinner I give myself about 800-1000 calories.
  • Jackie9003
    Jackie9003 Posts: 1,116 Member
    I do that too, I'm on 1600 cals and have my calorie profile set to:
    breakfast 300
    morning snack 80
    lunch 380
    afternoon snack 120
    evening meal 660
    evening snack 60

    I try to stick to it most days, it's not always possible, but I have regular meals that are within those boundaries and I feel like I'm always eating.
  • BlessedMom70
    BlessedMom70 Posts: 124 Member
    Jackie9003 wrote: »
    I do that too, I'm on 1600 cals and have my calorie profile set to:
    breakfast 300
    morning snack 80
    lunch 380
    afternoon snack 120
    evening meal 660
    evening snack 60

    I try to stick to it most days, it's not always possible, but I have regular meals that are within those boundaries and I feel like I'm always eating.

    Do you keep these numbers in your head during the day?
  • Cbean08
    Cbean08 Posts: 1,092 Member
    I used to do this too. It also made eating out easy because I could rearrange calories in needed. It might mean combining a meal and a snack or moving 100 from dinner to lunch etc etc. Because of how I naturally ate at that time, I was getting enough nutrients and my meals were balanced. I could then add variety as I wanted, as long as the numbers worked out in the end. I gave myself calorie ranges though, since not all meals were going to add up exactly evenly. It could be up to 10 calories over the target or 25 below.
  • denswrex
    denswrex Posts: 243 Member
    edited June 2018
    "The challenge lies in the mental resistance, my brain playing games with me - my excess appetite in a world of more than plenty - which means that I have to make a conscious effort to resist temptations, avoiding food cues, all my clever little excuses to overeat... while at the same time not expect to be "perfect", just find a balance between too strict and no boundaries at all, a healthy, happy medium."



    This is exactly me.

  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,630 Member
    kommodevaran wrote: »
    I'm doing something similar, I'm in maintenance, but I actually wish I'd considered it earlier, during weightloss. I have a selection of breakfasts, a selcetion of lunches, a selection of dinners, that are all in the same "order of magnitude", because they are of approximately the same size, and built up the same way, and over time, it evens out. I don't eat, and only drink water/black coffee/unsweetened tea, between meals, except for special occasions, that are infrequent enough to not have a negative impact. When I cook/serve myself, I weigh or count, and I plan my meals to get variety and avoid waste. I weigh myself every morning and use my body during the day. These are all the practical measures I have to take in order to maintain good health and a healthy weight, and it's effortless.

    This is more or less what I've done all the way through. What I eat during the day until dinner is pretty much the same so that I know that by the time dinner rolls around I've consumed a certain number of calories and have a certain number left.

    Dinner varies, but is within a certain calorie range.

    And then the amount of exercise I've done determines what I might have for an evening snack.

  • Jackie9003
    Jackie9003 Posts: 1,116 Member
    BlessedMom70 wrote: »
    Jackie9003 wrote: »
    I do that too, I'm on 1600 cals and have my calorie profile set to:
    breakfast 300
    morning snack 80
    lunch 380
    afternoon snack 120
    evening meal 660
    evening snack 60

    I try to stick to it most days, it's not always possible, but I have regular meals that are within those boundaries and I feel like I'm always eating.

    Do you keep these numbers in your head during the day?

    I do to some extent, it evolved due to what I was already eating so cereal or toast for breakfast seemed to be around 300 cals, an apple or small banana around 80 cals, a sandwich and yoghurt for lunch around 350/400 cals and a chocolate biscuit or low fat snack bar around 100 cals, what was left I used for dinner and if I fancied a vodka or small glass of wine I'd keep a bit back. When I'm shopping I'm mentally adding up where I would eat what I'm buying. I've been doing it for a while now so it's become a habit.
  • summpear
    summpear Posts: 77 Member
    I have small milestones. 3-400 calories by mid/late morning so I don't overeat lunch. Under 1000 calories by 3 or 4pm so I'm good on dinner, unless my workout was very high calorie burn then I push it back to 1200.

    That gives me a variety of ways to space my food depending on what I'm doing that day, but I know I'm still going into dinner with 6-800 calories to play with. That gives me room for meat and carbs without problem, and usually something nice after dinner too.

    If I'm at 13-1400 calories before dinner, I know I have to be a lot more careful what I eat. And my dinner portions are harder to control because I'm sitting at the table, with my family, and pots of foods around me. It's really easy to take just one more thing.
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