Feedback wanted on food plans and "eating back"-calories.

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MarianMarMoi
MarianMarMoi Posts: 87 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hello all!

I've finally managed to get out of a rot where I've eaten quite dreadfully. I am now trying to plan for the coming months.
I am trying to make out what I would eat (and enjoy, while still keeping it simple and cheap) in a day and reach my calorie and macro goals. Atm my calorie goal for each day is ~ 1790 and I think that, for me, 500-600 calories divided into three meals might be good (I might be wrong), and then maybe one smaller snack.


Here is where I need some feedback, below I give examples of what i most likely would be eating, does it sound good to you? Why/why not? (I am vegan, so that's why there's no meat/eggs/dairy)

For breakfast I'm thinking of something like hummus + veggies (onion, spinach, tomato) + buckwheat + bread (like a wrap, maybe?), which I hope would add up to around 500 calories (I've been putting it into the food diary to check. The bread, hummus and buckwheat are the only ones I know for sure how much I would take of since I've had those in that way before, the rest are rough estimates).

For lunch and supper (same food for both meals) I'm thinking potatoes, carrots/parsnip, broccoli, some leaf veggie, maybe a tomato, and black beans, which for now adds up to ~ 470 calories if I go by the estimates of how much I would have of each. I think I would probably want to add some sort of dressing/vinaigrette, which I guess might knock it up to 600 calories (I rarely make those so that is one really rough estimate).


If I go by these meals I would end up at around 1700 calories (if I've estimated somewhat correctly), and stand at 57g of protein (I've put the goal to 15 %, so 10g more to go for that). I'm thinking of maybe making some sort of smoothie where I can add hemp protein powder, and have that as the "snack". It would probably make me end up closer to 1900 than 1800, though.

Eating this way, and the way I've eaten in the past when I made an effort, I'm way above 25g/day of fibers. I end up around 20g+, at 45g. Is that "bad"? I don't see how I could avoid that since most things I eat contain fibers.


Also I want some advice on this part:
I will start doing yoga once every day (between 15 and 30 minutes) and then a circuit body weight workout 3 days a week (might take me around 20 min to get through). Since my goal isn't to lose weight, I suppose I would have to eat back calories, but I'm not sure how much. My question would then be: are those 100 calories + (that I would eat if I follow the food plan above) each day enough? Maybe it's even too much?
It would sure be convenient if it was enough, since then I wouldn't have to think about eating more certain days, if it's too much I guess I might have to cut something out or be fine with gaining some weight.


Thank you all in advance, sorry for the amount of text.

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    Unless you have a specific medical condition that requires you to limit fiber, you can consider fiber a "minimum," not a maximum. Unless you're consuming enough to cause gastric upset, you can't really get "too much." I am vegan and I eat as many as 60 grams per day, no big deal.

    How much calcium are you getting on that plan? There will be some in the greens, but I'm not sure if your portion size. The smoothie you're thinking about may be a good place to add some calcium (through a fortified plant milk or another higher calcium food).

    For eating back your calories, choose a reasonable estimate and then monitor your progress. If you find yourself losing weight after a few weeks, eat more. If you find yourself gaining, eat less.
  • bigbandjohn
    bigbandjohn Posts: 769 Member
    edited October 2018
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    I am of the mindset whatever works for you. Obviously, stay nutritionally balanced, but if it works, do it.

    I am working on my revised 1670 Cal/day plan. I typically do about 250-300 for breakfast, 150-250 for morning snack, 200-300 for lunch, 150-250 for afternoon snack, 400-600 for dinner, and anything left over for evening snack.

    I don't always snack every time. typically I have at least one of the snacks, if not 2. Today is a 2 snack day. When I was at 1900 I usually could do 3 if I chose to. at 1200 it was rare to snack more than once, if at all.

    This works well for me as I have my meals usually planned out for the day. I try to leave some room in my planning to have at least a couple hundred calories of "wiggle room" to allow for unplanned snacking. When I know what I have left, I don't have to worry about "Gee, I only have 350 calories for dinner, and this meal is 500". I know there's 200 calories left, and if I want some mixed nuts, I can't eat the whole pack since it's 270 calories, so I will split it in half.

    If you are very active during the day, loading up on calories earlier in the day is better. I am not active, so I tend to distribute in smaller caloric amounts throughout the day.

    And I don't believe the extra fiber should matter. May make you a little extra regular....
  • MarianMarMoi
    MarianMarMoi Posts: 87 Member
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    janejellyroll wrote: »
    Unless you have a specific medical condition that requires you to limit fiber, you can consider fiber a "minimum," not a maximum. Unless you're consuming enough to cause gastric upset, you can't really get "too much." I am vegan and I eat as many as 60 grams per day, no big deal.

    How much calcium are you getting on that plan? There will be some in the greens, but I'm not sure if your portion size. The smoothie you're thinking about may be a good place to add some calcium (through a fortified plant milk or another higher calcium food).

    For eating back your calories, choose a reasonable estimate and then monitor your progress. If you find yourself losing weight after a few weeks, eat more. If you find yourself gaining, eat less.

    Oh, that's good to hear! Then I will stop looking at the fibers.

    Calcium has always been a bit of a hard for me. I tried to put things into cronometer to check, but it doesn't seem to add the right numbers for some foods, so I gave up.
    I believe I might be consuming around 20 % of the recommended calcium intake in the food I mentioned (not counting the smoothie), I'm not really sure though. If I make a smoothie it would add maybe 30-45 %, and then I take multivitamins. I have been considering buying a separate calcium supplement since last time I looked this over since I can't really figure out how to make it work. Two pills per day adding 42 % seems a lot less difficult than trying to find foods that contain enough of it.

    I don't know why I didn't think of that myself (the last part), I will try to keep an eye on my weight and see what happens.

    Thank you for your reply!
  • MarianMarMoi
    MarianMarMoi Posts: 87 Member
    edited October 2018
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    bigbandjohn wrote: »
    I am of the mindset whatever works for you. Obviously, stay nutritionally balanced, but if it works, do it.

    I am working on my revised 1670 Cal/day plan. I typically do about 250-300 for breakfast, 150-250 for morning snack, 200-300 for lunch, 150-250 for afternoon snack, 400-600 for dinner, and anything left over for evening snack.

    I don't always snack every time. typically I have at least one of the snacks, if not 2. Today is a 2 snack day. When I was at 1900 I usually could do 3 if I chose to. at 1200 it was rare to snack more than once, if at all.

    This works well for me as I have my meals usually planned out for the day. I try to leave some room in my planning to have at least a couple hundred calories of "wiggle room" to allow for unplanned snacking. When I know what I have left, I don't have to worry about "Gee, I only have 350 calories for dinner, and this meal is 500". I know there's 200 calories left, and if I want some mixed nuts, I can't eat the whole pack since it's 270 calories, so I will split it in half.

    If you are very active during the day, loading up on calories earlier in the day is better. I am not active, so I tend to distribute in smaller caloric amounts throughout the day.

    And I don't believe the extra fiber should matter. May make you a little extra regular....

    I have yet to see if it works for me, but I hope it does because it sounds good and easy to me :)

    I tried to divide my calories into five meals last time on mfp (january), and I ended up feeling stuffed constantly, so it wasn't really working for me. I'm happy that it works for you, it does make sense to have some wiggle room.

    I need to follow somewhat stricter routines to get "back on track" (I don't know if I've ever been on track).

    Thank you for your reply!
  • megsmom2
    megsmom2 Posts: 2,362 Member
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    Frankly, I think if you’re planning out every meal for months in advance, you’re likely to rebel and binge out of boredom. Give yourself plenty of reasonable options for meal choices, and don’t plan too far in advance...you never know what will be on sale or looking good at the store, or what you might be in the mood for. And if a short time binge happens....so what? Make the next choice a better one and move on.
  • MarianMarMoi
    MarianMarMoi Posts: 87 Member
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    megsmom2 wrote: »
    Frankly, I think if you’re planning out every meal for months in advance, you’re likely to rebel and binge out of boredom. Give yourself plenty of reasonable options for meal choices, and don’t plan too far in advance...you never know what will be on sale or looking good at the store, or what you might be in the mood for. And if a short time binge happens....so what? Make the next choice a better one and move on.

    I've never liked cooking, I've never been that fond of eating either, I just eat when I'm hungry and then it is a big + if the food is very simple to make. As long as the food taste somewhat nice and don't set like a stone in my stomach that's good enough, I don't care if it's the same meal over and over.

    I'm not counting on sticking to the same foods for months and months, I'm more thinking of it as a start, some basic meals that are right with the calories so that i can also start working out without losing weight. I do have other things at home that I would probably eat every now and then when I feel more ambitious (not very often), and I do hope I will get a bit more into food when I've got the basic eating habits down again.

    Thanks for your reply.

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