Filling food?

I like big salads topped with protein

You're filling up on carbs, which are high in cals. You may find that protein or fat make you feel more satiated. Salad and veg can be eaten in large quantities for not a lot of cals, as long as you don't pour on dressings or sauces.

Depending on what cereal you have, half the portion size and add some yoghurt and berries.

Instead of jam in your pita, have some fish or lean meat and a large serving of salad leaves, cucumber, tomatoes. Or forget the pita and just make up a huge salad and add protein.

Investigate popcorn if you feel the need to have a snack. The bags I buy (I'm in the UK) are 44 cals. Or switch to fruit - an apple or banana will fill you up more than 2 cookies and will provide fibre and nutrients that cookies can only dream of.

What did you have with your noodles? I tend to just do huge stirfries and either top with grilled salmon or add chopped chicken or beef or prawns. I have so much veg on my plate that I don't need noodles or rice.

Why not eat the foods that you like but in smaller quantities? Or eat most of the foods that you like, but make substitutions where they make sense. I like chips but switched to oven-baked wedges. I also realised that i only need one med-large potato, not two or three. I pile veggies onto my plate and don't need (as much) rice as I'd have had before. I pad out tagliatelli or spaghetti with courgetti - the reduced portion of pasta is just enough, the volume of courgette is filling and the whole meal is considerably lower in cals.


When you set up MFP, how much did you tell MFP you want to lose per week? How tall are you, what do you weigh and how much are you trying to lose? Unless you're short and sedentary, only having 1200 cals a day is possibly too aggressive. Are you logging exercise and eating those cals too? If not, you should be as that's how MFP is designed. You may need more cals, which will enable you to eat enough food to feel fuller.

MFP stops at 1200 no matter what and won't recommend eating below that so depending on your activity level don't expect to see a 2lb a week loss. Mine is set at 1200 too but I think that's a 1.4 loss (even though I said 2lbs) and I'm 5'3" and 175lbs.

A food that I find SUPER filling is chickpeas! I've started adding chickpeas to pretty much everything I make. Half a cup doesn't sound like a lot but I always feel satisfied and depending on what I can fit into my calories I might have a whole cup.

Chickpeas, salsa, anything with lots of fiber. I bought some fiber 1 cereal and I eat it with unsweetened almond milk and that will keep me full for a couple hours. Lots of veggies. I buy bags of lettuce shreds and I'll add like 4 cups to a meal sometimes.

I love shrimp, it's super low cal and you can eat so much. Definitely up your protein.

I have to limit my carb intake because it doesn't fill me up. I love a good egg and cheese bagel but the 200 calories for the bagel makes me sad. So I'll have one every 3rd day or so because yum still. Something I've really had to realize is that the "good" food is always going to be there, I don't need to have a bagel every day.

You know what's a really slow way to lose weight? Set a calorie goal so low and punitive that you can't stick with it, get ravenous, and either crack under the strain and overeat bigtime periodically, or maybe even give up altogether, regain pounds with friends.

I'm 5'5" like you. After losing 50+ pounds 5 years back, I was drifting up a bit, and last year my jeans were getting a little snug, at about the weight you're at now. I set up for that 0.5 pound a week, but still let myself have some higher days in there occasionally. Man, did I lose slowly! 🤣

You know what? It was practically painless. Now I'm right about where I want to be, mid-120s (a little heavier than your goal, but fine for me), with zero stress or strain, good energy and satiation along the way, didn't lose lean tissue like you're trying to do on too-low calories with limited nutrition. And I've arrived at a better weight with a pretty clear idea about how to stay there, because it's not much different than what I needed to do to lose slowly. Same jeans are loose, now . . . almost too loose.

The only downside was, yes, it took a while. Time was gonna pass anyway. 🤷‍♀️

Sometimes losing appropriately slowly is actually faster than trying to lose fast. And easier. Not to mention making easier to stay there, because practiced. Your call, though.

Wishing you success!

7rainbow wrote: »

Lietchi wrote: »

MarttaHP wrote: »

I'm curious - what kind of "unhealthy" foods have you typically eaten that you have found filling? Because I find the opposite to be true to me; I could eat a ton of junk food and not feel full at all.

OP: if you tell us what you're currently eating, we might be able to give more precise advice?

It isn't that I really found unhealthy food filling, I just ate it in large quantities. MFP is recommending I eat 1200 calories, so I'm trying to think of what to eat. I had some cereal for breakfast, pitas with jam for lunch, two cookies for snack, and some noodles for dinner the other day, but I wasn't very full. However I reached my cal count, so I couldn't add any more. Any recommendations would be great!

that's a lot of carbs. which isn't bad (I need a cobo of carbs and protein to stay full for a decent amount of time) but by themselves like that ... they are calorie heavy foods that don't offer much nutrition.

i eat normal, every day foods (nothing weird) and a decently wide variety of things. my diary is open if you want to add me.

also 1200 calories isn't really that much, and most people can lose weight eating more than that. when your calories are that low, it is even MORE important to have a wide variety of nutrient rich foods