Calorie Help Please

MFP will calculate your daily goal based off your stats and your lifestyle. Yes if you go hugely over it every day and never exercise, you will gain, but if you eat too little, you might get stuck where you're not losing at all. Sometimes it can be hard to meet the goals all the time but ultimately MFP will place you at where approx. you need to be (of course it varies from person to person w/ metabolism, etc). Just try to aim for that - Some people eat back exercise calories too, personally I don't.

I'd definitely stick with fruits, or yogurts -- I personally am a huge fan of snack-sized popcorn bags.
Or oatmeal. To bump you up to where you need to be.

Oh, and for the counter, if you go to the tools page and go to the tickers, it'll give you an HTML code for it and you'd copy that, then go to "Signature" under the Community/Message Boards and paste that into there along with anything else you want to show on every post you make.

Yo need to eat 1200 calories minimum to stop your body going into starvation mode. If you eat less than this your body stores the food to ride out the lack of calories. You are also burning calories doing exercise which your body is liking even less as your not hitting the 1200 calories your body needs to fuel itself. Based on your exercise you should be eating 1500ish calories per active day. Add more vegetables and brown rice into your diet. This way you should start to see weight loss

So should I eat more than a banana for breakfast to start the day? Will more veggies up the calorie intake enough? Eggs and meat for protein? I do not have the right foods in my house for a really healthy diet I dont think. I have some fruits, I have stuff to make a sandwich. Maybe some breakfast stuff and thats it.

I've never been much of a breakfast eater either. Mainly because I just love sleeping so much that I never want to get out of bed early just to make myself something. I'd rather just have myself a nice cup of coffee and roll out of bed exactly half an hour before I have to be at work at 8am. You should try light english muffins or maybe light toast along with a piece of fruit or an eggy. I think one fried medium egg is 70 cals approx, and i use Pam rather than like butter in the pan. As for breakfast proteins, there's turkey bacon or canadian bacon is soo good.

Are you able to buy like a package of fresh/frozen chicken or anything? I get a package of boneless/skinless chicken breast and separate them into ziplock bags and freeze them individually, I also buy a big bag of the frozen, individually wrapped tilapia filets. Every day pretty much I make sure and pull one of each out to thaw-and I cook one or the other or both of the ones that are ready. Obviously this is just the meat and protein that I like-of course do what's best for you. You can look at my diary if you'd like-and I don't claim to be perfect-about two weeks back I had KFC. I know we all have different things to worry about and being unemployed makes things difficult. Are there coupons for food you can use, or maybe cut down on other items you purchase? Eating healthy can be hard to get into, but once you do it'll feel good. Don't sell yourself short, is basically what i'm saying.

It all depends on your sleep cycle. I work overnight shifts-arm up at 6pm-get to work and then I don't get home until about 8am some days. I eat pretty much the same size meals throughout the day.

Oh and also I use my george foreman grill for everything. Like the other day I grilled a chicken breast, shredded it with a fork and added a few tablespoons of bbq sauce to it. There was enough there for 4 wraps/sandwiches for me and I ate it over the past few days. Or last night I grilled tilapia and jalapenos for dinner and had a roma tomato and 1/2 an avocado on the side. Just be creative I guess. I have to say that grill is wonderful in my opinion.

Hey! I know about water- i Love love LOVE it too!:drinker:

I know how it is to live on a budget. I am on a fixed income as well. I think the youtube link in my signature is an example of how to stretch a dollar. Here are a few of my tips and of course this depends on where you live. I live in an urban area so there are loads of markets available.

1. Find a local produce market or farmers market. My local produce market sell eggs 3dozen/$3.75. On Sunday I boil a half dozen. This give me breakfast on the go, easy egg salad or a quick protein in my salad. the same produce market sells string beans 3lbs/$2, beans and brown rice for $1.50 a 16oz bag.

2. I shop the quicksale items at the supermarket. A few weeks ago the had a packet of roma tomatos for $.69 I opened the pack and there were 16 very ripe roma tomatoe. I cooked them down and made tomato sauce from scratch. It made about 2 cups. Even adding the onions and peppers I added to the sauce that's less than a dollar. You'll never get a 16oz jar of tomato sauce from the market for that price. making t myself means I also control the sodium.

3.Lunch meat is never a good deal. It's full of sodium and nitrates that really aren't that good for you. Buy your own protein and slice it yourself.

4. Invest in a crock pot. I got mine from Walgreens for $10. it's a great way to cook stew meat which is usually a cheap cut of meat. I use it to make my own beans since I prefer not to buy canned beans.

5. Do not be supermarket loyal. Shop the circulars. I shop at least 3 markets. The produce market, Acme, Sav-a-Lot and Whole Foods. I also clip coupons. I hit the markets probably once a month and the produce market biweekly because I eat a lot of salad. Just found a Community Supported Agriculture in my area. I've done them in the past.. It's a great way to support local and save money. http://www.lancasterfarmfresh.com/static/controls/?page=csa/seasonextension

6. If you are not a breakfast eater, ease into it. There are days when I start with a glass of water and a piece of fruit. An hour later I try to eat something a bit more substantial like an egg. Do not "forget" to eat. Set and alarm on your phone if necessary. It is not healthy and will not help you lose weight. At a minimum eat 3 meals a day. If that's too much at once try 3 small meals and 2 snacks.