How many calories do you eat per meal?

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Givemewings
Givemewings Posts: 864 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm interested to find out how many calories you spend on each meal and how you balance your day. Why do you do it this way and does it work? Seeing as I am trying to make a change for life, and not just until i lose all my weight, what is the recommended calorie intake per meal for a man/woman . Also interest to hear from those in maintenance. Have you found it hard upping your calories and how has your body responded? As I get nearer to my goal ( still a stone or so to lose though) I am starting to worry about this!

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  • dmpizza
    dmpizza Posts: 3,321 Member
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    I have a big breakfast, a small lunch and a "normal" dinner. Its mostly for convenience.
  • LiveEnjoyEndure
    LiveEnjoyEndure Posts: 98 Member
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    I eat 5 to 6 meals a day, trying to keep to 300-400 calories in each meal.
  • marzahl68
    marzahl68 Posts: 201
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    I try to average 300 - 350 cals per meal, keeping dinner as "light" as possible and I fill in the gaps with snacks (fruit, yohurt etc.). Actually, I treat the snacks as meals, sort of.
    I'm almost half the way to my goal, so I'm not actually thinking about upping my calories yet. I'm still in the phase where I'm working on keeping satisfied with my daily cals.
  • Maryvel_chan
    Maryvel_chan Posts: 4
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    I eat the most calories during lunch (600-800 kcal) and the least during breakfast (~300 kcal). Dinner will be around 300-500 kcal then... depending on how big my appetite is.
  • maxbrennersecretlover
    maxbrennersecretlover Posts: 9
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    it all depends on you i guess. what keeps you feeling full til lunch? how will you get through mid afternoon cravings. im on 1200 cals a day before exercise. i try to keep my 3 main meals between 250 and 300 which leaves me enough to snack through the day.
    some people can get through the day on 3 big meals and some rather many small meals.
  • katinka13
    katinka13 Posts: 41
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    3-4 small meals a day, about 250-300 kcal each, plus snacks. i eat everything i like, but in really small servings. it's the only way "diaeting" works for me, as i don't really forbid myself anything.
  • aliciar3
    aliciar3 Posts: 39
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    When I first started I was never eating more than 350 calories at a meal time (breakfast/lunch/dinner) and my snacks throughout the day (2-3 times/day) were never over 150. I lost 10 kilo's doing this but then hit a plateu for about 3 months.

    I recently started eating a large breakfast (400-500 calories) a regular lunch (around 300 calories) and a light dinner (around 200 calories). I have a light morning snack around 100 cals and 1 or 2 afternoon snacks around 100 cals. Since I've started doing this I've started losing again.

    Different things obviously work for different people, just try experimenting a bit.

    Good luck! :)
  • nsblue
    nsblue Posts: 331 Member
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    For breakfast I have approx 200 cal. noon I have approx 300 and supper approx 400 cal. I have 3 healthy snacks... biggest one before 7pm all totalling approx 300.
  • CitrusLump
    CitrusLump Posts: 19
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    I tend to eat 300 calories for breakfast, consisting of museli and low fat yoghurt.

    Lunch is cucumber sticks and hummus, or cous cous salad, or ryvita and peanut butter, usually coming in at around 300 calories also.

    Dinner is usually fish and steamed veg, or salad, or stir fry without rice or noodles, followed by another yoghurt or banana if I'm still hungry, coming in at between 400 and 500 calories.

    I never feel hungry and have found on this I definitely have enough energy to get through the day,including exercise classes. My plate is typically about 2/3rds full, at the most. It's got to the stage where I cannot physically eat a thing such as sunday dinner, or a whole plate of food at a restaurant, because the portions are just ginormous and cause me to have so much cramps and pain if I do force it down!
  • KokomoJoe
    KokomoJoe Posts: 435
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    My "meals" I shoot for about 400 calories, my snacks I aim for under 200. I should probably try to balance it out better but work doesn't seem to allow for it.

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