Hi all, new to calorie counting, have been doing so for about a week,
Please give an example of breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals
For me, an example;
B: Large Coffee little cream no sugar or 1 package of sugar
Lunch: soup or burger or hot dog (trying to stay away from the fries), coffee, water,
Dinner: Chicken, whole grain rice a roni (sooo good) and a veggie, water or sprite,
Mainly I am concerned about;
i am trying to come up with a breakfast around 200 calories, that I can stomach.
i am trying to get some fruit and salad in there too, working on it,
i am getting too much saturated fat and sometimes sodium,
I eat out once a day, either lunch or dinner, so any good suggestions for meals eaten out will help.
My calories this last week have been 1200-1900 (mostly around 1400-1600)
Any suggestions will help.
Hi Vix - as far as eating out goes - I like Quizno's for a fast but good & yummy option - I usually get a chopped cobb salad w/light dressing - hold the bread that comes with it....or a bowl of chili....soooo good - I know a lot of people eat Wendy's Chili - Quizno's imo is much better tasting and it has a lot less calories...
I would avoid burgers/hot dogs because those for me tend to be a treat...not an every day or even weekly item. I eat a lot of turkey and cheese sandwiches and I use Arnold Bread's Double Fiber Bread - 2 slices = 40% of your daily fiber....in fact, I had a sandwich for lunch today @ 1:3pm and I am still very full right now.
For breakfast - I have slimfast...it works for me....then around 11:30am I have a Fiber One Granola Bar (again, tons of fiber here - good for keeping you full @ 35% of your daily fiber intake). If you like eggs - they are always good for you - adding some fresh spinach to your scramble is great as well.
For dinner, I like to have something easy - Kashi frozen pizza or Whole Wheat Ravioli - I have even found a low cal/low fat Alfredo sauce (only 90 calories/quarter cup serving) to put on top...very filling and fulfilling at the same time. I usually add a veggie to my dinner....
I hope this helps. I'm relatively new to this as well, but am getting along happily with it....I have just found a route that works for me and am sticking to it...keeping lots of those food items that are really working for me readily available.
Are you snacking at all through the day? I find it helps me to have a snack of btwn 100-150 calories a couple of times/day.
I try to have small meals with snacks in-between. Really, it is 6 small meals of 100-350 calories.
Breakfast - I USED be abhor eating breakfast - it actually made me sick. I have slowly adjusted to having it, and now - I have a hard time if I don't eat it.
My favorites: Thomas light mult-grain English muffin with peanut butter or hummus. (150 cals) Morningstar Farms tomato & basil burger on half of a Flat-Out bread (160 cals) Light N Fit yogurt with an English muffin or Flat Out bread (usually half) (100-200 cals)
For eating out, depending on the restaurant - I usually go for a roasted veggie sandwich, or a salad with the dressing on the side. Fruit plates also work if available. A couple items off of the side menu will also work - a baked sweet potato with broccoli for example. Wild rice with stir-fried veggies are also a frequent choice. Don't be afraid to ask for a custom entrée if the menu doesn't have acceptable choices. Being a vegetarian, I have grown accustomed to asking for "tweaks" to an item on the menu.
A typical day's menu:
Breakfast:
English muffin with hummus and black coffee (150 cals)
Snack:
lowfat cheese stick and apple (150 cals)
Lunch:
Vegetable soup (Progresso or Healthy Choice), and veggie burger on half Flat Out bread (280 cals)
Snack:
Two Wasa crackers with topping (hummus, pb, cheese, homemade bean spread, etc.) (150 cals)
Supper:
Squash ravioli with tomato sauce (half of a portion according to package - about 4-5 raviolis), large dish of mixed vegetables (2-3 servings), and a piece of fruit (350-400 cals)
Evening: Red wine (100 cals) and maybe cheese, crackers, fruit, or some other snack of around 100 calories
Last edited by CountingDown; 12-02-2007 at 09:30 PM.
I don't count calories or anything - just use common sense - has worked for me.
Breakfast - plain oatmeal, skim milk, splenda, orange juice
or - egg & cheese on a toasted english muffin
Lunch - light yogurt or soup if I get home early enough to have it or a LC panini
Dinner chicken and veggies or
LC or WW with extra veggies or
a large salad with chicken
once in a while if I am on the road and starving I will grab a plain hamburger and a small fry at McD
once in a while if my son is craving Wendys chicken I'll get a taco salad - chili on the side - light ranch dressing and a plain baked potato if I'm really hungry
Slim Fast works for me as breakfast, too. How about an eggwhite omelet? VERY satisfing.... I am a big canned tuna freak. Has about 90 cals. And if I had a high calorie day, I'll eat it at dinner with a lot of lemon. Or I'll just cook a chicken breast with some no cal spray, and add some leafy things. If I'm VERY hungry and again, need a low cal somethign, I'll steam broccolli and eat it alone. Baby carrots, oranges or apples as a midday snack does wonders for me. And lemon is my biggest ally.
Ok...breakfast (so important to try to eat something in the morning)...here's my list of normal choices.
whole wheat toast with peanut butter (the natural kind, not Skippy...too much sugar) and a little honey or
lowfat yogurt with sugar free jam mixed in or
plain old fashioned oatmeal nuked for 3 minutes with splenda, cinnamon and a chopped apple or
cottage cheese with applesauce mixed in (nasty looking but tastes great) or
french toast made with egg beaters, bread, splenda, cinnamon and pam.
I don't eat out for lunch very often, but when I do I always go out to the web site (if it's a chain) before hand and check out what the best choices are. Another great source of info is Calorie King.com or the Daily Plate. At Jack in the box I like the chicken fajita pita. At Subway I like turkey wraps. At Quiznos I still need to try the new "sammies".
I agree with you that you need to fit in more fruits and veggies. I eat TONS of veggies - lots of bulk for not too many calories. Fruit is easy to carry along for a snack, can you get an insulated lunch box to bring stuff with instead of going out so much? There is so much sodium in restaurant food. I bring mixed salad greens in a glad ware every day, the "spritzer" type salad dressing is easy to add right before you eat it. I shake the whole thing up in the glad ware bowl with the lid. It uses less dressing that way. String cheese is an easy snack, too...granola bars, but watch out for the high calorie ones. The ones I buy are generic but the taste great and have like 110 calories. If you have access to a microwave, lean cuisines or heathy choice or other frozen meals are an easy lunch...
Typical Breakfasts:
Steel Cut Oats with 1T of flaxseed, 1T raisins, & 1t maple syrup
Whole grain toast with Peanut butter (Natural type)
Poached egg on toast
Plain yogurt with fruit and 1t maple syrup or honey
Lunch is almost always leftovers from the night before
Dinner varies. We eat mostly vegetarian. I try to incorporate lots of veggies and whole grains (ww pasta, quinoa, brown rice, barley, etc) and I'm very stingy on the fats (I still measure oil/fats at goal.)
When we go out I usually avoid fried things and order lean proteins (fish/chicken) with some sort of veggie. I pretty much never finish an entire meal; I always take some home. Non-cream based soups are usually a good option too (just don't midlessly eat the bread!) When we do go out to a burger joint I get a veggie burger, no cheese, no mayo, and a side salad instead of fries (dressing on the side of course.) If you are going to a chain you should check online to see what your best option is. dietfacts.com is great website for getting the nutritional info on restaurant food.
I always post my daily "menu" on the 20 Something's section - but a typical day for me may go something like this:
Breakfast - Special K with non fat yoghurt
Lunch - Omlette (2 egg white, 1 whole egg) with 1 x piece of soy & linseed toast and whole grilled tomato
Dinner - Chicken fillet grilled on 2 x soy and linseed bread slices lightly toasted with avocado, cheese, tomato, lettuce and caramelised onion
Snack - fruit
My days usually average around 1200-1400 cals.
Other breakfasts I have include -
- apples cut up with non fat yoghurt and berries
- Whole grain or linseed toast with vegemite or sugar free jam
- Porridge with brown sugar
- Omlette with toast
Lunches
- Sandwiches with a variety of fillings such as salads (beetroot, tomato, cucumber), cheese, carrot, shaved ham or chicken etc
For breakfast, the following options are typical for me, and each is about 200-300 cals:
-Toasted whole wheat English muffin with 1 tbsp of peanut butter, 1 tbsp reduced sugar strawberry preserves, and 1/2 banana cut up on top.
-1 cup of cereal (Trader Joe's raisin bran is good), 1/4 cup almond milk, 1/4 cup skim milk
-Fruit smoothie: 2/3 cup frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, 1/2 banana, 1/4 cup orange juice, 1 scoop protein powder, and enough water to make it blend. This one's a bit high in sugar so I don't have it too often.
For breakfast I either have an egg white (or whites with one yolk) omelet with veggies or beans or something, or I'll have a bowl of kashi go lean with a 60 cal carton of dannon yogurt on top. Both options are under 300 calories and filling and healthy. I think if you're going to be eating so much processed food throughout the day and evening, it will be important to eat something healthy (like a veggie omelet) for breakfast. You want to make sure you get in lots and lots of veggies.
Here is my menu for this morning (3 years maintenance).
B - 2 whole grain Kashi waffles, 1 with natural peanut butter, 1 with ligonberry jam (when I was losing weight, my favorite breakfast was to scramble 1/4 cup Southwestern egg beaters and wrap it in a 50 calorie La Tortilla Factory tortilla with some salsa and some spinach leaves - 150 calories, lots of protein and very filling)
S - 1 package of fresh blackberries
L - spinach salad - small piece of grilled chicken breast, red pepper, jicama, shredded carrot, broccoli, red onion, a few dried cranberries and toasted pumpkin seeds, Trader Joe's fat free balsalmic vinaigrette
S - 100 calories of no sugar added cocoa
S - orange
S - cut up veggies - baby carrots, sugar snap peas,grape tomatoes, red pepper strips
D - extra lean meat loaf, roasted cauliflower, peas
For those of you that eat actual meals...
vixjean! 
String cheese is an easy snack, too...granola bars, but watch out for the high calorie ones. The ones I buy are generic but the taste great and have like 110 calories. If you have access to a microwave, lean cuisines or heathy choice or other frozen meals are an easy lunch...
