Hi all - I haven't been here in ages. I've been up and down and all around, and now I need to get a handle on myself. My daughter keeps begging me to lose weight, and I am at a point where I am afraid to go to the doctor because of the lecture I know I'll get.

I'm wondering, what do you all eat in a day? I've tried medifast, where I couldn't stand the food, I've done weight watchers, where I can't keep track of the points.

I wonder if I had a menu to follow, if that would help me. What do you all eat for breakfast , lunch and dinner, and do you eat snacks?

Thanks!

I'm a calorie counter (my fitness pal) and I tend to eat whatever I want that falls into my calorie range so I'm not sure what I eat will be helpful but here it goes.

I get 2060/day for a scheduled 1.5 a week loss. Sometimes I go over but normally I am under.

Today I had:

Lunch (got up at noon)- Jimmy Dean Delight breakfast sandwich, light strawberry yogurt

Dinner- 1 cup of creamy garlic shells and a cup of cheesey chicken potato skillet dinner

Snacks! (I'm a HUGE snacker...) 2 babybel white cheddar cheeses, a Luna bar, 2 cups of light popcorn, fiber one 90 cal brownie, jello cup and a snicker doodle cookie. I currently have 500 ish calories left.

Obviously I'm not the healthiest eater. I don't like most veggies or fruit. I also tend to believe that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie... I normally try to eat slightly better (home cooked vs frozen foods) but I'm at my bf's and he lives on Hungry Man dinners so... I don't eat clean, or do low carb or anything like that. I've lost 12lbs in about 45 days which is good for me. Obviously a healthier diet would be better, I'm working on it.

Typical day for me:

Breakfast: 2cups of Cheerios and 1/2cup of milk
Lunch: 2cups of cheese tortellini (no sauce)
Dinner: varies, depends on how many calories I have left. I can eat a burger, chicken, or a pb sandwich.

Snacks: 100 calorie snack packs, trail mix, weight watchers ice cream bars

I am a low carber, AND I calorie count, AND I try to stay mostly Primal. I do OK at the third one, but the first two combined are what really keep me losing.

Here is my typical day:
Wake up, have a cup of coffee. I am never hungry when I first get up.
Breakfast at work: 2 boiled eggs, or some plain Greek yogurt with an ounce of sliced fruit mixed in.
Snack: 1 oz nuts
Lunch: A nice garden salad, about 4 oz worth of veggies altogether. A few ounces of protein and an ounce of cheese on top of the salad.
Snack: a piece of string cheese, maybe with a slice of deli meat if I'm really hungry.
Dinner is my wild card. I'll have anything from a pot roast, to homemade chicken soup, to taco salad, to...whatever. Looking forward to a delectable dinner is what makes it easier to stay on plan the rest of the day.
At least once a week I usually buy one of those grocery store rotisserie chickens and throw it in the fridge. Life is so much easier when the fiance and I know that we can peel some meat off of it for a few meals a week, and then I boil the bones into broth. It's so yummy and tender, and it costs the exact same as buying a raw whole chicken.
I also have been drinking a couple cups of spearmint tea daily. It seems to have quite an appetite suppressant effect on me.

lots of fruit

You mentioned you already did Medifast and didn't like it, but this is what I am eating:

7am: black coffee
8am: Egg beater omelet with mushrooms, spinach, peppers, tomatoes, light cheese, more black coffee
10am: Medifast chocolate shake
Noon: Medifast chicken soup and a small salad
3pm: Medifast bar, diet soda or green tea
6pm: steak, mashed cauliflower, broccoli
9pm: Medifast pudding topped with fresh raspberries

well i'm just starting (again lol) a couple of months ago i lost 8lbs with low carb, i'm going to continue that as well as doing a kick start where you switch lunch for a replacement shake but have a good breakfast and evening meal with healthy snacks too

my main issue is laziness and i opt for takeouts far too easily so i also try to bulk cook and freeze so that i can reach to the freezer rather than a takeout

Thank you all! I think the thing that I see in all of your plans is that you have plans! I tend to start out the morning with the general notion of how I'm going to eat that day, but around 11:00 at night that goes out the window. Either I'm hungry, or the kids are in bed and I'm alone for the first time that day, and I want to eat! And then I raid the fridge.

Or, sometimes I'll go out for lunch with someone and eat what I shouldn't.

I need to stick with a plan.

I also need to journal, and don't know how to stick with that either.

Today I had two packs of instant oatmeal (with dinosaur eggs). Beyond that, I don't know what I'll eat.

Maybe if I write down my day here, I'll stick to it.

For lunch I'll have a tuna salad. For dinner I'll have turkey sliders with salad. If I need snacks, fruit.

Thanks for your help!

I do low carb, but still watch my calories too. Normally I don't plan out my days in advance, I just know what I can eat and what I can't (i.e. I can eat eggs, meat, veggies...I can't eat cupcakes, potatoes, or cookies lol). I know a lot of people don't like it, but it works better for me to have things that are completely off limits right now. Here are a couple sample days for me

Day 1
B- Atkins Cafe Caramel shake
L- Salad w/ lettuce, spinach, tomato, cucumber, turkey, egg, bacon and dressing
S- pc of colby jack cheese
D- 6oz chicken breast, green beans, cauliflower
S- 1 oz dark chocolate

Day 2
B- 3 Scrambled eggs w 1oz shredded cheddar cheese
L- 3oz leftover roast, carrots, green beans
S- 1/2 cup cottage cheese
D- 6-8oz grilled salmon, brussel sprouts, cauliflower
S- Atkins choc chip granola bar

Day 3
B- Choc/PB protein shake (made w/ almond milk, choc protein powder and PB2)
S- 5-10 raspberries or 3-5 strawberries
L- Tuna salad (tuna, mayo, pickles, egg) on lettuce or just in a bowl, sliced tomatoes
D- 4-6oz ribeye, asparagus, yellow squash
S- 1 oz dark chocolate

Planning really IS key for many folks, even if you just have a *general* plan (like "eat a large breakfast, smaller lunch and dinner, and two snacks about 100 calories each. Have vegetables with each main meal and one fruit a day for a snack. Make sure to eat protein with each meal.") I know I am eating at certain times of the day so it makes it easier to hold off for an hour or two if I am wanting to eat at a non-scheduled time. Good luck!

I like to keep a stack of cheat cards in my purse for just such occasions. For each of my favorite restaurants, I like to have low, moderate and splurge options that I have already looked up on the restaurants' web sites and written down the relevant information. I also then create an entry for that particular meal in MyFitnessPal if one doesn't exist, so that choosing and logging is a breeze.

I won't eat at any chain restaurant that doesn't publish its info, so Cheesecake Factory is right out! For local places, I just do the best I can to guess the components of a meal. If I go somewhere that I don't have a cheat card for, I look them up online before I go and make a plan. If I don't have time for that, I make a general outline. "I'll have some kind of soup and salad bar option" or "I'll get a tasty meat, save half for tomorrow, and get double veggies instead of my starch option." Sometimes I just throw caution to the wind and let it be a cheat meal, but I have to make sure I've eaten very little that day and I don't have any other cheat meals planned that week. A cheat a week at a restaurant can easily undo almost your whole calorie deficit from the rest of the week.

That reminds me, I need to make a new set of cards. I threw out my old ones because it was a bunch of places I don't eat anymore.

I wouldn't say I have a food plan but I do tend to know how many calories each meal should be. I know I like a big dinner and I like to snack in the evenings so I tend to not go over 300/400 calories for lunch. My dinner is usually between 400 and 700, that leaves me lots of left over for snacks and I like having left over calories at the end of the day as a buffer in case the foods I log are incorrect (mostly a worry when I go out).

Thank you all!!

Right now? I'm bad. Really bad. As an example:

Typical Work Day {I work 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at an airport, behind security so my options are limited}

Breakfast: either nothing or 2 scrambled eggs with ketchup and 2 pieces of wheat toast with real butter and grape jelly

Lunch: romaine lettuce with shredded carrotts, diced tomatoes and chicken marinated in sweet baby ray's sweet & sour, & a pepsi

Supper: 'taco salad' made with 80/20 ground beef, flash frozen onions & corn, seasoned with McCormick's mild low sodium taco seasoning, tossed with shredded iceberg lettuce and A-1 sauce, served on a bed of crushed Lay's classic potato chips.

Snacks: 2 oz of rold gold pretzels

Typical day off:

Breakfast: same as work day

Lunch: hot dogs on wheat bread with ketchup or tomato soup {campbells}

Supper: Pan seared tilapia drizzled in olive oil and dusted with a mix of paprika, Parmesan, and either bay leaves or oregano

Lots of room for improvement obviously.