Ok, so yesterday for breakfast I had a cup of Honey Oats with clusters....so with milk included that was 390 cal.

For lunch I had one of those 90 cal. meat packets(ham) with 2 slices of bread which was altogether was 210 cal. I did however drink one can of pepsi which was my biggest fall.
Which brings me to another question....do you guys think diet pop is ok to drink?Do any of you drink it?

For dinner I had a 1/2 cup of spaghetti and a slice of garlic bread....not really sure on the cal. of that.

Should I eat less cal. or more or is my diet all wrong?
Some ideas of what you all eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner would be helpful.

I think you may just need a bit of tweaking.

I'd look for a less sugary cereal than you ate. How about shredded wheat or even something like oatmeal? How about some berries added to either?

How about some veggies in your sandwich and using some whole wheat bread. Did you also use mayo? I highly recommend mustard for sandwiches. I'd also recommend something like baby carrots on the side with your sandwich.

As for diet soda, some people love it, some people avoid it. I just personally avoid all sodas. I drink iced tea for the most part or water.

For dinner, I'd definitely add some veggies and I'd probably skip the bread but if you just added veggies, that'd be a good improvement.

I think your meals would just generally leave me hungry and sluggish.

If its one thing I know its stay away from mayo!
Nothing good comes form it!

Thanks for the breakfast and veggie advise!

Your diet looks high in processed food and sugars to me. I also don't see much protein and I don't see ANY veggies or fruits there. Maybe tomatoes in spaghetti sauce???

Look at the ingredients on your cereal box and see where in the list sugar or corn syrup or corn sweeteners comes in. If it's in the top 5 ingredients, that means your cereal is mostly sugar.

The meat packets are loaded with sodium, so I would avoid those. What kind of bread was it? If the meat was 90 cal, then 2 slices of bread would be more like another 200 cals (most breads, white or wheat are about 90-120 cals a slice, unless it's a diet bread).

The spaghetti and garlic bread are probably pretty high calorie, but also high carb.

As for soda - I drink diet soda about 3x per week or so. I can't take the sweetness of regular soda, so I don't drink it at all. Every once in a while I'll have a root beer or a ginger ale, but very very very rarely.

You definitely need more veggies and protein and fewer processed carbs.

Here's an example of what I ate yesterday that might help you.

Breakfast (350 cals)
Whole Foods Fresh Ground Peanut Butter
Mccann Steel Cut Oats

Morning snack (91 cals)
Snyder's Pretzel Sticks
V-8 juice

Lunch (116 cals)
Butternut Squash Soup

Afternoon Snack (190 cals)
Jazz Apple
1 oz Cheddar cheese

Post workout (120 cals)
Protein powder drink (added cinnamon and vanilla for flavor)

Dinner (480 cals)
Tuna Noodle Casserole (made with wheat rotini, tuna, onion, celery, carrot, mushroom, yogurt, and cheese on top).
Spinach salad w/ low fat asian sesame dressing

Evening Snack (117 cals)
Pumpkin Muffin

Out of that I got 119 g of protein, 27 g of fiber, 52 g of fat, and a total of 1464 calories. '

.

In general your meal plan for yesterday would not be my recommendation.

We don't know enough about you to give specific advice. What is your age, height, current weight? What is your target weight? All these factors come into play in determining an ideal calorie target. There are tons of tools on the internet to help determine this.

Next you need to determine what your nutrient targets are going to be - there are many successful members with different variations so this is a bit of a learning processes of what works for you. I personally stick to 25% Fat, 20% Protein and 55% Carbs.

At that point you should record your food intake with your calories target and nutrient targets in mind.

Also what about exercise? That can also be a factor in determining calories as well as nutrients.

Lori

I drink 1-2 diet sodas every day. As you can see, I don't have a problem with them at all.

About your food....I couldn't survive on that little. If that is all you ate, then even with the Pepsi you only consumed about 1100 calories, which is below the "starvation" threshold of 1200.

I'm not the healthiest person, but I'll list today's menu as an example of what I usually eat.

Breakfast: Kashi Go-Lean Crunch with Milk - 310 calories
Lunch: Bowl of vegetale soup & grilled cheese - 500 calories
Dinner: Rotel Chicken Casserole - 487 calories

I shoot for 1500 calories, so that leaves me with 200 descretionary calories. I may eat a spoon of peanut butter before I workout, or a piece of cheese, maybe some sunchips. Ocassionally, I'll have 1/2 cup icecream as a special treat. I never eat under 1300. Of course your numbers will most likely be a bit different depending on your stats. I would definitely recommend that you find a calorie counting site to track your meals on. I personally use The Daily Plate, but there are several others.

Here is a typical day for me. I eat 5 x per day.

Brekkie:
1/2 cup Fage 0% yogurt mixed with strawberries and 1/2 cup granola (140 cal granola, watch the info on granola as it can vary widely), 1 tsp honey.
Cafe au lait made with 2% milk. Total calories: 400

Lunch: Tuna sandwich or boca burger, banana Total calories around 300

Snack: 2% latte - Total calories 140

Dinner: Breaded clam strips (baked in the toaster oven), 1 cup of steamed broccoli, 1/2 cup applesauce. Total calories: 350

Snack: Soy Crisps, 1/3 ounce of cashews Total calories: 150

Total: 1350. I will usually also have around 50-100 calories of 'nibbles', like 1 tablespoon of dark chocolate chips.

I would say to cut back on white foods ( sugar, white bread, pasta, white rice, potatos etc) and to increase your consumption of protein. Protein fights the hungries like you wouldn't believe and helps you to feel fuller longer. White foods cause a rapid rise and then fall in blood sugar that leaves us feeling hungry and with that weak feeling. Eat lots of veggies, raw or cooked. Try two servings with each meal and minimize the "white" foods. Try to minimize snacking but if you simply must, try those individual serving pkgs of popcorn, they are only 100 calories each and contain good fiber. And if you're really having a sweet tooth, I have found that a banana is really good for that.