Good morning all. Yesterday I was on the high end of my calorie range. I am seeing a trend. The last two weeks I only lost 1.5 each week - and both weeks I was on the high end of my calorie range. I need to pump up the will power and stay between 1200-1600 for the rest of this week to see what difference it makes. Problem is, I am freaked out about eating less. I don't want to feel like I am *starving* and I am not good at white knuckling it. Also, if I keep swimming I am really, really afraid of being too hungry. I know if I can get past a couple of days I will probably be alright, but I am still freaking out.

I am thinking I need to change the foods somewhat too. Instead of "eating what I want" I want to try more of the stuff I don't really care for - ie: veggies. I need some ideas for lower calorie meals. Right now my meals average 400-500. Help!!

I moved this to calorie counters as I think you'll get more calorie count based ideas

Anyway, do you like any veggies at all? I initially didn't eat a lot of veggies but I started with the ones I did like and eventually started adding more veggies and now I eat tons of veggies and I love veggies.

Think bulk: carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and strawberries are my big standards: 350 grams of carrots (a BULGING sandwich bag) is under 150 calories. The same amount of strawberries, broccoli, or cauliflower are each under 100.

100-calorie popcorn packs, eaten one kernel at a time take forever to finish.

You may also just decide if 1.5 pounds a week is really so bad. It's not worth it, IMO, to degrade your quality of life for half a pound a week: try it, and if you can adapt and it works, that's great. But if you go from your plan being comfortable and easy to your plan being stressful and feeling deprived, I'd go back to the easy plan. A stressful/deprived feeling will lead to off plan eating, undoing all you've done.

I love vegies but wanted something different & filling last night, I made mashed sweet potatoes, very filling. I just boiled 2 med size potatoes, by the weight I figured they were 90 calories each, mashed them with 2 tablespoons of low calorie margarine & 2 tablespoons of skim milk & just a pinch of ground nutmeg. Beat them until they were really fluffy. I don't have the total of what I counted here with me at work, but I split it in half & will eat the rest of it this evening. If you try it & you would like it a little sweeter like my husband does you can add a teaspoon of honey to it & the calorie count will still be low.

Here's an example of the sort of thing I make:

http://www.3fatchicks.com/diet-blogs.../05/18/quiche/

There are things you can do to make it lower fat (use flavorful turkey meat rather than bacon or leave the meat out altogether) which will also make it lower calorie. I often make it with no meat but the recipe and calorie count are for the highest possible. A quarter of this "everything" quiche is still under 300 calories. You can add a side salad for more bulk. It's super easy to make, the leftovers are good cold, and you don't feel like you are eating diet food (because you aren't - you're getting real cheese and bacon!).

Did you see this:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/calo...ner-ideas.html sticky at the top? There is also a 400-cal-breakfast sticky.

I'm not sure if you are looking for an actual meal, or what, but I have a few go-to low calorie dinners. I've found them here and there on the internet.



I make fish tacos. A LOT. I use wheat tortillas too. I started with Bobby Flay's recipe, and I tweaked it to be lower calorie and more to our liking. I make it once a week now that it's warm out. It's amazing. Everything would depend on how many people you have over!

white fish (I use cod and marinate it in some cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno and chili powder)
wheat torillas
jalapenos (to taste, i LOVE spicy food, so i use a lot)
lime juice
cilantro
shredded white cabbage
red onion

I marinate the fish for at least an hour, then I grill it in packets till its done. I put fish, cabbage, cilantro and red onion into the wheat tortillas and we top them with light sour cream, jalapenos and home made pico de gallo. It's AMAZING.


I have about 4million more. I'll send some to you as soon as I find them!!

Another idea: wheat bran. It's a great low calorie way to bulk up things like oatmeal, yogurt, cottage cheese, or even ground beef. It has an unbelievable amount of fiber, so it makes food much more filling.

Note: Wheat BRAN, not wheat germ. Wheat germ has a lot more calories/fat.

I LOVE fish tacos! Great recipe!

Thanks! Keep em coming! I am going to try the fish tacos- they sound yummy. I do eat Tilapia for lunch 2-3 times a week. I also put a can of tuna in my salads and lots of tomatoes to help with bulk.

I will look for the wheat bran. How do you use it with ground beef?

I just stumbled upon the EatingWell.com site and they have a ton of low calorie dinner recipes. My current favorite collection is the 30min under 500 calories dinners: http://www.eatingwell.com/nutrition_...minute_dinners

They also have an amazing 28 day meal plan with 3 different calorie levels (1200, 1500, and 1800). I haven't tried to follow their full plan, but I do use it for meal and snack ideas.

I get it at Whole Foods. In ground beef, I just brown and rinse very lean ground beef and dump some wheat bran along with tomato sauce and sometimes hot sauce or pickles. My husband calls it "burger in a bowl".

Have you tried shirataki noodles? A blogger I read posted a recipe today and has inspired me to try them. They're so low-calorie compared to spaghetti that I'm going to get some this weekend and try them out.

Hopefully, the short cooking time and repeated rinsing will work to control the taste. If they have a strange taste, they'll never work at our house.

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/pro...takinoodle.htm

Please post your findings if you cook it.

Shirataki Noodles! These are a huge help when I really want a carb-heavy dish. My two tips are to get the tofu ones and to consider one package as a serving. I think each package comes as two servings, but once you drain the water half a package ends up being a pretty small meal.

I like to cook these as Asian style dishes rather than Italian ones, even though they're labeled as linguini and spaghetti noodles, because the sauce tends to not stick as well as it does with regular noodles. Asian dishes usually have a lot of vegetables and meats thrown in so you'll get a lot of the sauce to stick that way.

Another tip, definitely follow the preparation instructions on the package b/c your noodles will taste a lot better and feel less rubbery (yeah, they have a bit of a squeaky texture).

My other suggestion for TXMary2 is to not be afraid to make your vegetables a little less healthy. I ended up getting really bored with raw and steamed vegetables, even if I was adding hummus or a vinaigrette to them. Mixing it up with frittatas or gratins may seem like a bad idea, but if it means getting a lot more vegetables into my diet then I'm all for it. I just try to go light on the creams, butter, and cheeses.

I also like to throw vegetables in with my carbs so I'll end up with something like squash and broccoli rice or spaghetti with zucchini strips tossed with garlic, parmesan, and olive oil. My favorite is to sneak guacamole into a lot of dishes. Two tablespoons is only about 50 calories and it's full of flavor and really satisfying.