[Caro25]

So I am trying for what seems like the 1,000th time, to lose weight. I found this site & thought it was awesome & decided to give it a try. So I downloaded my fitness pal and my breakfast today was 1 egg, a cup of milk and a banana. That took up almost half of the calories I am suppose to have for the day. This blows. I need some ideas of what I can have for breakfast & dinner & maybe even some snacks. I feel extremely overwhelmed & as if I am going to fail once again.

[MsTibbles]

Hi Caro! <3 Well done for coming here! It's great to have you!

I also use MFP. That does sound a little off - What daily intake is MFP recommending for you?

Also, some entries can be very far off in MFP. The database is made by the users and sometimes things are out of date or just wrong. On average for your breakfast that would be roughly 150 for the egg (medium, large is more and depends how you cook it) , 100 for your banana and between 30-60 for your milk depending on if it's skimmed, semi or full. If you were eating 1200 a day (minimum for most people) that would be about a quarter of your intake <3

Some tips for MFP:

• Try to enter branded items where possible as these tend to be more accurate (branded milk, supermarket brand fruit in this case).
  
• Double check wherever possible.
  
• Remember that some packaged foods contain more than one portion. Check portion sizes!
  
• Weigh your food. It's so much easier when you track exactly how much you're having. <3
  
• Remember calories will change if you cook things in oil or butter. Add the food AND the oil or butter in grams separately.

You can totally do this!

[Caro25]

Thank you for your reply! You are so sweet!

The daily intake MFP is suggesting is 1,220.
I did try to be as accurate as possible stating I had a medium sized egg, 8oz of 2% milk and a banana. It said the total calories were 597. That is crazy! I will see how tomorrow goes.

Weighing food seems like a good idea. Do you know where I can find a good scale to use in the kitchen?

[bookbabe]

I would have to say that it is WAY off on calories if it tells you that the breakfast you listed is half of your calories for the day. An egg has around 78 calories, a cup of 2% milk is around 122 calories and a banana has around 105. That's only around 300. Look somewhere for your calorie count is what I would suggest.

[dmnoland]

Hi Caro,
Something to think about in counting calories is your time frame. You can absolutely lose weight without being hungry all the time. When I was heavier I could consume far more calories then now while still dropping about 1 lb. a week. As my weight plateaued I would tweak my calories, little by little till I landed just shy of maintenance calories. Hunger for me was never an issue until I started lifting weights about 5 lbs. ago.
So you can lose weight: 1. Rather quickly at 1220 calories
2. Very slowly by eating at maintenance calories
3. Somewhere in between that fits YOUR goals

[MatchaPocky]

Originally Posted by Caro25

Weighing food seems like a good idea. Do you know where I can find a good scale to use in the kitchen?

Walmart has kitchen scales from five to thirty dollars. I bought a five dollar one that measures up to 2lbs on one side and 1000 grams on the other. It's basically a measuring cup on top of a weighing bar and you're able to adjust it. It works pretty well, and it doesn't take up much space at all.