Well, I wouldn't call myself "slim" or "skinny" just yet, but basically my daily food intake goes something like this:

(Morning)
1) 1% latte (1 c)
2) WW cereal (3/4 or 1/2 c) with 1% milk

(Mid afternoon)
3) veggie burger with 2 slices low-fat bread, one slice cheese, pickles, mustard
4) sometimes another 1% latte (1 c)

(Late afternoon)
5) salad, usually just lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and whatever dressing

(Dinner)
6) baked salmon, about 1/2-3/4 yam or sweet potato, 1 c steamed
cauliflower

(Late night snack)
7) olives, sometimes crackers and cheese, sometimes cottage cheese.

I'll give this a try! I lost 70 lbs and have maintained that weight loss for nearly 2 years, I guess I'm a "skinny" person now (so nice to type that). Here is what I ate today (this is a very typical day for me):

B - 2 pieces of whole grain toast (organic, sprouted), 1 piece with 1 tbs natural peanut butter, 1 piece with 1 tbs organic cherry jam

S - 1.5 cups of fresh blueberries

L - big salad from the salad bar downstairs - field greens, broccoli, romaine, red peppers, tomatoes, chickpeas, carrots, artichoke hearts, turkey, little scoop of sesame seeds, cucumber, balsalmic vinaigrette on the side

S - orange

S - cut up veggies (enough to fill a baggie) - baby carrots, sugar snap peas, grape tomatoes, red pepper strips

D - veggie tacos - 3 whole wheat tortillas (La Tortilla Factory, 50 calories each), 2 crumbled Morning Star Farm veggie burgers, salsa, tons of spinach leaves, 1/4 cup low fat cheese

S - 1 cup roasted butternut squash, 1 tbs maple pumpkin butter (like apple butter, not "butter")

Just a note - I eat exactly the same foods I ate to lose weight, I just allow myself more healthy calories. Maintenance (ie, staying a skinny person) is exactly like weight loss - I made a lifelong change. For 20 years, I restricted/binged, lost weight, gained weight...I finally had to accept that I couldn't make short term changes and expect long term results.

I still do a ton of planning, shopping, packing lunches, cooking. I still concentrate on eating nutritionally powerful foods and avoiding foods without nutritional benefits (no fast food, sugary soda or packaged baked goods). I stil count calories and food journal. My daily caloric goal for maintenance is 1800-2000 calories (depending on my physical activity).

For breakfast I eat 1 cup of high fiber cereal (right now it's Kashi Go Lean--I try to find cereal that is no more than 140 calories per cup) with 4 oz unsweetened soy milk. On Fridays I have 1 serving of unflavored oatmeal with splenda and 2 oz of soy milk. Sometimes I also stir 1/4 cup of berries into my cereal or oatmeal. On weekends, I usually have 100 calories worth of bacon with a small piece of fruit and an English muffin (one half with jelly and one half with NF cream cheese). The bacon is a compromise with my SO who has been otherwise very indulgent about all the dietary changes imposed on him. Eating breakfast together on the weekends is an important relationship ritual for him. Sometimes we have grits instead of the bacon.

There is a lot more variety to my lunch. Here are some of my favorites:

• 1 cup brown rice with 8 oz butternut squash, 1/2 can of chicken, laughing cow cheese wedge, sea salt, pepper, and cinnamon. It's sort of a quickie butternut squash risotto.
• Pita with dijon mustard, 2 oz of lean lunch meat (60 cal per 2 oz), 2 oz of lite chevre, and 1 tbsp raspberry chipotle sauce. I stick this in the oven for about 10 minutes so it is warm.
• 1/2 pita with tuna and hummas. Also add roasted eggplant, fresh tomato, and cucumbers if they are available.
• 10 oz spaghetti squash with 1/2 cup pasta sauce, 1 oz onions, and 1 link of turkey sausage.
• Sandwich of 2 oz deli meat and laughing cow cheese wedge (or light jarlsberg) on multi-grain bread. Other ingredients might include roasted red pepper, artichoke spread, chutney, olive tapenade, fresh basil, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, grilled onions and/or peppers, pickles, or muffaleta mix (olive mix). It just depends on the type of meat I'm using, what I'm in the mood for, and what I can find in the fridge. Sometimes I spray the bread very lightly with olive oil and heat the sandwich in a saucepan so the cheese melts a little.
• PB&J
• Lean Cuisine Panani or other low calorie frozen meals.

In addition to the above, I almost always have a salad with my lunch. In the summer, it consists of 5 oz tomatoes, 5 oz cucumbers, 1/4 cup fresh raspberries, sea salt, freshly ground lemon pepper, and 1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar. In the winter, I sub pea shoots for the tomatoes and strawberries or frozen raspberries for the fresh raspberries.

For snacks (I usually have three or four snacks throughout the day, I eat):

• 2-5 oz piece of fruit (apple, apricot, peach, pluot, asian pear, pineapple, mango, melon...whatever is in season). Sometimes I mix 2 tbsp cream cheese with a little splenda and dip the fruit in that or dip the fruit in peanut butter. I often eat fruit several times a day.
• 1/2 cup NF yogurt, sometimes with berries and/or wheat germ
• 100 calorie pack of microwave popcorn
• 1/4 cup nuts
• 1-2 laughing cow cheese bites
• fiber cake things I get from Trader Joe's
• English muffin with NF cream cheese or peanut butter
• low-cal pudding (60 calories per serving, max of 1 per day)
• occasional energy bar of 80-200 calories (I've been drastically cutting back on these)
• sugar free candy or gum
• tea or decaf coffee with splenda and milk

There is far more variety to my dinners. I generally try one to two new recipes every week (I subscribe to Cooking Light and read the food sections in two newspapers) so it's impossible to list everything we eat here. But here are the general categories of what we eat:

• Soups, stews, and chili. All sorts of different recipes. Favorites include a 330 calorie recipe for Coq Au Vin and basic Better Homes and Garden Chili.
• Chicken. I must have 200 different recipes for chicken and I collect more every day. I use it in stir fry, casseroles, soups and stews, chili, broiled and served with a sauce, marinated and broiled, sauted and served with a sauce, ground and made into patties. We easily have chicken twice a week, sometimes it is all we eat all week.
• Casseroles and stratas. I love casseroles. They can be high in calories so we don't eat as many as we used to, but I have found some that I can work into my calorie plan.
• Meatloaf. Love meatloaf and have several low-calorie versions, including one asian-style recipe that is made with ground pork, ground turkey, and stir fry sauce that comes out to 260 calories per serving.
• Pork Loin. This is an emergency meal. They come pre-seasoned, you take it out of the plastic and throw it in the oven for half an hour or so.
• Other emergency meals include chicken sausage on low calorie hot dog buns, Trader Joe's salmon patties on multi-grain bread, and pasta with a low-calorie sauce and turkey meatballs.
• Fish. Favorites include salmon with an orange-raspberry sauce, halibut broiled with lemon chunks, halibut poached with tomato and fennel, halibut stewed with fennel, potatoes, capers, and lemon.

I also eat a salad with dinner almost every night. My dinner salad is 1-2 cups lettuce, 3 oz cucumbers, 1 oz radish, 3 oz tomatoes (if available), and 3/4 serving low-calorie dressing. Sometimes we'll have a vegetable instead of the salad. I rarely have a starch with dinner unless I am making something that specially includes rice, polenta, or pasta in the recipe. All of my dinner entres absolutely have to be under 400 calories per serving and I really prefer to keep them somewhere in the 250-350 range. I don't bother with recipes that don't include nutritional data although I do refigure the nutrition for everything I make. I double or triple the amount of veggies in just about everything I make (unless it's something that doesn't call for any vegies, like oven-fried chicken).

If posters have a fitday link under their avatar, you can click on it and see exactly what they eat. Very handy!

I still do a ton of planning, shopping, packing lunches, cooking. I still concentrate on eating nutritionally powerful foods and avoiding foods without nutritional benefits (no fast food, sugary soda or packaged baked goods). I stil count calories and food journal. My daily caloric goal for maintenance is 1800-2000 calories (depending on my physical activity).


thanks for the replies. I see that the way to go is the planning. did you find that you had to do the calorie counting and be very strick with it ?.
Well done on the weight loss and keeping it off, I am very happy for you it is such a big deal to finally win this battle .

Thanks Susan I didn't know that, yes it would be very handy. It's just that i hear all the time about what the ladies who are still trying to lose eat, I really wanted to see for myself what a successful dieter was eating. Portion sizes are the most interesting for me, as I believe it's probably been years since I have eaten the right amounts.


I have really gotten lazy with the foods I have been eating, I have read your replies ladies (thanks ) and you eat a way more varried diet the I do.
what is the best way to cook butternut squash ? I usually only have pumpkin, as i always find the butternut tends to get to squishy when I cook it.

I am definitely not as strict with calorie counting anymore, but that's really because after 2 years, I know what a typical "day" should look like. As long as I get on the scale and the weight is under my "red line" I am content to "ball park" calories and eat healthy, whole foods. If I get on the scale and the weight is above 130, I am much more strict and a more careful counter until the scale is back under 130.

For butternut squash, it does get squishy when I cook it, but I mash it up so squishy isn't an issue for me. I heat the oven to 350, cut the squash in half lengthwise, scoop out the seeds, spray a little pam on the bottom of the pan and put the squash face down in the pan and bake for 45 minutes. Then, I let it cool a bit, pull off the skin and mash it in a big bowl with a little maple pumpkin butter - the consistency is like mashed potatoes when I'm done.

I'm still pretty strict about counting my calories, but not quite as strict as when I was losing weight. I was recently sick and not able to plan my meals and found that I didn't need to do as much planning as I thought. I know that I want my breakfast to be around 200 calories, lunch around 300-350calories and dinner around 300-450 calories, with the rest of the calories going towards snacks. So if I haven't planned out exactly what I will eat, I just make sure to stay within those ranges. I don't keep a lot of food around the house that doesn't work in my calorie plan.

I almost always go with whatever the recommended portion size is for whatever I am eating or whatever recipe I've made. I never allow myself to go back for seconds. For some recipes, I'll check the portion size first before I make it to verify that I think it will be enough food. For example, if a casserole recipe goes into a 7 x 11 pan but is supposed to make 10 servings, I know that serving isn't going to be enough for me and I'd toss that recipe. My yogurt says a serving is 1 cup but I find that 1/2 cup is plenty. For homemade soups, stews, and chilis, I have a standard bowl that I use to measure my portions. It holds about a cup and a half. But if the recipe says it makes 4 portions, I make darn sure we get 4 portions out of it.

I just stick in the oven and prick it with a fork every so often until it seems like it is done. I think it takes 45 min to 1 hour 15, depending on how big the squash is. The bottom will sometimes seem to get down before the top part; if that happens, I'll cut off the bottom and put the top back in the oven for a while. But the way I eat the squash on rice, I think it's actually better if it is squishy (it mixes better with the rice) so I definitely let it get that way. If I need the squash to be firm, I think I would just use Trader Joe's pre-diced squash.