I've gotten myself into a rut. I've been eating fast food EVERY meal, and rarely leaving the house.

I've decided I've had enough of this. As of yesterday I've been eating healthy and running (on a treadmill) 1.5 hours a day, and working with weights etc for another half hour. I love it! I've also stopped eating all the junk I have (so far I've been eating mostly baby tomatoes (four of those mini boxes in the past two days, i know, that's a lot, but they get rid of other cravings) green beans, veggie burgers, yogurt etc. I'm cutting down on grains (a lot) and cutting out starch for now.

I'm going to continue this until the summer.

Why is this unhealthy? (I've been told I'm moving too fast - I just want to be healthy!)

Well, you're exercising a ton, so maybe people are just concerned that you need to be eating enough in order to fuel that exercise

Are you tracking your calories or writing down your food?

Also, you just began yesterday, so they probably don't want you to burn yourself out too fast.

I don't know WHAT to eat to get the calories right, to be honest. I'm so new to this stuff, haha.

I'm trying to eat healthy but I've learned that the healthy stuff is low cal, and also fills me up a lot quicker!

Where can I find out how many calories to be eating, for the amount of exercise I'll be doing?

Have you looked at FitDay.com? It is a great site to track how many calories you're actually eating. It tends to overestimate the amount of calories you need to fuel your day, though...mostly you'll figure that out through trial and error.

If you can, enter today's food into a meal tracker (like FitDay or TheDailyPlate) and give us the stats...we can give you some advice on how to make sure you're eating the healthiest things you can.

Okay, i'll put in stats for everything I've eaten today and I'll post for you guys.

I have a tendancy to overeat or undereat (when I try to be "healthy" i just eat vegetables on their own, ie: the tomatoes, and I don't get enough calories from that)

I'm on FitDay, they don't have grape tomatoes listed, I'm not sure how to calculate the grape tomatoes into the bigger ones

they don't have veggie burgers either, haha

There some other calorie counting sites that might have those listed such as The Daily Plate.

I looked it up and added it in myself.

For breakfast I had one of those little cups of Vanilla yogurt and half a cup of greek salad.

For lunch I had a veggie patty with cheese - no bun and a cup of lettuce

For a snack I've had two of those little boxes of cherry/grape tomatoes and a package of snow peas, and two cups of rice chips.

this comes to 664 calories
21 grams of fat
91 carbs
37 protein

I don't know what to do!

I use Spark-People to track my calories. If you enter all your info into the setup part, it'll give you a guideline as to how many calories, fat grams, etc. you should be eating. You can use that as a starting point and tailor it from there.

You shouldn't eat fewer than 1200 calories a day and probably could eat around 1500 and still lose, as long as you continue to exercise as well.

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your protein is very low. So are the carbs. For the amount of exercise you are doing...you're going to definitely make yourself sick

You need to replenish your blood...give it more carbs and protein after working out. that's what my nutritionist told me anyway...

What sort of foods are good for carbs/protein but low in fat?

Grape Tomato

Serving size 85 grams = about 3 oz = about 1 tomato
calories 25
fat 0
carbs 6 grams
fiber 4 grams
Sugar 3 grams
Protein 0

Hope that helps.

Good Carbs

Brown Rice
Oatmeal
100% Whole Wheat Bread
Quinoa (has a good amount of protein too)
Whole Wheat Couscous
Whole Wheat Pasta
Soba Noodles
Basically anything Whole Grain

Low-Fat Protein

Low-Fat Dairy
Boiled/Baked Eggs
Tofu
Edamame
Lean Meats (chicken, fish, etc.)

Also, fat is not the enemy! Some fats are good for you and necessary for your body to function properly. You should be getting 20-35% of your daily calories from good fats (olive oil, nuts, avocados, oily fish.) Otherwise you could end up with joint pain, dry skin, hair loss, etc. if your fat intake is too low.

You definitely want to keep your calories at 1200 or above. Otherwise it's very hard to get all the vitamins and minerals your body needs. You might want to consider taking a high quality multi-vitamin as well.

carb? protein?
bread & tuna
potato & cottage cheese
toast & egg
apple & cheese

if you select some favourite carbs and some favourite proteins ... then eat all those tomatoes and salady things you want .... that's not a bad place to start.