Help me!
 

Hey everyone...
Ok... I am new to the site and always new to monitoring what I am eating. I wouldn't say that I was a horrible eater before, but I only ate 2 meals a day, lunch and dinner. I usually stick with chicken or fish. But I am trying to plan out my meals better and eat 3 meals and 3 snacks throughout the day. I need some help, I don't know much about it and I need to know if I am moving in the right direction.... here is my daily menu...

2 hard boiled eggs and 6 oz of OJ - 7am
1 cup instant oatmal - 10am
Tuna and Lettuce with Tortilla, 1 tsp light mayo - 1230pm
100 calorie snack pack - 2pm
Banana and Carrots - 4pm
Fish Tacos (not fried) - 630pm

Of course I am uping my water intake throughout the day and prob drink 1 glass of 2 % milk at some point....

So.... is this the right thing? Any input would be great. I do not have a lot of money to buy specialty food I am a single mom and I work full time and go to school full time, so I need to make what I have work. Also fruit has a lot of carbs, are these good? Because I eat a good bit of fruit for snacks if so, but I do not want to over do it.

What is "right" is a matter of what works for you. If you are hungry at 10 and 12:30, then by all means eat. The important part is to make sure you intake less calories than you burn.

I've tried a lot of different things (eating 5 small meals, using a 40/30/30 ratio, not eating after 6pm), and none of them seem to make that big of a difference for me. I do eat 5 times a day, mostly to keep the hunger down since I am limiting myself to 1200 calories, but I have also gone for weeks where I only eat 3 or 4 meals, and as long as I keep the calories low, the weight still comes off.

I'm not a nutrition expert, but this is how I use fitday's tools: I aim for about half my calories to come from carbs (a balance of whole grains, vegetables and fruit), one third calories to come from lean protein (fish, white meat turkey and chicken, egg whites, and low fat dairy) and about 15% calories from fat, hopefully "good" fats like olive oil, avocados, almonds, etc. Use the pie chart on the food screen to keep an eye on these, and click on the nutrition tab on the same screen to see what vitamins and minerals you may be missing.
From your one-day menu, it looks like you may need to add more vegetables (tomatoes and peppers are my favorites, along with carrots, and all are easy to take on the go), and there are no dairy products. Cottage cheese is high in protein, yogurt is easy to take on the go. Look for low fat or fat free products that are Vitamin D fortified.
Good luck on your journey!

I agree with Wydok, for me its all about balancing calories. I'm a foodie, so I tend to try and fit as much into my "budget" as I can by eating lots of low calorie fruits and veggies. An added bonus is that the fruit seems to be keeping my sweet tooth at bay for now. I'm still relatively new to FitDay, altough as I've had weight problems since about middle school (I'm 29 now), my parents have been shoveling healthy eating books and articles at me half my life at this point. My main philosophy is balance and not so much eliminating one particular food group or another. I would say as far as missing things, leafy greens, especially the dark ones, like spinach, seem particularly lacking. They're a great, low calorie source for all kinds of vitamins and minerals. I have a fairly decent sized spinach salad with carrots, celery, cucumber and green peppers along with my lunch for only 66 calories. I don't use salad dressing, though. I'm a freak and like the taste of the veggies alone. So I would suggest, if you have a weight goal in mind, use the weight goal tool, and use the tabs at the bottom to find out what your max calories per day should be and plan out your day from there. Use small term goals, as your caloric needs will change as you lose weight. Oh yeah, I'm also trying to keep things as low fat as possible, but honestly, just by munching on fruit and veggies, that kind of has happened naturally. Anyway, sorry to ramble, and the best of luck to you!

Good comments above! For me, the only way I have been able to lose weight is when I am accountable to someone (or something) else...it was weight watchers before and this now...I have comitted to writing in everything I eat and weighing myself every Friday NO MATTER WHAT! This has been effective in dealing with my two personal biggest issues: mindless snacking and eating huge portions. I like to eat a lot of food so I have to choose my foods carefully. I have a salad every day...that gets me a ton of veggies and vitamins, esp. the ones that another poster referenced- dark green. I have a healthy cereal breakfast each morning. I allow myself some indulgences but keep my caloric intake between 1700 and 2000 calories a day most days (holidays and weekends are tough). Fruits are a better sugar than processed but too much is not great. My step bros uncle is a huge, well known food guru and his great quote is: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

It sounds like you're doing great :) The medi-fast diet uses the 6 meal a day play with 5 mini meals (approx 150-200 cals) more like snacks and dinner (300cals). Emphasis is on Protien with each snack if possible to help stabilize blood sugar. this kinda sounds like what you're doing so it should work well:)

I'm new to calorie counting too. I don't have any advice to give you really because I am struggling to make a change myself. After logging in my usual food intake, I was off the charts! My fats were in the 40% which blew me away. It's no wonder I'm heavy. I also found that I was eating over 2,500 calories when not watching my intake. Now, I've calmed it down a bit. I'm more balanced and down to 1,500 -2,000 cal. a day.

The only thing I can suggest is to make sure you monitor your calorie count and utilize the other charts like nutrition and the pie chart. The other members have given you some great advice too. Best wishes on your weight loss journey. The main thing is to learn more about yourself and your habits so that you can make changes that will be more permanent. Learning where you make poor choices help you to make better choices.

Chunkeymonkeytoo

You have received great advice already. The only thing I would suggest is cutting down the number of eggs you are eating. It is safe and healthy to eat up to 6 in a week, but anymore and the cholesterol gets too high. You can eat as many egg whites as you want though. Perhaps for the sake of simplicity you could eat 10 almonds and one egg in the mornings? Almonds provide protein and the good fat your body requires.

As far as fruit goes, certainly eat it, but remember that even natural sugar is sugar. I would limit the bananas also, they are very high in carbs. Generally a half a banana is considered one serving. Apples are excellent as they are full of pectin and some particular fibre that is not found in many fruits, but considered very good for you.

reliable information
 

Three online sources I'd suggest for sound, reliable nutrition information are:

http://eatright.org/Public/

Healthy Lifestyle - MayoClinic.com

Tufts - Health & Nutrition Letter - The Friedman School Of Nutrition Science and Policy

It's always best to go to people who know. ;)

What are you trying to achieve? Weight loss, Mucle gain?

One suggestion is eat your fruit don't drink them. You are missing out on all sorts of beneficial parts of the orange by drinking the juice and not eating the entire fruit.

Sometimes I'll have 2 hard boiled eggs for breakfast too, or one on my salad at lunch, I need the protein to keep my sugar stable. And easy to grab on a busy morning, getting myself and the kids out the door, can eat em in the car if they're pre-peeled. I get string cheese sticks for the kids, one of those is a good protein boost. Nuts are easy, I buy the bulk ones in the baking aisle, they're usually cheaper, and portion them out in snack bags. Nuts and fruit is a good breakfast or snack. Those tuna pouches are awesome as well. I don't worry about the carbs/sugar in fruit b/c I figure all that natural fiber balances it out. I don't drink much fruit juice, it has good vitamins and all, but the same sugar impact as a can of soda :eek:! Cottage cheese I have to be careful with, sometimes in a weak moment I grab the whole tub and a spoon lol.

I'm less about the calories and more about the number of servings to keep me in balance. I have 3 pieces/servings of fruit everyday, usually a banana and apple and something else in season. I try and have at least 5 servings of veggies and as many as 10 in any given day provided at least 2 servings are green, dark and leafy. The trick with veggies is to know exactly how much is in a serving. I also try and have at least 3 servings of low-fat protein each day and try to make one of them low-fat dairy. I'm low-carbing it for the moment because I'm trying to lose weight, but I usually stick to 2 servings of carbs that are low-fat, low-cal and whole grain.