I've lost sight of what a normal diet look like

[Bakedpotatoesfortea]

I've been on so many diets over the years and struggled with binge eating, mostly due to medication side effects (ADs). I'm now trying to just eat a normal diet, but I realise I've lost sight of what that looks like. I also would love to try and model a normal balanced diet to my DC who have some of their own food issues (sensory, and ARFID).

My idea was

Breakfast Toast and/or Cereal, with fruit
Lunch Sandwich, crisps and fruit/veg sticks
Dinner Spag Bol/ curry/ roast etc.
Dessert Usually fruit, sometimes yoghurt, jelly, home baked cake.
Snacks fruit, veg sticks, nuts, boiled egg or a slice of cheese (only if I'm hungry).

Does that seem about right? There seems to be so many different ways to eat it makes my head hurt trying to work out how to eat 'normally' again

To be honest I don’t think there is a ‘normal’ way of eating. I’d be wary of asking on here as you’ll get people who apparently eat an uber healthy home made diet and think oranges are so sugary they’re the food of the devil. But in real life people eat differently. If you’re a healthy weight and feeling satisfied you’re probably doing okay. Your ‘sample’ diet looks okay to me.

Mine looks like this;

50g porridge made with water, banana/dates/frozen blueberries as budget allows. 2 double espresso milky coffees.
Left overs or home made soup with home made bread with extra virgin olive oil instead of butter, this weeks was cream of broccoli, next week is carrot and butter bean with coriander.
Dinner tonight is home made chicken jalfrezi with brown rice and an orange for pudding.

Organic stuff when I can afford it or for thin skinned veg like celery.

Sometimes I have a red bush tea in the day. I drink 2litres of water a day otherwise.

I know this looks boring but I know people who literally lurch from one sugar high to the next and I just couldn’t be doing with that.

Also the problem with asking dieting advice on mumsnet is that you’ll encourage posters to do this thing where they won’t really read the op, they’ll just jump in to frantically list everything they’ve eaten in a day, complete with details of how much everything weighed, what size they are, what exercise they’ve done. I honestly don’t think it’s a great place for good advice - if you’re really concerned then I’d suggest the gp but realistically you know diet cola and energy drinks with leftover pizza aren’t filling and nutritious! You don’t need mumsnet to tell you that.

Yes I know it's rubbish. I've eaten what I have today because I've just got myself into a state of anxiety and have no idea what i am meant to eat. I feel like I just need a grown up to come and tell me, but I am the grown up and no idea. It sounds so ridiculous I just find food so so stressful

But you do know what to eat. You’ve listed it out in the op. That’s part of the problem - your relationship with food can’t be randomers telling you what you can and can’t eat. It’s your decision, and absolving responsibility for your own diet and saying you are badly because you ‘didn’t know what to eat’ isn’t helpful. It’s just excusing your poor diet. Of course you know than a bowl of porridge is better than an energy drink. But you chose not to do that in the moment - that’s what needs dealing with, not making out you drink fizzy drinks and eat leftover pizza because you’re helpless and don’t know what else to eat. Seeing a bunch of other people list out their boiled egg and carrot sticks won’t help that.

Looks really normal to me. Today I have had a bowl of fruit n fibre with milk, an apple mid morning, a banana roll for lunch followed by yoghurt. For dinner I am having Thai chicken with rice, sweetcorn and beans. Will also have a cake later as have some jubilee ones in the house. So very similar to the menu you described.

I have a dc who have sensory issues.
It makes so much difference to find out what he hates and love.
My ds also have multiple food allergies, so making food for him wasn't easy. But now after years of trial and error, I have established some routine for him. Can you imagine, a person(me) not good at cooking, need to cater for someone who is allergic to wheat/eggs/milk? I managed it, though it was a disaster in early years.

If you want to eat healthy, you really need to learn how to cook. It's not difficult. You need some practice. And don't buy ready made stuff.
Most of the regular everyday meal doesn't need extensive cooking skills, you just need to get right ingredients and follow the recipe.

Completely agree. The number of posters who seem to think OP is looking for diet tips is ridiculous.

Are you able to eat as soon as you feel hungry, and stop as soon as you feel satisfied? Listening to your body basically.

I probably wouldn't have spam Bol/curry/roast each night. My day would be more like;
Breakfast strawberries and Greek Yoghurt
Lunch Soup. and bread roll or omelette
Dinner salmon salad/ tuna salad etc
If I wanted to snack I might have an apple, or a handful of nuts. Possibly tea and biscuit mid afternoon.
I would not have pudding
I wouldn't drink alcohol Monday to Thursday usually.
However at weekends I relax a bit ! Scrambled eggs, toast and avocado, toasted sandwich, takeaway and roast on a Sunday.
I also drink loads and loads of water

Completely agree. The number of posters who seem to think OP is looking for diet tips is ridiculous.

Diet tips doesn't always mean losing weight, but means all sort of stuff.
But ime, they are normally looking for some support to make their diet better for different reasons. It could be better health, mental health or better mood. And tbh, the answer is always the same. Healthy diet.

Tbh @Bakedpotatoesfortea my dh was the same, he grew up with no frame of reference for a normal diet so didn’t have 3 meals a day etc it was skipped breakfasts, relying on milk the way others have fizzy drinks and then late night snacks right before bed.

Did they put you on Mirtazapine? They give that to anorexics to stimulate appetite. Dh was on it and literally ate the fridge. He said the hunger was unbearable.

@grapehyacinthisactuallyblue Maybe read the OP again.

Put in more protein and take out sugar, starch and salt. Yes it’s a standard uk diet that you posted but uk diets are generally rubbish.
breakfast - couple tablespoons Greek yoghurt, dessert spoon of oats and plenty fruit eg whole banana OR scrambled egg on one slice multigrain toast with small glass orange juice
lunch - very large salad with leafy base, loads of veggies and either fish or chicken, balsamic vinegar and olive oil, nuts, and a small bread roll
dinner - fish or meat with baked sweet potato and broccoli, berries for dessert
couple squares dark chocolate for snacks.

I've always been a size 10 and I'd say I have a very healthy relationship with food, in that I rarely give it a seconds thought.
As a daily diet I would:

• lose the fruit with breakfast. A bit of toast is fine on its own if you're not in an active job
• lose the crisps with lunch. They are a pointless thing to eat and have no nutritional value
• lose the pudding and save them for a treat at the weekend
• limit yourself to one snack a day, whether it's a handful of nuts (pardon!), a piece of fruit or some celery sticks etc

Yep. Same here. I’d got so caught up in years of different diets, fasting, low carb, low fat back in the day, vlc, etc etc.

i actually paid for a diet plan. 3 months of breakfast, snack, lunch, and dinner all prepared. Yes it was a bit ready meal but I found myself bulking it out with loads of veg.

lost 2 stone and have kept it off simply by sticking to my own version. I don’t end up binging because i’ve starved all day, or eating endless toast slices because i’m so bored of cheese.

it’s been a good reset for me and i will stick to it. Ideally i have another stone to go but i think i need to add in a bit of exercise now as well.

@Fluffycloudland77

Yes on Mirtazapine and a few others. I've just had to go back on it recently (the mirtzapine) because it's the only one I can take. I lose my appetite when I'm stressed and anxious, so I've not been eating enough recently (but still having emotional and hormonal binges some days) and the appetite effect hasn't really kicked in yet. I feel like because my habits are bad any kind of stress and they just fail completely.

I don't want to pass this issue on to my DC, I can see it playing out with my eldest already though and don't know how to change the pattern. I would love to just have a regular pattern in our household, but I feel utterly inept at actually doing that when as a single parent I know it needs to come from me. I think maybe I just need to do it, and adjust over time and for each persons needs (and sensory issues, safe foods, allergies etc.)

I get that it shouldn't be this complicated or difficult but for me it really is

Oh and also what a diet plan did for me was reset my portions. I used to eat big bowls of chilli and rice, usually because I was bloody starving after “fasting” or whatever.

now I am quite happy with chilli or whatever with cauliflower rice, or stir fried veg, or salad. That fills my plate, and i have about half the serving of actual chill i used to have.

i much less hungry eating three reasonably spaced meals, vastly upped veg, and i’m not half as food obsessed because i’m not skipping meals, and putting on weight because i’m actually eating double the calories.

I don't understand what you mean. I've read OP.
What I understood was she wants a healthy diet. To me, it's no different whatever the condition they have. Yes, some people need to avoid certain foods. But in the end, you need to adopt? Use whatever suitable for you to make up healthy diet for you.
We, as a family adopted to no wheat/no eggs/no dairy diet as a family, to accommodate my dc's needs.
Do I want to? No. But I have no choice. So, I agree I feel sorry for OP, but as a parent, Op need to do best for her children. Whatever she needs to do, to make their children thrive.

OP i get it. It's easy to know what 'ideal' is but what's 'normal' is not the same. I think a lot of the posters above are probably quite health conscious.
I suspect 'normal' looks a lot like the above 3 meals and healthy snacks but with added biscuits mid morning, an added latte on the commute, the leftovers of the kids' fishfingers, a couple of crackers and cheese waiting for dinner to cook and a glass of wine.
That's what normal means - not thinking about it and planning it out and not stressing over the extra snacks.

It sounds like you're just snacking all day then and eating an evening meal.

Why don't you focus on having 3 square meals a day at set meal times? Then concentrating on getting nutrition within each meal so at least 5 portions of veg/fruit a day and some protein and some carbs.

@AnIckabog

Yes that's my goal, to work out the basic framework of a healthy diet, so that I can dress it out slightly different on a day to day basis but have that basic structure which I've never really managed. I am a good cook, can follow extreme diets for the short term, and can also eat terribly. But none of it is a pattern, it's all chaos. I want to give myself (hopefully) and my DC a basic pattern of eating that can be adjusted as necessary, instead of them growing up with the same fears around food that I have.

I'm looking more for average/balanced than ideal/healthy. I guess writing all this out I realise just how disordered my eating really is. I have talked myself out of getting help so many times because my eating issues are nothing compared to others in my family (ARFID, bulimia, etc). Because I'm not starving, malnourished or purging I feel like it's just not an issue. But having a panic attack when I try and work out what to eat is not ok. Hopefully the AD will help but I think I need to get some help.

Sounds fairly normal to me. I normally have:
B. Toast or nigellas breakfast bar or omelette with coffee
L. Sandwich with fruit or salad plus once a week a curry (very nice curry place next to my work)
D. Something like spag bol, lean protein plus veg & carbs, chicken goujons with veg and carbs etc
S. Fruit (and the reason why I'm over weight is that I've got in the habit of lots of chocolate or ice-cream as a late night snack)

To me, healthy diet is simple. Protein/carb/veg and fruit. Don't think too much. My dc has sensory issues as well as allergies. I aim for him to have all the 3 components. That is all. I really don't care if it's normal or average, let alone being ideal.

Your doing well to have any kind of routine on Mirtazapine, don’t be hard on yourself taking that.