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

Ok so I think you could start with three meals a day for you and the kids. Eat with them.
plan breakfasts that are easy but nutritious, you don’t all have to eat the same.

Lunches usually need to be easy too, but you could prepare them the night before. Again try to balance out the carbs, protein, veg and fruit.

Dinner, eat it together and maybe sometimes get the kids involved with cooking. Look at recipes and and try and get them interested.

Desserts. Most days try and base them
around fruit. This week I bought a load of rhubarb, we’ve had rhubarb crumble, today I’ve made rhubarb fool using Greek yogurt.

Good luck, eventually I hope you can replace the anxiety about food with enjoyment.

Join the Fitness Chef Facebook group or buy his book, the latest one. It’s a great explanation of normal eating and a really nice group. I’m not affiliated, just like it

For me a normal diet is lunch and dinner with no snacks. I don't even eat fruit really. Still 3 stone overweight though! I'm clearly eating too much.

Carbs are not the enemy!! If I see one more post that says ‘it’s very carby’ 🙄

balance is making sure that you don’t just eat one thing (like it’s not great to just eat refined sugars, or loads of protein and little else, even just eating fruit and veg isn’t great). Learn roughly what counts as protein, starchy carbohydrates and fruit and veg. Mostly eat a balance of that. There’s nothing wrong with eating refined sugar just it won’t do you any good if you eat loads of it all the time but the main important thing is:

if your body, one Tuesday, is saying ‘I really crave eating a whole Easter egg’ then just eat the Easter egg. You are not a bad person or an out of control person for doing that. But also listen to your body when it says ‘I really want something that’s going to make me feel full up but energised’ and recognise that that is a time for a big chicken salad with new potatoes.

You don’t have to punish yourself (a couple of squares of chocolate when that is all you want is fine, but if it’s instead of the cake you really wanted it is a punishment and you will just feel resentful and dissatisfied). Maybe do some reading about intuitive eating; the only way you are going to be able to give your body what it needs is to learn how to listen to it and be kind to yourself.

food isn’t just fuel, it’s joyous and social and experimental and satisfying. But it can also be used as a weapon against yourself and others in your life, as a medium of control or punishment and it doesn’t have to be like that x

My DC do mostly eat 3 meals per day, but have a lot of their meals at school and childcare. I think because it's the holiday and I'm having to plan and make all the meals for everyone that's why I'm so overwhelmed. Im also really seeing what I'm eating, whereas when I'm rushing around all day I don't see what Im eating so clearly.

I'm cutting down on refined carbs at the moment so this is what's good for me:
Breakfast -
Yoghurt and berries (sometimes chia seeds) or overnight oats with berries
Lunch - ham and egg salad, or veggie omelette or chicken salad
Dinner - home made curry or fish and veg or halloumi salad
Pud - a protein yoghurt, square of dark choc or ramekin of strawberries
Snacks - a corn cake with peanut butter, a babybel, nuts or a banana

@Bakedpotatoesfortea

What you have posted would be a normal diet for post people .

For MN it is probably too high in carbs and too low in protein and veg. If you are trying to lose weight without counting what you eat, then yes, it would help you to increase protein/veg and decrease carbs . If you are simply trying to eat a diet which will maintain your weight and you will fit in with most people consider normal food then what you've posted is fine .

That certainly looks fairly normal to me. It's not dissimilar to how we eat, though we don't necessarily have pudding, and only toddler DD has snacks generally.

As others have said, portion sizes make quite a difference, but in terms of what rather than how much you're eating, I'd say that sounds like a pretty normal diet.

Your plan sounds pretty normal. I would leave the crisps and cake out and just have these as treats, or at weekends. Maybe add some fresh fish into dinner options if you like it. Family fun options like fajitas are great too.

By the way, I think a lot of people in the uk have cereal or nothing for breakfast, a Tesco or boots meal deal for lunch (if they work in offices) and a ready meal or takeaway for dinner. That’s certainly what me and a lot of my friends were having when I lived there

Another classic dinner option would be pie with veg and new/ mashed potatoes. Very good if you've got left over meat to use up from a roast, or you could do a fish pie, cheese and onion pie, etc.

Carbs are not the enemy!! If I see one more post that says ‘it’s very carby’

@Iwouldlikesomecake stating that a diet is heavy in carbs (or “very carby”) doesn’t equate to thinking carbs are the enemy any more that your own suggestion that the OP learns what counts as carbs and eats a balance of food does

Yeah it kind of implies it with the disapproving tone also reserved for ‘oh but it’s so fatty!’ Or ‘I don’t allow sugary things in this house’

It is value laden. ‘Carby’ has an implied value judgement that having carbohydrate is bad. If you want to rephrase a sentence that says ‘well I wouldn’t eat that, it’s very carby’ you could say ‘as that meal is quite high in processed carbohydrate, over the day I would balance it out with X’ or you could say ‘as that meal has a high fat content I wouldn’t eat it every day’ but it’s the implication that ‘carby’ is bad and that’s the tone that’s used. If you said ‘ooh! Lovely! That meal is super carby, excellent’ then it would imply that ‘carby’ is a good thing.

You can ascribe positive or negative to any language if you put it in the right context (for instance: ‘sick’). Why can’t we just stop ascribing good and bad value to food. Food is food. It’s not ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’, ‘naughty’ or ‘cheating’.

and I have never ever heard carbs framed as a good thing except by people who understand nutrition as part of a balanced discussion, carb-heavy diets for bodybuilders (who I’ve worked with- not as any kind of food person!!) and often they are framed as the one thing you need to avoid at all costs. Even if you don’t subscribe to that, if you are always surrounded by that sort of language it gets into your subconscious and that’s where you start thinking bread is some kind of very intermittent treat food that you shouldn’t ‘allow’ yourself.

I know this from bitter eating disorder experience. The words and tone matter. My mother has never dieted in her life nor used these words and yet I can’t do MFP because I start having panic attacks if I eat more than a bag of salad for dinner. I didn’t get that message from home, I got it from the way girls talked at school and women talked at work.

Lose the crisps, too much bread; breakfast doesn't have to have cereal and toast, have porridge or Greek yogurt with fruit/seeds or eggs instead.
If having sandwiches for lunch, try meat/fish/vegetables instead bread and pasta.

I’d try to base it around getting your 5 portions of fruit & veg and 3 portions of whole grains a day. I think that gives a good framework and you can add in your preferred flavours and proteins around that.
I don’t think it’s normal to have pudding every day though.

If you can afford it, get a recipe box from Gousto or Hello Fresh. All that food is fine and normal. Take the decisions out of your hands. Yoghurt/porridge for breakfast, soup/quiche/salad for lunch, recipe box for dinner, fruit for snacks. Sorted.

If it's hard for you, let yourself be helped. Don't make it a giant thing.

Why can’t we just stop ascribing good and bad value to food. Food is food. It’s not ‘clean’ or ‘dirty’, ‘naughty’ or ‘cheating’

”carby” isn’t a value judgement like good or bad, clean or dirty. It’s literally a factual description of what the OP is eating. You’re projecting massively.

Nutrition is a massive and often complicated subject, and as you're finding it overwhelming I won't bombard you with info. My tip would be to concentrate on one part of the daily meals at a time, perhaps breakfast, rather than trying to devise an ideal daily/weekly meal plan in one go.

Although it's very common for Brits to eat cereal there are alternatives which can be better and keep you fuller for longer. That can be because they contain more protein, fat, or fibre, so take longer to digest than carbohydrate, eg

• Porridge with fruit (bags of frozen berries are great)


• Vegetable fritatta


• Scrambled eggs with chopped spring onions


• Avocado on toast with eggs


• Beans on toast. You could also use a tin of those mixed beans


• Fish and eggs, eg smoked haddock or kippers with poached eggs

These can be for any meal though, not just breakfast. There are no rules so don't feel like you can't have something that's not traditionally eaten at breakfast for breakfast. Sod it, if you fancy eating your main meal first thing you go ahead. I have the oddest things sometimes eg risotto!

Perhaps just plan all the food you could eat at breakfast and make that into a rotating weekly plan. Then do the same for lunch, then for dinner, then snacks.

Top tips:

• Aim to eat lots of veg. You can add all sorts to a bolognese for example!


• Eat a "rainbow coloured" diet. Meaning eat a variety of fruit and veg over the week as this will give you a variety of nutrients.


• Variety in general.

”carby” isn’t a value judgement like good or bad, clean or dirty. It’s literally a factual description of what the OP is eating. You’re projecting massively

every time I see a diet described as “carby” it’s nearly always a negative, as in they need to lower the amount. It’s nearly always someone saying too carby, increase protein and fat and cut out the carbs.

very rarely are diets actually “too carby”, most people eat a reasonable balance naturally If they have a varied diet.

the current trend of high protein high fat has put carbs firmly in the “bad” camp.

i have never ever seen or heard anyone say someones diet is carby, don’t change a thing.

I find it amusing how advisers and 'experts ' in every bloody thing seem necessary for some to function.
Food really is not as complicated subject, as it's made out to be.
Basic understanding of nutrition that anyone by latest their teen years should be comfortable with, really is enough.
Humanity has eaten 🙄 for a fair few years by the looks of it🥸, without advisers at that - what a feat!
The obesity crisis is largely driven by the prefabricated processed crap that too large proportion of populace in developed countries are mistaking for food.
Eat vegetables, fruit and wholegrains to get your vitamins and fibre, meat, fish, eggs and dairy to get your protein and calcium etc.
Don't eat junk.

Agree with the posters who are saying this isn’t the best place for advice.

Right now you don’t want people chipping in with ‘oh that’s too carby’ or ‘I personally wouldn’t eat a dessert every day’

You need to get to the point where you have a good relationship with food, that’s not obsessive then go from there.

What is normal looks different to everyone. I’m guessing your years of dieting have affected hunger cues, knowing when you’re full etc. So you just need to work on the basics.

What you posted is fine just go with 3 meals a day plus some snacks (when hungry) and then once you’re in a routine and your body is used to that you can go from there.

The most important thing here is not to stress and overthink.

Some days you may fancy pizza and all the biscuits . Other days you fancy more salad and fruit.

That’s what normal, balanced eating is. Once you have the healthy relationship back and you’re not overthinking you can maybe tailor it more to your needs.

My only normal routine is breakfast about 11 o'clock and it's always eggs and a slice of toast. The rest is dependent on how I feel. I don't have a set lunch or dinner as such.