Is this too much food?

[Burgandybook]

My eating is so messed up, I'm no longer sure what's normal. Is this too much food for a day? Too many calories? This is yesterday's food.

Breakfast - medium sized bowl of sultana bran cereal with semi skimmed milk.

Went out to a cafe with a friend and had a milk hot choc with a small flake and 2 marshmallows. I was annoyed at myself for having this but did walk away from the tempting food. I hate to think how many calories this was.

Late lunch - medium sized jacket potato, 3/4 of a can of tuna with veg (peas, mange tout and leak).

Due to late lunch I didn't make a proper tea but had quite a few grapes and cherries. Maybe half a punnet of cherries and a quarter of a punnet of grapes.

Is this too much? Too many calories?

Yes I eat eggs but I would get bored of them if I had them too often. I don't love them. I do eat porridge too so that's maybe a better option than other cereals.

I don't think asking for advice on here is going to particularly helpful - a lot of people on MN post about how little they eat and clearly have some kind of disordered eating and treat it like a competition. That was far too little food for one day - diet culture has a lot to answer for.

As a comparison, I am a healthy weight and I have had:

porridge with banana and peanut butter
shreddies
A chocolate chip brioche

A freddo and a treat sized kitkat chunky

chicken mayo brioche sandwich with melon and strawberries and yogurt

granola and yogurt with 2 rich tea biscuits

Dinner will be veg lasagne with extra veg on the side with an apple and yogurt for pudding and then I will snack on a few biscuits if I am hungry, which I probably will be

You see it's all so subjective, if I had a baked potato with tuna, leeks and whatever the other thing was , I can't remember, I wouldn't have a dinner either. That would be lunch but would replace dinner if that makes sense

But unless you have absolutely tiny portions or of what you've mentioned or are really, really tall that must be quite a lot over the recommended calorie count surely?

The Nutracheck app is really good OP. You can't seriously think having a few bits of fruit for dinner is sensible.

I was full 🤷

I actually think it’s the right amount of calories for your weight but too many to lose weight.

I'm approx your weight, but taller by two inches. I think you would be better off eating more and choosing better.

About 5 weeks ago I had blood test results in the diabetic range. I'm now back to pre diabetic and determined to reverse that too. I did that by eating a low carb diet. I'm never hungry and the weight is falling off. Although I suspect reducing my alcohol consumption to almost nothing has helped considerably.

Cereal for breakfast isn't great. I have porridge with whole milk, eggs and low carb wholegrain bread or low dried fruit no sugar muesli and Greek yogurt.

Lunch is something like soup, oatcakes or rice cakes with peanut butter, maybe an omlette with mushrooms and cheese.

Evening meal includes meat or fish, lots of green vegetables, but tiny amounts or zero amounts of brown rice, sweet potato. I will be looking for decent low carb alternatives to rice and pasta.

I wouldn't have a hot chocolate now, but rarely did before. Drinks include sparkling water (sometimes with lime and mint), tea with no sugar, herbal teas, an occasional flat white coffee and two glasses of wine a week.

Snacks might be Greek yogurt and berries or oatcakes, but the other meals are usually more than enough.

Can you tell I'm in the novelty evangelical phase of healthy eating? 😁

It's under 1200. How is that too many?

What did you calculated it to be?

How did you work it out to be that much?

I agree with others that the advice is not to eat if you're not hungry but I do think to just tweak the daily intake to get a better balance if you can, not a great deal of green in the day

I am one of those people that can live on 500 calories a day. No one believes me but it's my life. I could literally be chained to a radiator for years and I wouldn't lose a pound. You know these people who say "oh I eat and eat but never put any weight on"? I'm the exact opposite.

There's no way on earth I'd eat all that in a day and I definitely don't have an ED 👀

Sorry I quoted the reply to the post with all the food listed

This is the one I meant, I couldn't eat all this, I'm in my 50's

Do you do any exercise OP?

A lot of sugar, raisins, hot chocolate, flake, marshmallows, fruit. Even your vegetables are high in sugar. Not excessive , but something to watch out for.

I think you need more protein and more green leafy vegetables.

I'm trying to get my diet 'right'. I don't count calories, weigh food etc but I've a reasonable understanding of food (I think).

Today I've had (1pm):
Greek yogart, strawberries, blueberries, banana and nuts.

6pm: 3 egg omelette with onions, pepper, chilli, tomatoes, asparagus and grated cheese.

With a side of an avocardo.

Not exactly helpful.

I don't think this thread will be helpful to you. 🤷🏼‍♀️ There are loads of websites about healthy eating and how much protein etc to eat a day. You'd be better looking at those.

Try MyFitnessPal app. It's free.

Use it for a few weeks to get the idea of what is right.

Not only would I put on masses of weight eating all that (I'm 5ft2 just like the OP is), your diet is shockingly refined carb heavy and contains a lot of processed stuff. I'd feel quite ill on your diet.

OP, definitely try to aim for nutrition vs calories to start with. That alone will make a difference to your weight.
Once you get used to a new (healthier) way of eating and have learned to make the right choices when shopping and cooking, then you can tailor your calories (or just portion control) to your next goals.
And a treat a day is fine! Just make sure it's not at an expense of the good stuff.

I think you need to seek help for your food issues. That's not enough food but lots of people on here will tell you it is, and I don't think this is a healthy environment for someone with disordered eating.

Yes I'd explode with all that food, funny that people are claiming those on less suffer disordered eating though..

Would you really. I briefly totted up estimates in my head for that menu (some I looked up, some from memory, some had to make an educated guess), and assuming sensible portions my estimate came out somewhere around 2000–2500kcal.

Some women will gain weight on that, but for many young active women it's the amount they need, though that example was higher on sugar than might be ideal for most. Describing a perfectly normal daily calorie intake as "all that food" and claiming you'd explode is no better than people assuming that those with smaller calorie requirements must necessarily have an eating disorder.

I really wish threads like this, where OP very clearly has some complicated emotions and difficulties around food and weight, didn't instantly devolve into mutual judgement, defensiveness, and loaded vocabulary around food choices and differences.