What do you eat in a day?

[Atissue123]

Interested to know if I eat a lot or not I guess. I feel I eat quite a lot but I’m not overweight although i am currently trying to lose 3lb (not a lot I know). Intrigued to know if I am struggling to lose it because I eat too much or just because I’m 42. I’m using ‘Noom’ and usually my calories are under what I need to lose weight BUT I always consume a lot of ‘orange’ calories (that’s generally always over the amount they say I should eat).

So I’ll start:

age 42, moderately active, 10k steps a day, exercise 3/4 x a week gently (can’t do high impact stuff) but I do walks, weights, Pilates and cycling.

average day:

• Breakfast = eg fruit, full fat yoghurt and small amount of granola or a large bowl porridge with blueberries
• Snack - eg 2 oatcake biscuits and a banana
• Lunch - sandwich on GF bread or cheese on toast or soup and toast or sweet potato and tuna Mayo for lunch plus salad bits
• dinner = 2 x fajitas (small wrap size) with guacamole, cheese, chicken, salad, I eat large ish portions of whatever we eat but generally it’s healthy home made food, I do eat carbs though
• Often I will snack on a small bit of cake or a mini hot cross bun or something like that in the day at some point after I’ve done some exercise usually

I don’t drink so no calories there but have two coffees with milk during the day. Very rarely have take out or eat out.

is this a lot? I feel like I eat a fair bit but I’m always (not always buy often!) hungry. I am a size 8-10 and 9st 3lb. I’m 5’6. At my lightest I was 8st4lb probs too thin then but at 9.8lb I look overweight. So 9st is about ideal.

I’ve always exercised to keep weight down but I can’t at the moment do vigorous cardio so I’m limited.

intrigued to know what others who are moderately active eat in a day. Also hoping to get some good ideas for lunches etc!

No one has ever suggested an alternative to weight loss during menopause..,,have they

Yes, you can alter your diet to induce a better insulin/glucagon balance. Likely that's what you're doing with your diet anyway, but you think it's the calorie counting that's doing it. No matter; if it's working, it's working. Who cares why?

I don’t eat processed food, so whilst I eat sourdough, I wouldn’t eat GF bread.
generally, I have a black coffee for breakfast.
lunch is usually something like SS, eggs and avocado.
dinner varies but we have one veggie meal, 2 x fish, 2 x red meat 2 x white meat per meat, with rice, mash, potatoes, couscous, pasta per week.

Sourdough, couscous and pasta are all processed foods

I would feel like shit eating that diet

Your weight is fine. If you want to change anything, cut down on the sweet snacks and eat more veg. Focus on good nutrition and strength.

Hi OP,
Your diet has stood you in pretty good stead if you have generally had a stable weight/healthy active life and only have 3 lbs to lose.

I wouldn't do anything drastic like your friends juice diet which would trash the equilibrium in your body.

If you are hungry a lot swap out some calories for more protein. That doesn't mean you have to go low carb but maybe swap the odd sweet snack or low protein meal to include a boiled egg/sliced beef/fish/protein yogurt etc.

I believe it takes a deficit of 3000 calories to lose 1 lb of fat so assuming your eating is more or less balancing your current weight if you reduce by a 100 calorie snack each day you would lose 1lb over a month. If you want to lose all 3lb in a month you would need to cut 300 cal each day.

I think weight gain for a lot of us follows a similar slow burn so just 100 cal a day over what we need and we gain 1 lb in a month - sounds like nothing but it's not far off a stone over a year.

This thread is making me want to scream. I'm begging you, if you have a normal BMI, please stop calorie cutting!

All it's going to achieve is reducing your body's ability to function which impacts your hormones, reproductive and immune system among many others. Keep it up long enough and you'll end up on a dialysis machine because your kidneys will have given up.

Here's the deal:

• exercise has many benefits but it's doesn't impact weight gain or loss, your body simply compensates for lost calories (look up many studies on this)

• stop eating UPF, that is ultra processed food, and allow your body's natural rhythms to kick in, so you can intuitively eat without chemicals messing with your brains signalling system

That's it. That's all you need to know. Noom, Weight Watchers, My Fitness Pal – all companies incentivized to keep you obsessing over weight.

In answer to your original question, OP, yesterday I had:

Morning: 2 black coffees
Breakfast (11am) : a 2-egg omelette with spinach, feta and half a diced tomato
Lunch (2pm) : a vegetable teriyaki stir-fry with crispy tofu

Snack (4pm) : a banana and some tiny pickles (cornichons? Is that what they're called?)
Dinner (8pm) : Salmon with baby new potatoes, peas and beans
After-dinner-watching-tv-snacking (9pm) : a little bowl of grapes

I work out 5 days a week, usually 30-60 minutes per workout, which is a mix of cardio-leaping-around-the-living-room to a Grow With Jo workout and strength training using dumbbells following MadFit videos. I also have a dog, which helps me walk between 10 and 20,000 steps per day.

I've lost 3.5 kilos in the last 6 weeks, so about half a kilo (1lb) per week. I don't tend to get hungry in the mornings so I'm sort of unintentionally intermittent fasting, and that probably helps in some ways.

Look at fat content instead of calories, you'd be surprised, my friend lost a stone in 5 weeks by monitoring fat not calories.

What nonsense. It's what gives us energy. However, we eat too many of them as they are easily accessible.

You're a size 8 to 10, healthy BMI (I think 20?) so why are you worrying about this? Just enjoy your good health and good food.
In answer to your question, I do 16/8 and only eat between 10am and 6pm. I tend to have a substantial brunch. Usually fruit followed by something like poached eggs and salmon on toast, or scrambled eggs on toast or fishfinger sandwich. During the day I'll have some snacks: nuts, crisps, a couple of biscuits.
I'll have dinner around 5.30 - always homemade. Something like a prawn curry, rice and salad,or grilled fish with potatoes and vegetables, or a pasta dish with roasted vegetables and feta, or halloumi and bean stew. That kind of thing.
I'm 5ft 8, just over 10 stone. Think I look slim-ish but definitely not skinny. I walk 10k steps a day.

@crossstitchingnana

You might think it's nonsense but we don't need carbs, we need glucose. That's what we use for energy. We can make it ourselves via a process called gluconeogenesis. So we don't need to eat it. Believe the NHS if you like, but keep in mind thalidomide, and the fact that doctors were telling us to smoke to solve breathing problems not too long ago. They get stuff wrong all the time.

It's a biological fact that we need some fats and proteins, but we don't need carbs.