How to increase calories now I'm in maintenance?

[Vegemite123]

Hi! I'd love some ideas on how to have a healthy increase of calories. I'm maintaining my weight, but just feel like I'm creeping into some less healthy habits.

I've been on Mounjaro since October and have lost 3.5 stone, bringing my BMI to 23.7.

I track all my calories with nutracheck. I've set it to "maintain" for the last month, in which time I have lost about another kilogram. I eat my exercise calories. I'm still on 5mg (that's actually as high as I've had to go).

I'm struggling to find good ways to fill up my calorie budget. I am hungrier, but want to fill up with better food. So far I have tried:

• larger meals (for example, 200g pasta instead of 160g)
• using cheese more (lots of parmesan on risotto, cheese in sandwiches)
• using olive oil more (a dash on salad, or over risotto)
• snacking on cheese, crackers and an apple
• drinking a bit more (I used to have 2 drinks most nights, more on Saturday. On Mounjaro I had a drink or two a week, and currently I'm having a glass of wine 4-5 times a week).
• a pot of qvark/yoghurt

But, I have also been eating:

• fries with meals (this doesn't stress me too much, to be fair)
• icecream
• 3 home made rice krispie bites instead of 1

Yesterday I ate:

• kvarg and granola for breakfast,
• a sandwich with salad, salami and cheese for lunch,
• an afternoon snack of crackers/cheese/apple, Rice Krispie bites , pineapple, icecream (mega afternoon munchies!! Injection day today ...)
• and then for dinner I had baked fish, oven chips, salad and a glass of wine.
• total calories 1908 with 168 left over.

I'd love some ideas! Thank you!

Protein and fibre. Whole grains wherever possible. Track your macros. What does Nutracheck say about yesterday’s, for example?

Ditch the wine
200g pasta! ( or is that cooked weight?) Have more vegetables and sauce
handful of nuts make a good snack
how about home made cake for snacks and puddings ?

I heard when you start increasing calories to do it slowly over several weeks - maybe increasing 50 cals a week until you hit your new sweet spot of maintenance, This is so your body/metabolism gets time to adjust to the higher intake (not sure if that is true as I am no expert, it was from one of the pharmacies prescribers - but logically it seems to make some sense).

When I get to maintenance, I think I will be sticking mostly to how I am eating now, mostly basic foods daily, high protein, smaller portions of carbs and then sweet treats kept to occasions only (not daily like before), as I found over Christmas the more I ate those types of foods the more I craved them and food noise was creeping back in (even though I was still on MJ).

Or @VelociraptorsVelociRapping more eloquent way of putting it - Track your macros! - I didn't even know what a macro was until I started Mounjaro! - who knew they would be so important!

Oh yes, that's 200g cooked (nutracheck has 180g as a medium serving).

I'm not too bad for homemade cakes (the rice crispy things, for example). But I don't have a sweet tooth, so would typically not have any cake or sugar through the day.

Nuts! That's a good idea. I'll order some.

Protein yesterday was 70g, which is probably a bit les than usual. Fibre was 20, I do always struggle with that.

I've increased my calories a bit more slowly than I've said (just to keep my post from being even longer!). Nutracheck is handy in that you can input how quickly you want to lose weight (1kg or 1/2 kg a week) and it has a weekly summary, so it's been a gradual increase over the last 3 months. I've reset my goal weight down a few times, too.

Other than protein, I've not tracked too much else. To be honest, I'm not sure where I'd start! What foods do you think would increase the sorts of macros I need?

a glass of fruit juice or smoothie with your breakfast
a milky coffee (if you drink milk)
a banana with your breakfast
switch the kvarg to full fat greek yogurt
crisps with your sandwich
oily fish such as salmon rather than white fish
avocado
peanut butter
nuts / seeds

A square of 90% dark chocolate, 15 grams of nuts, all the different beans and lentils, as many different plants are you can manage to eat in a week without counting the same plant twice.