Diet plan ideas?

[ambiemunch]

For those who are successfully losing weight, what food plan are you following? What do you have roughly for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks? I know it will be different for everyone as calorie intake is different etc, but a rough guide would be great as I am all over the place. Much appreciated, please help! x

[Richarde19691]

I don't really follow any kind of diet plan i just eat healthy foods making sure i eat enough cals for the day which is 1700 to 2000 cals per day. Lots of Veg Lots of Chicken/Turkey Salads my fav Breakfast is half of Grapefruit and a slice of wholegrain toast no butter but i do have peanut butter on it. I dont snack at all now.

Also like to add i dont think diet plans really work as long as you eat healthy and watch your cals you can pretty much have anything you want plus they get boring and people get fed up of the same things all the time but thats me and seems to be working for me

[muffintop67]

Hi ambiemunch. Totally agree with Richarde19691 . It's not about a diet plan it's about making healthy choices and sticking within your calorie allowance. Also planning a bit of exercise for each day too will help with weight loss. Have you found out your calorie allowance for the day? I have different breakfasts depending on what I am doing - usually yoghurt and fruit or cereal or porridge. All weighed out and logged. Lunch may be soup and 1 piece wholemeal toast with fruit after or 2 slices low calories bread with grated low fat cheese and a tomato with a piece of fruit. Dinner would be whatever I am cooking for my family but I portion mine out and log all the calories. That way I can eat the same as everyone else and only have to cook 1 dinner. I try to only snack on low calorie items and particularly like Snack a Jacks caramel rice cakes. Only 50ish calories for a large one. Great with a cup of tea in the afternoon and I don't miss a biscuit then. It did take me a few week to get into the swing of things. I use an online app called Myfittnespal. It is great for tracking your food and telling you how many calories you have left for the day. Hope that helped and best of luck

[Itsbab]

Hi I don't follow planned meals etc just have what I want trying to keep off the processed as much as possible, have reduced my sugar and hopefully keeping saturated fats under control.

I think everyone is different family/single/couple's to cater for but tweeting what you cook for your children etc is easy. I use the calorie calculator on my fit bit and try to stick to 1200-1300 as I like to leave a few calories over for misjudging what's in what, also I probably have a bit more milk than I put down in my allowance.

As for snacks I measure nuts put in a bowl to snack on ( occasionally) any veg cut into strips/spirals etc. I freeze grapes 20 in a bag = 60 calories lovely when it was warmer weather. I have had humous and I have ice lollies that are about 30 calories when I fancy it. Obviously fruit but some fruit has a higher sugar content than others. 2 finger kit kats are 104 calories as a treat, also I have found Aldi mini bars of chocolate sea salt one and 70% dark is only 140 a bar so sometimes I have 1/2 or 1 bar as a treat.

I have found on this plan shopping now takes longer as I read what's in what I buy don't be fooled by low fat labels quite often it's low fat but high sugar. Natural fats are ok for us it's the un natural fats to cut down on.

I am sure you will have many replies with lots of valuable info for you there's also the recipes over on the right on the pinned posts section.

Good luck and best wishes Bev 👍😊

[tidirhin2548 3kg Restart April 2024]

None, I couldn't follow some rigid plan, too tough on the mind and boring, plus life gets into way, eating out etc. My only plan is to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. I haven't been consistent with that either, at some point of my journey I experimented with the Warrior diet and ate only one meal a day. That didn't work for me, I just put weight on.

I've been calorie counting on and off, now I'm on, and find it helpful to eat anything I want as long as I don't go over my calories.

My staple for brekkie has been overnight oats or "chocolate" oats, I have the recipes saved on MFP so it's easy to log. But then again, I have had so many things for breakfast during my journey, small English, slice of chocolate cake, even chicken curry.

Regarding lunches and dinners I have had many good days of veggies and lean protein only, chicken or tuna salad, veg chicken stir fry. Sometimes vegetables only. After a few days I get tired of vegetable "overdose" and eating the same things, and switch to other type of foods, bread, brown rice and pasta, cheese. I don't like grocery shopping too much, so I buy enough to last me 3-4 days, and it's easy to prepare a meal and just copy it to the next day on MyFitnessPal.

My favourite snack is a crunchy apple, 30 grams of almonds or a sugar free jelly.

Take a look at the recipe section of this site, some good ideas over there. I'm planning to try the Banana Bran Cake, it looks delicious.

[miopus]

I've been trying to really cut out known sugars (in the form of cake/biscuits) and for breakfast I've been having 2 poached eggs and mushrooms/tomato or omelettes and mushrooms. Occasionally porridge and banana.

Lunch might be a piece of crustless quiche (home made, with bacon and mushrooms) and dinner fairly normal general things like roast chicken or some sort of meat or fish with more veg than normal.

Upped my fruit intake and had some lovely pumpkin/sunflower seeds as snack, which I had not ever tried before.

This has worked for me because I have enjoyed these foods, resulting in steady 2 lb losses per week.

Stumbling block for me is always evenings when I tend to get bored and want indulge in snacks after a good healthy day, so I stay out of the kitchen if I can.

[Hidden]

I am just under 9 stone, down from just over 11 stone. I find that I need to be in a routine without too many distractions, and then I can lose 1-2lbs a week without too much difficulty. What I do is split my 1200 calories allowances across : milk - 150 cals-worth; breakfast 250 cals; lunch 350 cals; dinner 450 cals. I eat pretty much what I want (trying to stick to healthy foods and low GI 90% of the time), but am firm about staying within those calories bands at each meal.

If I have a slip up I do my best to ignore it and carry on at the next meal as though it hadn't happened. If I have a big do, like a family wedding, I just take that as a day off, but try not to use it as an excuse to have a blow-out. I try for weight maintenance on those sorts of days. I do try to make a plan for how I'll handle occasions - eg one trip to the buffet table only, starter or dessert not both, max 3 glasses of wine during the occasions, etc. etc. so that I have got some boundaries on my behaviour.

I also try to eat only between 9am and 7pm each day, as I believe in the idea that leaving a reasonably lengthy period each day when you don;t eat helps your body to process food better, and helps with blood sugar control. Psychologically, it's also good to meantally close fridge door after dinner and know that you aren't going back there until breakfast tomorow morning!

I hope that's of some help.

[Celticheart]

Hi, I am a newby (started today). I am sticking to the 1400 calories over 3 meals and trying not to snack. I have cut tea and coffee down to 5 a day and other times I am drinking boiled water with a slice of lemon. I printed out a lot of the recipes and have used 3 of them today with success.

[Weighless 2 stone]

I have gone from just over 11st to just under 9st using the 5:2 diet and found that the perfect plan for me as I only had to think about what I was eating 2 days a week

[Topster5]

I'm not following a 'diet', just trying to eat healthily and stay active. I try not to have sugar as far as possible. but apart from that anything goes, just eat a bit less. Cutting out wine makes a huge difference.

Menu today, for example:

Breakfast was porridge made with semi skimmed milk. Two slices wholemeal toast and Marmite; one boiled egg.

Lunch was cheddar cheese, four oat cakes and an apple.

Tea is going to be home made curry.

I've been out for a long (hour and a half ) walk with the dog. Trying to do at least that every day. Wednesdays I play badminton and at the weekend I go swimming.